David Horowitz and I invite feminists to join us in protesting the oppression of Muslim women. From FrontPage:
This week, seven hundred feminists signed an Open Letter complaining that “columnists and opinion writers from The Weekly Standard to the Washington Post to Slate have recently accused American feminists of focusing obsessively on minor or even nonexistent injustices in the United States while ignoring atrocities against women in other countries, especially the Muslim world.”We recognize this Open Letter as a delayed response to the Freedom Center’s Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, which protested the silence of feminists over the “Oppression of Women in Islam” on campuses all over the country last fall, organized sit-ins at a dozen Women’s Studies Departments to protest the absence of courses and department-sponsored events confronting the issue, and made this a matter of national discussion and debate. This is why the signers of the Open Letter complain that “‘Women’s rights are human rights’ was not a slogan dreamed up by David Horowitz or Christina Hoff Sommers,” two of our speakers for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. (We never claimed it was.)
The signers of this Letter claim that, “contrary to the accusations of pundits,” they support Muslim feminists in “their struggle against female genital mutilation, ‘honor’ murder, forced marriage, child marriage, compulsory Islamic dress codes, the criminalization of sex outside marriage, brutal punishments like lashing and stoning, family laws that favor men and that place adult women under the legal power of fathers, brothers, and husbands, and laws that discount legal testimony made by women.”Well, we welcome these avowals of support for the rights of Muslim women. However, forgive us for doubting their sincerity. As one of us pointed out in a speech given at the University of Wisconsin during Islamo-Fascism Week:
“One of our concerns … is the failure of the Women’s Studies Movement to educate students about these atrocities. There are probably 600 Women’s Studies programs on American campuses, which focus on the unequal treatment of women in society. We have had a very hard time locating a single class which focuses on the oppression of women under Islamic law.”
What was true last October is still true today. As recently as December 10, a Muslim teenager was strangled by her father for refusing to wear a hijab without a protest from the American feminist movement. And that is only one of many crimes committed in the name of Islam against Muslim women over which the feminist movement continues to be silent.
On New Year’s Day, Amina Said, 18, and her sister Sarah, 17, were shot dead in Irving, Texas. Police are searching for their father, Yaser Abdel Said, on a warrant for capital murder. The girls’ great aunt, Gail Gartrell, told reporters, “This was an honor killing.” Apparently Yaser Said murdered his daughters because they had non-Muslim boyfriends.
The signers of the Open Letter say that they are against honor killing. Here is an honor killing in the United States. Where are these feminists on this issue? Why are they not supporting the hunt for Amina’s and Sarah’s killers and organizing a campaign in the Muslim community to stop such practices?
On Sunday, January 20, the New York Times published an article, “A Cutting Tradition,” which falsely described female genital mutilation practiced under Islamic law as “circumcision” and portrayed it in a generally positive light, and even warned against “blindly judging those who practice it.” The article made no mention of the physical effects of this barbaric practice, which affects 140 million Muslim girls who have their genitals sliced off yearly, and in some 15 million cases their vaginal tract sewn up. These effects, as enumerated by the British Medical Journal in 1993, are “Immediate physical complications include severe pain, shock, infection, bleeding, acute urinary infection, tetanus, and death. Long-term problems include chronic pain, difficulties with micturition and menstruation, pelvic infection leading to infertility, and prolonged and obstructed labor during childbirth.”
Where is the feminist outrage over the New York Times article? Where are the feminist demonstrations against this practice? Where are the campus teach-ins? Where are the candlelight parades? What Muslim organizations have been confronted for their complicity in this assault on female Muslim children? This is a horrific crime against the female gender -- global in extent -- and yet one would be hard-pressed to identify a single public event, protest or march organized by feminists to oppose it.
The Open Letter mentions the feminist “V-Day” organized to protest violence against women. We challenge the signers of this letter to identify the speeches given during “V-Day” that protested female genital mutilation in the Islamic world. We challenge them to identify the Vagina Monologue of Islamic misogyny.
We are encouraged by the fact that these American feminists feel the need to respond to our challenge over their silence as a movement on violence against Muslim women and to assert their opposition to these barbaric practices. We challenge them now to put actions behind their words.
Join us in sponsoring a campus tour on the Oppression of Women in Islam with speakers such as Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Form academic committees to provide curricula on these subjects in Women’s Studies courses. Devote a major segment of your V-Day demonstrations to the plight of Muslim women. Join us during Islamo-Fascism Week II this spring in appealing to campus Muslim organizations to condemn these practices.
Then we’ll know you’re serious.
Feminists couldn't care less what happens to Muslim women, or women in general. They just want to increase their power and enforce their ideology.
Huzzah for challenging the do-nothing feminists! Please continue to keep them in the vise by relentlessly confronting them with their own shameful inactivity on this subject.
The sound of crickets chirping.
This isn't just about the oppression of Muslim women within the Empire of Islam - and within the Mohammedan 'colonies' in the non-Muslim world.
Feminists should also be protesting against the horrific abuse to which non-Muslim women and girls, living within some Muslim lands, are exposed: for example, the kidnappings and rapes and forced conversions and forced marriage, to Muslim men, of Christian Coptic girls in Egypt, or of Christian and Hindu girls, in Pakistan; and the gang rapes and enslavement of Christian and animist women in the southern Sudan.
And the ugly harassment which far too many Muslim men inflict upon non-Muslim women, not only in the streets of Muslim cities, but now in the Mohammedan 'colonies' in the non-Muslim world.
A powerful article, Mr Horowitz and Mr Spencer
Bravo!
The feminist movement has instigated some needed change in its history. Things have improved greatly, though there is still progress to be made.
It might be possible that by addressing the serious oppression of women in Islam it would make the issues that they focus on seem trivial by comparison. It would give the impression that they are sliding into irrelevance within their own culture.
Bravo. You have voiced and eloquently written something that I have pondered for a few years. Where is all the fervor that is deliveried by the feminists to the proceived slights that women receive in this society versus the injustice that is delivered to women daily by living under the thumb of Islamic culture and rule?
"Join us in sponsoring a campus tour on the Oppression of Women in Islam"
Is there a pool on if they will join or not? My money is that they will not. They care more about their marxist ideology thna the plight of Muslim women.
Feminists are not feminine; they are maculated women. Feminists have their good because many men are jerks--especially those who walk with tank top, showing their meat balls.
Feminists do need help in understanding the danger of deflecting blame from Islam, but they need non-feminists to convince them. Men like Robert et al are not women; they don't want to here.
WHERE IS CAMILLE?
Where is Camille Paglia, the anti-feminist feminist, when you need her? Shouldn't she be joining forces with you guys? What happened to her? Has she retired her "switchblade-carrying, rock-n-roll-lovin' butch lesbo image?"
Assalamau Laikum all,
I find it fascinating and amusing that Christian mensfolk try defending/empowering their womens….particularily when the Christian faith tells them not to…do you remember how Eve led Adam “up the garden path”.
The Creator of the whole universe including mensfolk and womens. However, disagreement starts soon after the creation of Adam, and Eve as in Genesis 2:4-3:24.
God prohibited both of them from eating the fruits of the forbidden tree. The serpent seduced Eve to eat from it and Eve, in turn, seduced Adam to eat with her.
When God rebuked Adam for what he did, he put all the blame on Eve, "The woman you put here with me --she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it."
Consequently, God said to Eve:
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you."
To Adam He said:
"Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree .... Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life..."
Please note that Eve is responsible for her own mistake, her husband's sin, the original sin of all humanity, and the death of the Son of God.
One (western) woman acting on her own caused the fall of humanity.
Listen to the severe tone of St. Paul in the New Testament:
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don't permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner" (I Timothy 2:11-14).
St. Tertullian was even more blunt than St. Paul, while he was talking to his 'best beloved sisters' in the faith, he said:
"Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the Devil's gateway: You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree: You are the first deserter of the divine law: You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert even the Son of God had to die."
St. Augustine was faithful to the legacy of his predecessors, he wrote to a friend:
"What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman......I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children."
Now we see the result of empowering western womens…. they have become wild in mind and slutty in body…they do not want to bear childrens and want men to adopt a dog instead….you have opened up a pandora’a box and soon will be the servant of blondes who “use typex to correct mistakes on a computer monitor”.
Muslimas be and large in contrast want to live within the confines of Allah’s edicts, as they are happier this way…if this was untrue….there would be no muslimas…..and is the 1st proof of the miracle of Quaranic living.
Mr. Spencer….stop trying to fix things that ain’t broke.
While tragic killings do happen….these have always happened and will continue to so so…but alhumdudilla! that is the fate of that person.
Just out of curiosity, I took a quick look at NOW’s website. They are not completely silent on women’s issues in Islamic countries, as can be seen by this posting:
http://www.now.org/news/note/010408.html
Even here, Islam is not cited as a specific issue. I’m just playing devil’s advocate (anybody who calls me Dhimmi gets a stake in the heart), but I think many feminists would question the logic separating Islamic violence against women from violence against women in general.
It’s all in the numbers. Incidents of butchering Islamic American women like Amina and Sarah are just a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of American women brutally murdered at the hands of men each year.
I believe many feminists would take a similar perspective on international women’s issues. Given that only one fifth of the world’s population is Islamic, it is simply impossible that the total number of acts of violence against Islamic women exceeds the total number of acts of violence against non-Islamic women worldwide.
Islam is certainly is responsible for more than it’s fair share of sadistic behavior against women. Thus, I personally believe that Robert’s call for feminist agitation against Islamic misogyny is valid. That said, I sense that dialogue between American feminists and their many fine counterparts in the Islamic world is logically prior to the explicit strategies of the Open Letter.
JW would do well to encourage that dialogue.
Re: Horowitz and Spencer: A Response to Feminists on the Violent Oppression of Women in Islam
Feminism in the west is primarily made up of privileged women who have a nice hustle going. Social class roots are everything and the division of the world by genitals is nonsense.
Most of the great advances of ordinary men and women in America are rooted back in the GI Bill of Rights and the great expansion of higher education opportunity after the war. Beginning in the sixties, the children of the GIs (male and female), were the beneficiaries of that expansion of educational opportunity. We now take college for granted. But few, except for affluent men and women, every finished High School before WW2. Feminism is a scam.
The feminists are also part of the leftist scam that pretends that West European Imperialism was somehow uniquely bad in history. Actually, West Europe came late to the Empire game and much of the Enlightenment was spread via British Commercial Imperialism. Much of the oppression in the world (including of women) was spread via the ideological "religious"-imperial-isms such as Arab Imperialism, Turk Imperialism and Spanish Imperialism. What the Muslims did to Hindu India is very similar to what Pizarro did in peru-or the Nazis did in Russia. Ideologies and "religions" are very often covers for predatory-exploitation-domination behavior. Feminism is just another ideology.
Feminism does not represent reality. Economic-class roots and real history are what matter.
"Muslim is the new Gay" - Mark Steyn.
Sorry gay people, and women. You're so passe.
One (western) woman acting on her own caused the fall of humanity.
Oh, really? And all this time I thought Adam was an Arab! Isn't Paradise somewhere in Saudi Arabia, at least according to the Koran?
David and Robert offering both fall and spring semester courses? This is good news.
..And if Naseem was who "she" says "she" is, "her" self-loathing simply due to "her" gender, would be transparent.
I'm beginning to rethink Saint Paul's comment that "the love of money is the root of all evil" may not be true. I am beginning to think that ideology, and especially "religion" as ideology, are the root of all evil. Ideology creates a straight-jacket prism in the mind (like the Quran does with viewing Jewish people) and is usually a cover for exploitation-domination of some sort or other. Ideology and "religion" are often almost indistinguishable in their creations of dogmas that become engines of exploitation-all resented as principle, of course.
The primary reason why Western "feminists" will not deal with the brutal treatment of women in Islam is rooted in their dogma-ideology prisim. Their mind is like the Quranic mind looking at assorted Dhimmis and potential Dhimmis. Ideology is the root of much evil in this world.
Nazeem wrote:
While tragic killings do happen….these have always happened and will continue to so so…but alhumdudilla! that is the fate of that person.
No, Naseem, that is the act of a bigger, stronger man who is a mean son of a bitch and who can't wait to use "scriptures" to defend his violence and often rape.
Now, St. Paul isn't my favorite guy, either, but the situation for Christian women on this planet (unless they live in Muslim lands) is so INCREDIBLY different than that of Muslim women that your argument about scriptures falls on deaf ears.
Although it's true that Christianity in general is not ALL THE WAY to equality on women—though many Protestant sects, Reform Judaism and Bektashi Sufism allow women at the top levels of the priesthood—it is the only religion ON THIS PLANET that has come so incredibly far on women's and human rights.
There is NO CHRISTIAN CHURCH ON THIS PLANET THAT:
(1) tells a man he may beat a woman
(2) supports polygamy (and thus the ripping off of basic human dignity for women)
(3) supports FGM (it is required in Shafi'i Islam)
(4) spreads desert tribalist mores that destroy women's lives
(5) declares the value of a woman's life half that of a man's
(6) declares her testimony equivalent in legal value to 1/4 to 1/2 that of a man
(7) exonerates men for "honor" murders
(8) punishes adultery differently in men and women
(9) passes religious laws inhibiting rights of suffrage, right to work, right to full medical care (by barring male physicians), right to education, right to live and travel alone, rights to drive, rights to choice in marriage and divorce, and rights to custody of children she went through a pregnancy, a labor and a delivery to bring to this earth
(10) CRIMINALIZES THE FEMALE FORM WITH HIJAB AND OTHER FORMS OF VEILING
That's Islam, buddy, not Christianity. And I really resent the false conflation of scriptures in terms of the CURRENT DEVASTATING CONDITION OF WOMEN IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES.
And if you don't think it's true, then you're not talking to Muslim women at all, which I have LONG suspected is the case with you.
Now, as a feminist of some 35 years, I agree with Horowitz and Robert. This petition was sent to me to sign, and I refused to sign it.
Why? Two reasons:
(1) What Horowitz and Robert Spencer says is true. We heard not ONE WORD from these self-centered feministse on Aqsa Parvez, Amina and Sarah Said, Gillian Gibbons, Delaram Ali, or countless other murdered, brutalized, jailed, lashed, and raped into submission. The record on Western rights groups even on FGM is extremely mixed.
(2) The Women's Movement went south almost IMMEDIATELY in that it focussed almost exclusively on birth control and abortion rights (so-called). The reason that CEDAW has been rendered useless as **one of the most powerful tools to dissolve shari'a law worldwide** is that the women's groups and even the UN CEDAW board (as well as NGOs like Human Rights Watch) basically insist that full complaince with CEDAW includes rights to abortion on demand. ... The second huge mistake is that it allowed countries like Saudi Arabia to "ratify" CEDAW with so many "exceptions" that it proves completely useless, and, in fact, allows Islamist states to pretend they are "better than" Catholic countries and the United States on human rights.
All this had made the American Women's Rights Movement — egregiously self-centered and ridiculous — an abject failure about women's rights worldwide. They are much more interested, as George Carlin said, in their wallets and their "reproductive" rights. In my view, "reproductive rights" should read "reproductive rights and responsibilities" and APPLIES EQUALLY TO MEN AND WOMEN.
Now, as for the men, if the women have failed the men have been so full of s*(*t on this subject as to have a scarlet letter forever.
(1) Where women are aggressed and maltreated, MEN ARE THE OPPRESSORS. All men? No, of course not. In fact, MOST MEN are wonderful, and we love them because they are good to us, they love us, they treat us well, they are our friends, lovers and protectors while we are pregnant, with us in labor, and take care of us and the kids and often work their asses off doing so. But when men go bad, they go REAL BAD toward women. They are the aggressors. They are the rapists, the legal and religious bullies, and when they are threatened and can't handle the threat they often beat up on women to feel like "big men".
(2) Men are still vastly in control of everything on the planet, and many of them do not want to give up power for fairness and equality.
(3) Men CONSISTENTLY try to get women to handle all the women's rights problems, despite the fact that they are RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM. It is always amazing to watch men jump on the case of feminists for not doing enough when they do NOTHING to try to control and change the behavior of men that creates all this suffering. There are notable exceptions, among them Horowitz and Spencer, but for the most part men continue to tolerate this behavior in their brothers, and often joke about it in bars.
THEREFORE, I CALL UPON THE MEN TO DO THE FOLLOWING:
(1) Make birth control just as much an issue for men as women; i.e., if you don't want to have kids get a vasectomy.
(2) Make laws requiring men to FULLY support women with children under seven so they can stay home with the kids, not just work two jobs and stuff the kid in child care all day. Men should be paying at least half of the support for the mother and at least 3/4 of the support of the children until they are out of college.
(3) Form organizations to fight rape, shari'a law, and all forms of disenfranchisement of women SINCE IT IS MEN WHO ARE RUNNING ALL OF THIS AGONY.
Stop just saying the WOMEN aren't doing enough to protect women from what MEN are doing to them.
It's your sex and you have 97% of the wealth, military power, religious power and legal power on the planet -- AND MEN ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE AGGRESSIONS -- so men can step up and POLICE THEIR OWN.
And the obvious exceptions to the near-total failure of responsibility of men on this issue include Horowitz and Spencer who speak out about it daily and weekly.
Or, I'm not seeing pictures of Amina and Sarah Said on FEMINIST websites ...
but I do see them on this one.
Well of course Naseem would use part of the Bible to validate a point she is desperate to make. Isn't that what old Mo did while concocting a system that would ensure he would always get his way, always be able to control other people and get laid every day for the rest of his life? Take a little bit here, take a little bit there, leave the parts he didn't like and keep the ones he did. But just like everything else in Islam's pathetic belief system, once you take only part of the truth and add a little human nature to the mix, the results can be horrifying, as we see in Islam every day.
Are Muslims trying to make two wrongs into a right? God didn't punish Adam because Eve "made-him-do-it" but because Adam CHOSE to disobey God. Is that what Muslims use to excuse their wimpy, ego driven, bad tempered, over indulged men when they can't control their temper and can't bear their imagined shame, and because of it, kill one of their womenfolk to relieve their feelings of inadequacy and insecurity? Gosh, I would be embarrassed if the men in my orbit acted like that. I certainly wouldn't excuse it, promote it and then go run and hide in a Hefty bag.
I find it interesting that Naseem defends her own oppression and tries to make the rest of us think it's a good idea. She tries to make us believe that Christianity oppresses women, but that's just a big lie. On any given day, my life as a Christian woman is 100 times better than Naseem's, but then I don't try to blame my problems on other people and make them pay for something that I've done. I have to regulate myself, review my conscience, see where I've hurt somebody or dropped the ball somewhere and repair the damage. But that is my personal obligation. Luckily for me, as a Christian God forgives me when I make a mistake and he gives me the room to see the error and get up and try again. He doesn't say to me, "That's it. You've made me mad so now I'm going to stone you."
I feel sorry for Naseem, that she hasn't learned anything while coming here. How unfortunate that she has a freewill but doesn't know she does and she certainly doesn't know how to use it. I guess it must have something to do with the Muslim society she lives in, and the company she keeps. If she was allowed to use her brain she might have looked in the Bible and found the passage in the Gospel that says to forgive your brother (and that includes your sister) 70 x 7 times. Forgiveness...now wouldn't that concept shake things up if ever implemented in the Muslim world.
...!
"Now, St. Paul isn't my favorite guy, either, but the situation for Christian women on this planet (unless they live in Muslim lands) is so INCREDIBLY different than that of Muslim women that your argument about scriptures falls on deaf ears".- Morgaan Sinclair
It also falls on your blind eyes. I was not commenting re Saint Paul re women, but making the point that ideology and not money may be the root of all evil. (RTFC (read the f##king comment, Morgaan.)
BTW, I like you. I really do. I don't bs.
Join us during Islamo-Fascism Week II this spring
When is this?! First I've heard...
That's interesting, because I thought that Islam teaches that there was no "fall" - hence no need for a redeemer (Christ).
Could it possibly be that "feminism" has been and perhaps always will be just a convenient front for hatred -- hating the accomplishments of white males and anyone else (male or female, white or black or brown or yellow) who aspires to similar accomplishments?
Just a thought.
Sorry Morgaan-
I thought you were responding to my comment re Saint Paul. He must be in the air since N. mentioned him. I don't her drivel. Sorry. I'll have to follow my own advice and RTFC. Sorry, again.
Absolutely spot on. But let's broaden the debate:
In the UK, halal meat is now served to kids of all faiths in mixed schools. Halal meat is also found in kebabs that the Brits enjoy for supper.
Not a peep from the Animal Rights mobs.
Islam advocates death to homosexuals. Nothing from the Gay rights lot.
Muslims have been grooming children for sex in many communities, especially in the north. Add this to the FGM and honour killings. And the childwatch groups remain silent.
The problem here isn't that of Islam it is of marxism. These minority groups aren't interested in what other races or religious groups do. Their goal is to destroy western society. Judeo-christian values are chipped away at by ever-growing minoity groups who hold the west as being responsible for the world's ills throughout history.
The decline of the church and the collapse of the family unit are their greatest triumphs so far. All achieved by minority groups claiming special victim status who then have the rights of the minority group elevated over those of the majority who meekly accomodate each group and even pay for the privilige.
That's why I believe it isn't just Islam that threatens us but marxism too, the enemy within. And without as we British are rapidly discovering with the EUSSR.
"That's why I believe it isn't just Islam that threatens us but marxism too, the enemy within. And without as we British are rapidly discovering with the EUSSR."
Its really a 2 front war Lionheart. You are spot on with that. I would suggest you stay here, its going to get real ugly in the EUSSR very soon.
"Sorry. I'll have to follow my own advice and RTFC. Sorry, again."
LOL! Frank, you're so cute. ;)
See Naseem? Watch very closely. Frank misread the post above and when he realized his mistake he apologized to Morgaan. No threats, no pride, nobody dying, no blood. Just a sweet and sincere apology, from a real man. Now isn't that better than the way your pathetic cowards (that you're always bragging about) take care of things.
Quit your whinning Naseem and have a cookie.
http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/2008/01/political-tv-ho.html#comments
:-)
I have no grand theories as to why western feminists are seemingly blind to the dangers of "radical" Islam.
But, there is this PC notion of not being critical of other cultures.
Honesty would seem to be the first victim of this mindset.
Elric66,
Weasel Zippers
"Scouring the Bowels of the Internet so you Don't Have To"
Now that is funny! Thanks, I needed that.
Isabella,
You are very welcome. In these trying times, we need a laugh once in awhile. :-)
"Honesty would seem to be the first victim of this mindset."
The truth is always the first victim in any facsist ideology.
I just helped my wife get through an "American Studies" class that she took on the internet for a major state university. She was not only bewildered because English is a second language for her, but she was also shocked by all the anti-American literature about race, class, and gender.
The hypocrisy of the feminist movement linking itself to post-modernism became particularly apparent when the anthropologist Richard Schweder was cited in a positive light. Richard Schweder supports female mutilation. You can find an article about this in the NY Times (on the internet).
She made note of this on the class discussion board and provided the link. It was fun watching the instructor tie herself up in dialectical knots to justify this garbage! I hope other students took note.
The feminists don't give a rat's a** about women in general, freedom, liberty and prosperity. They are are an insane cult whose overt fear of their own gender cause their primary focus to bring down everyone else to their level. If these women only knew, and used, their Real Power to improve things, the world would already be a much better place. But they don't, and it isn't.
These are jack-booted socialists of a kind this world has ever seen. If you think Hillary-Care is bad, that is mere child's play, just the beginning. Men, prepare to defend yourselves. Hillary is coming after you and she wants your test***** in her lockbox.
Pavlov's dog,
I hope this doesnt affect her grade.
One (western) woman acting on her own caused the fall of humanity. ~ posted above.
But doesn’t the Qur’an claim Adam was the 1st Moslem or was it Moses (7.143), no wait, I think it was some Egyptians or was it Abraham or was it Mohammed or all the above?
006.014
PICKTHAL: Say: Shall I choose for a protecting friend other than Allah, the Originator of the heavens and the earth, Who feedeth and is never fed? Say: I am ordered to be the first to surrender (unto Him). And be not thou (O Muhammad) of the idolaters.
006.163
YUSUFALI: No partner hath He: this am I commanded, and I am the first of those who bow to His will.
007.143
PICKTHAL: And when Moses came to Our appointed tryst and his Lord had spoken unto him, he said: My Lord! Show me (Thy Self), that I may gaze upon Thee. He said: Thou wilt not see Me, but gaze upon the mountain! If it stand still in its place, then thou wilt see Me. And when his Lord revealed (His) glory to the mountain He sent it crashing down. And Moses fell down senseless. And when he woke he said: Glory unto Thee! I turn unto Thee repentant, and I am the first of (true) believers.
003.067
PICKTHAL: Abraham was not a Jew, nor yet a Christian; but he was an upright man who had surrendered (to Allah), and he was not of the idolaters.
002.127
PICKTHAL: And when Abraham and Ishmael were raising the foundations of the House, (Abraham prayed): Our Lord! Accept from us (this duty). Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Hearer, the Knower.
002.128
PICKTHAL: Our Lord! And make us submissive unto Thee and of our seed a nation submissive unto Thee, and show us our ways of worship, and relent toward us. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Relenting, the Merciful.
002.034
PICKTHAL: And when We said unto the angels: Prostrate yourselves before Adam, they fell prostrate, all save Iblis. He demurred through pride, and so became a disbeliever.
Correct answer, all the above.
BurgerBoy,
Thank God, Islam isnt a threat
that is great work you are doing indeed. It would seem that female genital mutiliation is the world's biggest 'women's issue' but feminists have absolutely nothing to say about it! amazing. read about american founding father john witherspoon at www.darrellepp.com
Naseem,
Sorry, but Your quotes of Christian scripture just doesn't work. Most Christian thinkers recognise that St. Paul's attitude towards women was rooted in the culture of his day. The same goes for St. Augustine and other fathers of the early church.
Since then we have moved on, evolving a more enlightened and humane attitude towards women, homosexuals, and others that would have been condemed and persecuted in less enlightened ages.
You might have noticed that women in Christian/Western societies are accorded the same rights and privieges as males. They are no longer stoned for adultry, made to conform to religious dress codes, or subject to their husbands, fathers or brothers.
Muslimas be and large in contrast want to live within the confines of Allah’s edicts, as they are happier this way…if this was untrue….there would be no muslimas…..and is the 1st proof of the miracle of Quaranic living.
These things are possible in Christian theology, because Christians are expected to grow spiritually under the influence of the spirit of God. It is the spirit, not the letter, of the law that is the guiding principle of Christianity.
It's unfortunate that Islamic attitudes and practices can't evolve beyond the seventh century when they were first formulated. The same barbaric attitudes and laws that guided Muslims then, are the same that guide them today.
From a spiritual point of view, this is understandable, given that the spirit of God is squeezed out of Islam by its obsession with laws.
It really makes no difference if Muslimas want to live within the confines of Allah’s edicts, or if they're happy or not, They'll live thae way they're told to live.
Naseem,
Sorry, but Your quotes of Christian scripture just doesn't work. Most Christian thinkers recognise that St. Paul's attitude towards women was rooted in the culture of his day. The same goes for St. Augustine and other fathers of the early church.
Since then we have moved on, evolving a more enlightened and humane attitude towards women, homosexuals, and others that would have been condemed and persecuted in less enlightened ages.
You might have noticed that women in Christian/Western societies are accorded the same rights and privieges as males. They are no longer stoned for adultry, made to conform to religious dress codes, or subject to their husbands, fathers or brothers.
These things are possible in Christian theology, because Christians are expected to grow spiritually under the influence of the spirit of God. It is the spirit, not the letter, of the law that is the guiding principle of Christianity.
It's unfortunate that Islamic attitudes and practices can't evolve beyond the seventh century when they were first formulated. The same barbaric attitudes and laws that guided Muslims then, are the same that guide them today.
From a spiritual point of view, this is understandable, given that the spirit of God is squeezed out of Islam by its obsession with laws.
It really makes no difference if Muslimas want to live within the confines of Allah’s edicts, or if they're happy or not, They'll live thae way they're told to live.
Posted by: rational at January 24, 2008 10:21 AM
As with muslims who worry more about their image when we tell it like it is - so are the feminists.
I also think they are afraid. All the lefties are afraid.
One thing I didn't notice from them is anyone going to help the ones that they whine about. There is no mass march of the left into the Sudan to help them out, Darfur, or even the countries like the Philippines. Who are the ones who help them out? Well, the Christians who journey in there to help them. Those same Christians that the left bashes quite often. That no one puts notices are sometimes caught, tortured and killed themselves.
Now, you say that the left has no army, no anything. Well, they sort of do. NATO, the UN, to name a few. No mass sign ups for those organizations from the left. Or what about the Canadian military (ok ok - stop laughing! I won't pursue this anymore!)
This is a little off subject - but where is the Mexican military? No where in helping us - only shooting at our guys at the border to let illegals and dope runners in. None of them doing anything in Afghanistan?! Or am I wrong here? If they don't believe in Iraq - where were they after 9/11 when we went into Afghanistan to fight? The 8th largest military in the world - no where to be seen helping us.
Got to remember that radical leftism is like old Holywood is are both on their way out. Thanks to both the new media and the movement towards freedom.
Baa baa, Naseem - good little sheep. May your chains set lightly upon you.
Naseem said, "While tragic killings do happen….these have always happened and will continue to so so…but alhumdudilla! that is the fate of that person."
But why not say: "Alhumdudilla! Being killed in war was the fate of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians! Alhumdudilla! Wars have always happened and will continue to do so." ?
That's how you sound. It is bad.
Did that evil happen because God willed it, or because people made wrong decisions?
The main thrust of your argument is fatalism. It isn't right. Some bad things can be reduced and prevented.
So far as your theological arguments go:
The Adam and Eve story is open to much more interpretation so far as it relates to treatment of women than you allow.
St. Paul made a point to distinguish between his teachings and those of his writings that were inspired. The first person in "I don't permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent" indicates that he is framing this as his theological opinion, and not as inspired.
St. Tertullian is not an absolute authority figure. Theologicans and thinkers and even lay people are permitted to disagree with other theologians and even with saints in the Christian tradition.
Similar with St. Augustine. He wasn't Jesus. He was a saint and a theologican and thus fallible.
Christians don't have anything like your closed gates of ijtihad. You can't argue on authority of scholars in quite the same way as in Islam, you have to deal with the immense importance of reason and love in Christian theology. If you one can argue a contradiction between a saint or theologican and these core Christian principles, the core principles stand. Not the authority figure. That leaves much more room for argument and interpretation that you suggest.
So far as this goes:
"Now we see the result of empowering western womens…. they have become wild in mind and slutty in body…they do not want to bear childrens and want men to adopt a dog instead….you have opened up a pandora’a box and soon will be the servant of blondes who “use typex to correct mistakes on a computer monitor”.
Muslimas be and large in contrast want to live within the confines of Allah’s edicts, as they are happier this way…if this was untrue….there would be no muslimas…..and is the 1st proof of the miracle of Quaranic living."
The solution to people making bad choices is not to force those choices upon them with a government that forcibly regulates people's love lives and men forcibly regulating their wives. All people are fallible, whether they are stronger and in positions of power or not.
All that that shift does is move corruption from low level social corruption to deeply corrupt and powerful social institutions... like those we see everywhere in the Muslim world.
The solution is for people to make better choices. If people won't do that, no amount of resturcturing their power relations relative to each other will change anything. It will just move corruption around.
And you lie about how if that (Islam making women happy) wasn't true, there wouldn't be more female Muslims. There are many many pressures for female Muslims to remain Muslim that have nothing to do with what make them happier. Honor killings, beatings, inability to legally change religion in many cases, illiteracy and lack of education meaning they can't really even find out what is in their religion.
Got to remember is that Christianity was much more accepting of women not only because of the love and respect given to women, starting with Jesus giving love and respect to his mother Mary, but in the letter to the Galatians Paul spoke that in Christ there is no differences "between Jews and gentles, slaves or free, male or female."
And I thought Naseem was the comic relief of this thread.
Morgan writes:
THEREFORE, I CALL UPON THE MEN TO DO THE FOLLOWING:
(1) Make birth control just as much an issue for men as women; i.e., if you don't want to have kids get a vasectomy.
You are kidding right? You’re the one that has the final say therefore theoretically in control. Not Tom, Dick or the many Harry’s you may encounter throughout your life. Are you hearing this for the first time??
(2) Make laws requiring men to FULLY support women with children under seven so they can stay home with the kids, not just work two jobs and stuff the kid in child care all day. Men should be paying at least half of the support for the mother and at least 3/4 of the support of the children until they are out of college.
While are at it lets also pass laws that make a women with kids get twice the inheritance of a man. Spiffing.
(3) Form organizations to fight rape, shari'a law, and all forms of disenfranchisement of women SINCE IT IS MEN WHO ARE RUNNING ALL OF THIS AGONY.
Have to agree with you on this one. We need to do more. A step in the right direction would be to increase incarceration times for convicted rapists to somewhere approaching capital murder.
And I thought Naseem was the comic relief of this thread.
Morgan writes:
THEREFORE, I CALL UPON THE MEN TO DO THE FOLLOWING:
(1) Make birth control just as much an issue for men as women; i.e., if you don't want to have kids get a vasectomy.
You are kidding right? You’re the one that has the final say therefore theoretically in control. Not Tom, Dick or the many Harry’s you may encounter throughout your life. Are you hearing this for the first time??
(2) Make laws requiring men to FULLY support women with children under seven so they can stay home with the kids, not just work two jobs and stuff the kid in child care all day. Men should be paying at least half of the support for the mother and at least 3/4 of the support of the children until they are out of college.
While are at it lets also pass laws that make a women with kids get twice the inheritance of a man. Spiffing.
(3) Form organizations to fight rape, shari'a law, and all forms of disenfranchisement of women SINCE IT IS MEN WHO ARE RUNNING ALL OF THIS AGONY.
Have to agree with you on this one. We need to do more. A step in the right direction would be to increase incarceration times for convicted rapists to somewhere approaching capital murder.
Apologies for the double post..
Feminists tend to be quite hysterical in my opinion. They will turn a blind eye to this sort of abuse if it is disagreed with by people they don't like i.e. men or people such as Robert Spencer.
Or, they will turn around and blame all men for the attrocities carried out in the name of religion. As in the oft quoted feminist jibe "typical man".
Maybe it's because there brains overheat?
Naseem is sadly typical in the he (and he is a he by the way) sees the world split into muslim and Christian. He attempts to refute the arguments within this site by using equivalence, showing his ignorance. Naseem, this site is not a Christian site, I myself am not a Christian. This site attempts to show the violence inherent in modern islam. Quoting the Bible merely shows your true ignorance and re-inforces what is said here.
Sadly that is what idoctrination does to people, they stop thinking for themselves.
However, even though I am not a Christian Naseem, I FORGIVE YOU, FOR YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU DO.
Frank ... no problem at all. I completely understand!
SquadCarBob (one of the all-time greatest blog handles) ...
My comment about vasectomy really means this: Men dump all the responsibility for contraception on women. There's been little or no research on coming up with a male equivalent. And the fact is, birth control pills based on premarin synthetic progestins is extremely dangerous. Side effects? Heart attacks, strokes, elevated cancer risk. Side effects of vasectomy: it scares men to death, but it's reversible.
The real point is that men are quite content to dump the whole reproductive and overpopulation problem onto women, when they tend to screw around more to begin with. Men run off Scot-free when they dump another unwanted child on the planet, dumping the responsibility on women.
And then there's the violence problem. All I'm really saying here is that men ought to take the SAME RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROCREATIVITY THAT WOMEN HAVE, AND EVEN MORE SINCE THE PHYSICAL BURDEN OF IT AND THE SUBSEQUENT CHILD-REARING RESPONSIBILITES FALL ON WOMEN DISPROPORTIONATELY.
Actually, my opinion is that sex is a HUGE responsibility, it is NOT a form of entertainment, and child-rearing is the most incredibly important thing there can be and requires both parents playing essentially gender-dictated roles with regard to procreation and raising kids. Kids need moms at home for at least 7 years (according to Piaget, whose results are most extensive in this area), and at least one parent home from end of school through evening, because if you don't have that, you have your kids being raise ON THE F*&*KING STREET by teenagers, not adults.
As a woman, I consider sex without real love and deep relationship commitment practically an act of self-hatred, and it certainly is a not an act of self-respect, and I blame the women's movement for trying to create a mindset in women equivalent to the worst mindset in men—indicative of my feeling that the leaders of the women's movement were MORE male-chauvinitist (valuing all things male above all things female) than most of the men they complained about.
And the newest form of this is the hijab-toting, in-your-face Muslima sucking up to the imams and competing with other Muslim women to be the best "little obedient Muslima" in the group—rancidly and openly competitive with other women to the point she'll sell out every other Muslim women in the world to get mate that's highest in the pecking order.
Makes me sick.
Get my point now? If YOU don't want to have kids, then YOU take responsibility for birth control rather than leaving it entirely to the woman. In fact, both being responsible. Not one more than the other.
Thank you for you agreement about men taking more responsibility for the viciousness men visit on women. I appreciate it.
But remember this, and I really do believe this is true. It is SO ANTITHETICAL to way good men think and behave to EVER hurt a woman—and that's the VAST majority of men—that when they hear what some men do, it's hard for them to get it. It's not that they really are calling women liars, they just can't GET that there are more than 200,000 women in Congo who have been so damagingly raped that new surgeries have had to be invented to repair the damage. Women can get this. Most women will tell you that at some time in their life they have had to fight a man to prevent him from hurting, pushing, or assaulting her. I've had to fight twice, and it's the scaredest I've ever been. No matter how adrenaline you're pumping, you just aren't strong enough, and both times I won by using my wits—but the second time even though I managed to prevent an assault, I still wound up beaten to within an inch of my life.
That's REAL HARD for good men to get. You tell them, and it kind of bounces off them, because they can't relate to ever doing that themselves.
It's when they become husbands and fathers or it happens real near them that they suddenly realize that women are, in the eyes of some men, just simply prey.
Hope that helps.
And again, just to say thanks to Robert. When I find one of these terrible cases in the news, I do not even bother to send it to feminist groups. I just send it straight to Robert, as he has defended Muslim women as well as any man in history.
While it is true that some feminist and human rights groups have conducted campaigns denouncing violence against women, these campaigns tend to focus on universal problems, such as domestic violence, not those endemic to the Muslim world, such as female genital mutilation, institutionalized inequality before the law, polygamy, etc., etc.
As Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Messrs. Spencer & Horowitz and others have accurately pointed out, the Left's deference to cultural sensitivities actually constitutes a perverse form of discrimination that maintains that Muslim women are not entitled to the same human rights (and defense thereof) that women are guaranteed elsewhere throughout the world. It is this intellectual bigotry and cowardice that is the root of the problem here - another sickening manifestation of the dhimmitude that is spreading from and beyond the Dar al-Islam.
Never mind St Paul. Christ was a feminist. Read St Mark, which scholars now accept was the earliest gospel. This short gospel's force and vividness never ceases to amaze me.
When the pharisee gave the reply that it was OK under the Mosaic law to get a writ to put your current wife aside in order to marry another, Christ exploded. 'It is for the very hardness of your heart that he made that law!!!' He then goes on to charge that this is ungodly; the Mosaic law basically allowed adultery if divorce could be granted on the man's application alone. Christ retorted: 'Male and female created He them; what God hath joined together let no man put asunder'. This was pretty strident stuff; outlining equality of spouses in marriage; equality of treatment in divorce.
A Muslim man can divorce his wife on whim; divorce need not be consensual. What rights does a divorced woman have to the marital property under Islamic law? None. She's entitled to her own property (if she ever had any). And if it still exists, of course. She's therefore homeless. And she has no right of access to the children. For these reasons Muslim wives endure their husband's polygamy rather than lose home, children, status, security. They endure rejection and humiliation, pawns in their husband's sexual power game because they cannot establish independent lives of their own.
I could never have much truck with 60s 'second wave' feminists like the dreadful Germain Greer. They took the argument away from economic rights (where the pre-1918 feminists had it) to sexual rights like birth control, abortion. Most women 'in trouble' in the 1960s didn't want abortions. They just realised they were trapped because single mother status was a dead end. No child care facilities, no alimony. No future. No job. No life. The same went with married women who couldn't get child care. Or couldn't enter the job market after child care until into their 30s. The argument needed to go to changing employers' perceptions of motherhood, which is still regarded as being of lowly status.
Most employers will knock 25 points off their estimation of your IQ if they find out you're a Mum.
On a previous thread somebody said (deploring falling birth levels amongst white educated women) 'you can't persuade a free woman to have 12 kids'. Well, 12 is maybe a bit many, but basically, yes you can. You need to change bosses attitudes, organisations' attitudes; the way work is organised. Somewhere between 20 and 40 a 'free woman' of normal maternal inclinations needs to take at least 10 years out of full-time and maybe another 5 years out part-time work. It is still painfully difficult to both raise children and have education and economic independence.
I can't help but feel the 60s generation of feminists sold us down the river. Sexual liberation merely disinclined men from marital commitment. A bit of an own goal there. At the same time the status of motherhood was mocked, so nobody bothered changing workplace practices to reflect more mother-friendly policies. Women who wished to breed remained dependent on male marital commitment which was as I have said, severely weakened by sexual 'liberation'. That's why you can't 'persuade a free woman to have 12 kids'.
Our grannies had more common sense in the matter of sexual politics than 60s feminists.
Eric66
I don't think my wife's grade was affected because she was very polite when she pointed it out and the instructor seems to be a bit of a softie. I do however think the istructor was taken aback (I don't think she knew this dirt about Schweder approving of FGM). She tried to deflect this by posting about the "liberating" effect of post-modernism and recommending books by Focault and Derrida.
I think the class was mostly garbage and I do not appreciate paying nearly $900 for what amounts to only course credit (with no content value). I do rationalize this in terms of having paid for a "front row seat" in the culture war, not to mention the priviledge of participating and tactfully shaking things up.
Bravo! Well done. It is high time for Western world’s feminists to address the universal violations of human rights against women, and drop the taboos of discussing and confronting the Arab imperialism of subjugating women in their most vile socio-religious cult norms of Islam and their warlord’s (pbuh) code of oppression, aka Koran. Their silence on this matter is lamentable, or worse, complicit in the Islamic crimes against women. Do feminists fear the potential violence against them if they speak out? I suspect so. Thus, their silence.
Naseem’s pathetic posts above illustrates the enslaved mind calling itself ‘liberated’ while it cringes and slavers under the endorsed male domination and violence of her Muslim masters. Rather amusing to read her silly drivel finding fault with everyone but her male oppressors. Of course, that is assuming Naseem is a he, and not some denatured metamorphous ‘it’. Otherwise, this is one Muslima who is in danger of conversion to that which she openly detests, in a revert-invert Islamic mentality, to accept Christianity.
If I was going into battle I would want Morgaan on my side. Morgaan it seems to me is not a 'feminist', but a hard and tireless worker for equality.
'Femiminist's' are really only interested in the 'pro-choice' world view, and their equal rights for women activism, is geared to protect that.
They are fake warriors. No matter what some of our readers think of Morgaan, she is not a fake warrior.
She is the real deal, which is why, I think, Frank likes her.
I agree with most everything on your post Morgaan.
Thanx...
And while Naseem gives us the Bibical story of Adam and Eve, how about the Islamic version which has Allah creating women stupid because she slashed the tree and made it bleed. Allah 'afflicted' Eve with
bleeding once a month, and stupidity. Now ain't that sweet, and I know about Turtullians gender slander against all 'Eve's, but Turtullian was an azz...
Spilled my coffee, need another cup...
Of course, that is assuming Naseem is a he, and not some denatured metamorphous ‘it’.
I had meant to say:
"Of course, that is assuming Naseem is a she, and not some amorphous 'it'."
Anywho, you know how to read typo-failed forum speak. :)
Assalamau Laikum all,
Possibly DaveMate is gay....he keeps thinking I am a muslim and not a muslima.
Nevertheless, while JW highlights the muslima sad stories...and these are real enough....what about all the success stories....the successful womens , the religious womens who are very happy with Islam and raised their childrens successfully.
You saw that Shia woman yesterday cutting her two year old son's head to celebrate assura.
Ask her....ask her if she feels that she is pressured or obliged to do that cutting...while I think the practice is a little colourful ...I know what she will say.
By and large muslimas are very happy with their lot....they live within the confines of the "quaranic law" and are satisified.
In fact I think they would be quite unhappy with your interference ....belive me I KNOW...what about the picture of the woman (wearing a burka) advertising mammography with Mrs. Bush....happy and beaming with a smile (even though you couldn't see it).
The advice generally is that you need to leave us alone....we don't need fixing....we don't need your pity or your perceptions....WE are the superior womens, we stand the moral ground on a friday evening and not freezing our titties in the freezing weather outside a night club....ask "gymgal" or "WSW".
Empowerment of your womens over and above a natural balance is asking for trouble....and you can see it in the UK and the Amerike.
Womens want to run corporations and not run to the chemist for SMA milk, they don't want childrens, no cooking, cleaning and it's prying istead of praying.
Love affairs, obeseity, binge drinking, drugs, immorality, lack of faith, interracial marriages, gay marriages, womens heading prayers.....
all this is lack of balance....and your mensfolk are paying for it.
2 in 3 marriages failure, mensfolk jumping off the balconies with their childrens to get away from their woman, violence....
it seems that YOU need to take St. Paul's (your prophet not ours) advice on womens ...get BACK in line, length and balance...BEFORE telling us muslimas what's wrong with us.
There are problems with muslimas sure....but compared to yours....we are truly blessed by Allah SWT.
"western womens…. they have become wild in mind and slutty in body…they do not want to bear childrens and want men to adopt a dog instead"
posted by Naseem
And in Islam, women have no minds at all, and their body is reduced to being the support-mechanism for their reproductive organs -- a woman's #### is the only thing about her that is worth anything in Islam. You can't get much sluttier than that. As for dogs, I realize they're "unclean" in Islam, so I guess that's why Moslems turn to goats and sheep. Of course wealthy Moslems have their "dancing boys".
See Naseem stick stick in beehive.
See Naseem laugh.
See Naseem stick stick in beehive.
See Naseem laugh.
Naseem the Clown.
Duh_Swami ...
I'm very touched by what you said. And you are right. Although I consider myself a feminist, I have virtually NOTHING in common with the Feminist Movement, because I do not think they were about equal rights for women — about getting equal RESPECT for the feminine perspective and equal legal and economic rights — they were about appropriate the LICENSE that the worst of men had. A lot of this, IMO, had to do with what a incurable adolescent Gloria Steinem was and how badly infiltrated the movement was by communists like Betty Friedan, whose real motives lay elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the scholars, including Nancy Friday and Marilyn French (whose career was basically ruined by one line she wrote for a CHARACTER in a novel whom she basically disagreed with) — the real scholars were resisted by the radicals from the beginning.
And it was the real scholars who were pointing to a real worldwide disenfranchisement of women that was dangerous to them and to all children.
Meanwhile, the women's movement's radicals made abortion the central issue—way off the mark of everything that meant anything. Abortion is about meaning you can take no responsibility for a pregnancy and kill at will, even if the feotus is viable.
I don't KNOW what I think about 1st-trimester abortion, but basically I don't like any of it.
But this I do know: If a court can try a man for MURDER ONE if a foetus dies as a result of ANY kind of attack by him, it CAN'T be right that a woman and a doctor can decide to kill a baby while it's in the process of being born (late-term abortion).
Feminism, real feminism, is about mutal respect and love between men and women, and is, therefore, a misnomer.
It's just human respect for samenesses and differences. It is responsibility with equal opportunities applied to the childless, regardless of gender, and equal, but differing responsibilities for men and women who have children, with the welfare of the child coming first for both.
I hate the choice we are being given: that either we accept Brittney's spears sans undies or we have to tolerante total oppression and the coming of the abaya.
No, there's a model out there for women and men alike that is different than it was before, but which preserves dignity and respect and cherishes life.
Bottom Line: Anti-"Racist" "respect" for Third World "cultures" trumps Feminist values, among the politically correct crowd.
The majority of Westerners in general are, of course, politically correct about Multiculturalism. And the vast majority of Feminists are even more ardent believers in political correctness than the general populace.
Think about that: as intensely devout and often monomaniacally fixated as Feminists are on Feminist values, the vast majority of them choose to sublimate those values in favor of the higher value of "respect" for non-Western cultures, whenever they are faced with data about mistreatment of women (by both men and women abusing other women) among those cultures -- most of all with reference to that Poster Child of Third World Cultures today, Islam -- that is a thousand times worse and more systemic than what goes on in the West.
That just goes to show how powerful Multi-Culturalism is as a key factor in political correctness in our era.
(The flip side of this "respect" for non-Western cultures is, of course, a pathologically excessive self-criticism of the West, bordering on self-hatred.)
I attended several Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week events at US Berkeley (my alma mater), including the talk by Nonie Darwish and the big rally in Sproul Plaza protesting Muslim violence. The prominent Women's Studies Department was conspiculously absent.
Here is a sad litany of that most horrendous of all crimes against women, gang-rape, and the weak (or worse) response from the Left:
http://www.sullivan-county.com/wcva/muslim_gang_rapes.htm
Fjordman reports that reported rapes in Sweden have *tripled* in the past twenty years. The population has not grown significantly during this period. The only real difference is the huge increase in Muslim immigration.
One of the most infamous responces to the horrifying phenomenon of Muslim men targetting Scandinavian women for rape came from Oslo Professor of Anthropology Unni Wikan. She said "Norwegian women must take responsibility for the fact that Muslim men find their manner of dress provocative. And since these men believe women are responsible for rape, she stated, the women must adapt to the multicultural society around them."
Appalling.
I am never again going to post something immediately after Naseem. You guys are really feeding the troll today instead of discussing Robert's issue.
Oops--that would be "UC Berkeley". I should proofread before I post.
Just occurred to me Robert but perhaps you could also get these so-called feminists to protest in downtown LA against the racist, woman-abusing and violence endorsing gangster rap.
Gang culture is also booming in Britain too again without a peep from the femmies.
Perhaps on this issue, the west needs to put its own house in order before we criticise muslims. Because quite frankly, it is a bit hipocritical to have a go at the paedo-worshippers whilst we tolerate large groups of people who glorify the sexual abuse - including gang rape - of women and we now have large gangs for whom gangster rap forms the basis of their violent culture.
That we tolerate this filth should prompt more questions about what is being done to western civilization. Can we really say we're all for respect and equality of womanhood? Can we?
It shames us. All of us.
Morgaan...I am just giving credit where it seems credit is due.
Abortion is not this topic, but briefly I see it this way. 'Life' does not start at conception, 'life', pre-existed. What starts at conception is 'living'. What is developing in the womb, is a 'living', 'human', 'entity'. Entity meaning, 'in existence'. A living human in existence is a 'being', a 'human being'. Not a living-less piece of removable tissue, as the clever would have us believe. I can elaborate more on this, but this is not the place... :)
Naseem sez: WE are the superior womens, we stand the moral ground on a friday evening and not freezing our titties in the freezing weather outside a night club....
I suppose Naseem means that Muslimah's are smarter than those slutty inferior womans of the west. Muslimah's only go to night clubs in warm weather, like they have in Pakistan. I bet the odor coming from a crowded Paki night club in 114 degree heat, would be awesome. Knock over a camel at fourty feet. At least those slutty western womans wear perfume to cover up the odors...
a memo to NASEEM:
Your 30 seconds are up! AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS....
Yeah, that's right it's time for you (yes, YOU!!!)to grab a few jihadist cohorts and KO some more poor "unbelieving" slobs in the name of al-lah!!!!!!!
Lionheart ...
If white guys did to black women what gangstas do to black women, they'd be doing 12-20 in a federal pen. And it gets tolerated as part of "black culture".
It's filth. Thank you for saying so. But don't hold your breath when there are "feminists" like Whoopie Goldberg around who defend Michael Vicks' pet butchery and gangsta-rapping's misogyny as part of "ethnic culture".
Duh_Swami ...
I quite agree that the Soul *takes* a body, not that the body *creates* a Soul. It's the question of WHEN that happens that is all-important. And I wouldn't be willing to trust my "intuition" about it or think that it's just OK for me to guess.
The most recent research tends to support the notion that foetuses *DO* feel the pain of abortion, overturning previous "research" that claimed that it didn't.
So, I come down WAY on the side of responsible prevention of pregnancy if you don't want to have kids. I can't imagine how, other than gross irresponsibility on the parts both of men and women, that abortion came to be such a prevalent practice that a million babies a year don't read term and are never born.
From the Open Letter, in a nutshell:
"Feminist magazines and blogs - Ms, Feministing.com, Salon.com’s Broadsheet feature, womensenews,com (which has an edition in Arabic) - as well as feminist reporters and commentators in the mainstream media, regularly report on and condemn outrages against women wherever they occur, from rape, battery and murder in the US to the denial of women’s human rights in the developing or Muslim world."
So these idiots manage to realize that there is no equivalence between the treatment of women in Western and Islamic lands, yet sadly the minor detail of which society turns a blind eye to a little honor killing completely escapes them. I wonder if the writers are so incomprehensibly deranged that they actually believe their insinuation that the US track record on womens' rights is somehow worse than that of your average Islamic nation? That whereas in the US there is an epidemic of "rape, battery, and murder" of women the only thing you need worry about in a Muslim land as a woman is just a little denial of 'rights.'
I love this Freudian slip though: "to the denial of women’s human rights in the developing or Muslim world". She admits (albeit unknowingly) that Muslim world = developing world, ie. Muslim lands are uniformly at the stage of social development as thrid world countries.
Even better, although pathetic Pollitt tries desperately to somehow recast the womens' rights movement as being about human rights in order to deflect attention to feminists notorious silence on real womens' rights violations in Islamic states, when it comes to cash she remembers her roots:
"Finally, we call upon the United States, and all the industrialized nations of the West, to share their unprecedented wealth, often gained at the expense of the developing world, with those who need it in such a way that women benefit."
C'mon y'all, give us some money so we can fund our rants about how much money you got.
Morgaan, I guess it boils down to the idea that everything there is, had a begining, except maybe, God, so there is no other place to begin other than the beginning.
In the practical world, 'responsibility' is the key, no exemptions. I am thinking too hard, it's giving me a headache.LOL
Have a good day...
I'm betting they won't show.
The name of the game here is to perform some meaningless gesture that they can cite as grounds for dismissing the charges against them of indifference and inaction.
So they can say, for instance, "Oh, no. We even signed their petition!". And then wait for the whole subject to disappear.
It's ALL about maintaining appearances.
There is no REAL interest in the girl-in-the-street mohammedan.
And there is a VERY REAL aversion to doing anything that will seriously piss off the anti-american/anti-western political crowd.
Any takers?
It will take a lot more public shaming before they make even a baby step toward denouncing the jihaddis visibly and publicly or in the schools.
And that will be as small and as qualified as possible, and delayed until sometime after it's far too late to make a difference.
Abortion came about as a way to "free" people from the "burden" of responsibility for their actions. It is merely a symptom not the cause. By removing the fear of an unwanted consequence, the action can be engaged without fear. It's all about responsibility.
Islam is much the same when it comes to sexuality. Men's sexuality. Since islam implies that men are just sexual beasts unable to control their urges, women must be covered to prevent the premature release of said control. The responsibility is removed from men for their actions. It's a rather juvenile view of sexuality, but it does fit with Mo's profile as a sexual predator. Put the blame all on women for his failure to keep his pants zipped, tied, whatever. But it appears every day that we are indeed living in a juvenile world.
Now, that alone would seem a good reason for the "feminists" to cry out against islam. Let alone the inability to obtain birth control and abortions. But, personally I think the modern "feminist" is more concerned about what used to happen as compared to what is happening now in the west and then using cultural/religious relativism to justify not speaking out.
Naseem, here we go, here we can see your co-religionists help a mother pay final respect to her son
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2008/01/savage-truth.html
Naseem, here we go, here we can see your co-religionists help a mother pay final respect to her son
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2008/01/savage-truth.html
Abortion came about as a way to "free" people from the "burden" of being responsible for their actions. Remove the consequences of one's actions, remove the fear of the action. Islam is much like this notion. By stating that a "true believer" can go straight to heaven complete with all the extras then you remove the stigma of immorality and unethical nature of murder. By forcing women to wear burkas and such removes the responsibility of men to control their urges. Both are a rather juvenile approach to life and sexuality. Just because you see a good looking person walking down the street doesn't mean you need to control the urge to have sex with them. Nor does it mean that you have to have the urge. We are not creatures determined by our sexual urges. That is something we have forgotten and islam apparently never taught.
"Feminists" today should be very much up in arms at how women in islam are treated. Primarily on the issue of human equality. Let alone on abortion and contraception. But I think the modern "feminists" are more about what happened in the past in the West rather than focusing on what is happening now. Then they use this as justification for not speaking out in directly about islam and women based upon the cultural relativism so prevalent in today's western society. Instead they focus on issues that have nothing to do with equality and everything to do with supposed inequality and having everyone pay to further relieve the "burden" of the consequences that individuals choose.
Forget my second post. I didn't see that my first had posted and had issues just getting it posted. Sorry.
Naseem -
Far be it from me to disuade you and any other Muslim woman from adhering to the medieval tenets of your faith, but the fact remains that you do not speak for every female inhabitant of the Dar al-Islam. There are many women whose aspirations exceed your own, and they have made it painfully clear that they are not satisfied with their inferior position within Muslim societies.
Permit me to remind you that despite your false sense of superiority and gullible indulgence in anti-Western propaganda, the fact remains that it is the denizens of the Dar al-Islam who are emigrating en masse to the West, not the other way around.
As for myself and the rest of the men in my part of the world, we have benefitted, not suffered, from the emancipation of our wives, daughters, mothers and sisters, and we wouldn't have things any other way. We're not afraid of the girls.
"interracial marriages" -naseem
Whoa, there,haha You mean when a member of the "HUMAN"(; race weds a non-"human"? Maybe like a Shia/ahmadi? Get the picture? The Kafir have heard that one before. Difference is the free world peels a middle finger banana toward such prejudges as opposed to wallowing in "religiously" sanctioned Stockholm Syndrome.
You may also be surprised to learn that women worldwide tend to freeze their "titties" in cold weather regardless of their backgrounds.
"and I blame the women's movement for trying to create a mindset in women equivalent to the worse mindset in men."
Bravo Morgaan,that's been evident for years now to the detriment of all parties. Frankly I've found some of your past posts to be somewhat questionable,but have a newfound respect for you. The same afforded to all survivors of violent,life-threatening assaults.
I really hope the women and the organizations that signed this letter are sincere. Truly, I do. But it will take more than signatures on a letter to convince me.
I've been toiling away on dishonor killings for years. None of the human rights and women's organizations I've contacted over the years has offered me any kind of support and, with the noble exception of the International Campaign Against Honor Killings (in the UK), not even encouragement. So forgive me if this response seems to me a bit too little, a bit too late, and a bit too face saving in the context of direct confrontation.
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"
I really hope the women and the organizations that signed this letter are sincere. Truly, I do. But it will take more than signatures on a letter to convince me.
I've been toiling away on dishonor killings for years. None of the human rights and women's organizations I've contacted over the years has offered me any kind of support and, with the noble exception of the International Campaign Against Honor Killings (in the UK), not even encouragement.
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"
I really hope the women and the organizations that signed this letter are sincere. Truly, I do. But it will take more than signatures on a letter to convince me.
I've been toiling away on dishonor killings for years. None of the human rights and women's organizations I've contacted over the years has offered me any kind of support and, with the noble exception of the International Campaign Against Honor Killings (in the UK), not even encouragement. So forgive me if this response seems to me a bit too little, a bit too late, and a bit too face saving in the context of direct confrontation.
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"
I'm betting they won't show.
The name of the game here is to perform some meaningless gesture that they can cite as grounds for dismissing the charges against them of indifference and inaction.
So they can say, for instance, "Oh, no. We even signed their petition!". And then wait for the whole subject to disappear.
It's ALL about maintaining appearances.
There is no REAL interest in the girl-in-the-street mohammedan.
And there is a VERY REAL aversion to doing anything that will seriously piss off the anti-american/anti-western political crowd.
Any takers?
It will take a lot more public shaming before they make even a baby step toward denouncing the jihaddis visibly and publicly or in the schools.
And that will be as small and as qualified as possible, and delayed until sometime after it's far too late to make a difference.
Naseem-
Like Satan, you quote the Word of God for your advantage. Your argument is a hallow and false as your allah/Satan. For the record St. Paul was not a prophet, he was a sinner save by grace, just like me.
Luke 4:9-11
And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in [their] hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Psa 91:11-12
For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in [their] hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
لوقا 4:9-11
وقال انه أتت به الى القدس ، وحددت له على ذروه من المعبد ، وقال ILA له ، واذا أنت يكون ابن الله ، ويلقي ظلالا من نفسك الى أسفل ومن ثم : لانه مكتوب ، وقال انه يجب إعطاء ملائكته إليك أكثر من تهمة ، ابقاء إليك : وفي [ل] الايدى وعليهم تحمل ما يصل اليك ، في اي وقت ، لئلا انت الوثبه خاصتك الاقدام ضد حجر.
هيكل السلام والامن 91:11-12
لأنه يمنح ملائكته إليك أكثر من تهمة ، لابقاء اليك في كل خاصتك طرق. وعليهم تحمل ما يصل اليك في [ل] الأيدي ، لئلا انت الوثبه خاصتك الاقدام ضد حجر.
'Abortion came about as a way to "free" people from the "burden" of being responsible for their actions. Remove the consequences of one's actions, remove the fear of the action."
Kevin, your whole post is absolutely dead on right, about abortion and about Islam. I love it!
Too bad the libbers won't be able to burn their burqas like they did with their bras.
I think really that we are talking about liberation, and there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the liberation of oppressed peoples no matter who they are.
The problem with American feminism is that it was adolescent and followed purely male models of what "liberation" was. No mature man has ever engaged in the libertine behavior of the worst of his gender, and, unfortunately, the brand of liberation espoused by the particularly Leftist feminists was extremely male-mimicking at its worst.
Liberation among adults always defines freedom as indivisible from responsibility. In fact, real freedom never happens without it.
License is something else, and it has nothing to do with freedom.
Burning bras was stupid and adolescent.
However, I could most definitely get into burning every burqa on this planet as it is a symbol of the criminalization of the female form and entire identity.
"there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the liberation of oppressed peoples no matter who they are."
Unless they aren't really "oppressed" but are only claiming to be "oppressed" as a propaganda ploy -- and being believed in their lies by most of the world.
JESUS & WOMEN: http://www.wcg.org/lit/jesus/andwomen.htm
"In first-century Palestine, the way Jesus treated women was considered revolutionary."
"Jesus’ honor and respect was not reserved simply for his mother. It was extended to all women — an attitude largely unexpected and unknown in his culture and time. Jesus, unlike the men of his generation and culture, taught that women were equal to men in the sight of God. Women could receive God’s forgiveness and grace. Women, as well as men, could be among Christ’s personal followers. Women could be full participants in the kingdom of God. Jesus offered full discipleship to women."
"These were revolutionary ideas. Many of his contemporaries, including his disciples, were shocked. Women were overjoyed and grateful, of course, and many dedicated their lives to his service. Let’s take a look, from the historical narratives in Scripture, at a few of these women of faith and how Jesus dealt with them."
(read it all)
I do not understand how a group of ignorant feminists can criticize Barbie Dolls for being too busty, yet have insufficient character to comment on the brutal murder to two beautiful and life-loving Islamic girls in Texas. Can someone explain that to me?
R.Kyle
I do not understand how a group of ignorant feminists can criticize Barbie Dolls for being too busty, yet have insufficient character to comment on the brutal murder to two beautiful and life-loving Islamic girls in Texas. Can someone explain that to me?
R.Kyle
The same way that a VP for PETA can take insulin made from horses. If it doesn't expand their agenda, it doesn't exist. Sad.
"I am never again going to post something immediately after Naseem. You guys are really feeding the troll today instead of discussing Robert's issue."
There's a reason cats play with mice: Practice. They get a feel for how they work, and begin to intuit their reactions.
There's a reason Spence and Fitz let that mouse in.
As to St. Paul being a "prophet":
If Christians treated their theologians and saints the way Muslims treat their religious scholars, we'd still be persecuting heretics. Romney wouldn't be running for president, the Christians would be trying to burning him at the stake... and Hugh along with him, for what it is worth.
Theologians when not inspired (and Paul was not *perpetually* inspired), are liable to make mistakes, and ESPECIALLY to make the typical intellecutal mistakes of their era of history.
Does anyone here think that the persecution of heretics in the early church didn't have the authority of theology behind it? And does anyone here think that Christians aren't closer to Truth for moving beyond that theology? Would you rather be like the Muslims in being tied perpetually to ALL of the theology your religion had in the Middle Ages?
I'm well-educated and I'm bringing this up because this is a theme you see at high levels of academia and you can expect to see it again -- especially with the likes of Tariq Ramadan in Saudi-funded professorships. Naseem is far from the most educated and influential of Muslims who will bring this stuff up.
You WILL see it again in your lifetimes.
If Christians deify ALL their theologicans on ALL points, even when no claim of divine inspiration is made, this is a weak point for the West. It makes Christians think more like Muslims than they ought given the actual nature of their religion (NO Christian sect suggests burning heretics at the stake anymore, and there are theological reasons that change was able to happen in Christianity), and it unnecessarily divides a potential coalition based on human rights, one in line with Christianity, and most other religions, and most of the non-religious.
So far as the issue of men not having domination over their women or whatever:
First, male-female relationships are healthier when based on love than on beatings. Defering to the husband out of love is something many wives do, it is suggested in Christianity, and there's NOTHING saying it should be forced. Huge diff from Islam. It is a suggestion and the grounds are love of God and love of one's husband.
Second, many couples are skilled enough to negotiate and work things out rationally, with love, such that that sort of deferrence isn't really a part of the relationship.
There's much more to be said that I won't say now. This is an interesting topic specifically because there are problems in the entire developed world (not just the "west" but everyplace that has a developed economy and hight standards of living and of education) so far as relationships and reproduction go. Not so much in the US: 2.1 overall and 1.9 white non-hispanic fertility rate, right at and around sustainability, respectively -- mainly because of lack of infantalizing Socialism, which is the real problem in this area, not human rights.
I've got to go now, and the main point is our problems are nothing so bad as those under Islam (see the movie Persepolis, all of you who don't want window washers running hospitals!) and relationships don't need violent domination to work.
hope_and_justice,
"Does anyone here think that the persecution of heretics in the early church didn't have the authority of theology behind it? And does anyone here think that Christians aren't closer to Truth for moving beyond that theology?"
I agree with your implicit answers to these rhetorical questions, but I think you are ignoring one important piece of the puzzle: that the historical movement beyond that theocracy was in part enabled by principles and beliefs within Christianity. I.e., Christianity in history has had, within itself, the seeds of its own ongoing evolution -- even, paradoxically, aspects of intellectual-social evolution that seem to encourage widespread dissipation of many Christian beliefs.
I.e., Christianity contains the seeds of its own sociopolitical dissolution. But whether that dissolution will mean self-destruction or metamorphosis into a different type of viability, depends upon the flexibility of Christians -- which so far, from my perspective, seems to be pretty healthy.
champ -
I followed the link you gave and saw that the author cites Dorothy L Sayers' witty and hard-hitting 'take' on the subject of Jesus/ Yeshua and his relations with women. Worth posting.
“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised: who never made arch jokes about them...who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension: who took their questions and arguments seriously” (from Sayers' essay 'Are Women Human'?, page 47 - the whole essay, in the collection "Unpopular Opinions", is well worth tracking down).
A further piece of advice - any women readers/ lurkers here who have not already done so, should visit the website of Jewish feminist Phyllis Chesler and read some of her essays, under the section on the left-hand bar entitled 'Judaism' and 'Torah Interpretation' - most notably 'the Rape of Dina: on the Torah Portion of Vayishlah', from Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues, no. 3. C 2000 -
see link
http://76.12.0.56/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=261&Itemid=91
- look for note 13 for mention of a book containing a feminist reading of the Torah - Judith Antonelli's "In the Image of God" - I have not yet checked this one out myself, but must do so, it sounds intriguing.
PS - Chesler is actively involved in campaigning against honor killings and all forms of Muslim - and non-Muslim - violence against women.
I think it was from Chesler that I learned there are Israeli Jewish women who run a sort of 'underground' railway to rescue 'Palestinian' Arab Muslim women and girls who are deemed at risk of being 'honor murdered'.