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Goodbye Jesus

Islam, Separate But Equal "not Sexist"


SquareOne

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Hi friends

 

A few words on Western attitudes towards sexism in Islam.

 

I have been spending a few days observing classes at a high school here in the UK.  I am considering a career change, and one of my potential options is to train as a teacher.  One of the classes that I have been observing is a Religious Studies class.

 

The teacher was discussing attitudes towards gender and gender rules from a secular perspective and from perspectives of religion, mostly Christianity and Islam.

 

Something he said really got my goat.

 

On describing Islam he said, paraphrasing "Muslims believe in there being different gender roles for men and women.  They are equal but different in God's eyes.  Men go out to work, and women look after the home.  This is not sexist because they are equal with different roles."

 

I quietly gritted my teeth.

 

If I were a student in that class I would have put up my hand and asked "Excuse me sir, when white people subjugated women in the 19th century on the basis that they were equal but had different roles, was that not sexist then?...  Or when the USA enforced segregation on the basis of "separate but equal" was that not racist?"

 

It is the very definition of sexism to say that men and women have inherent differences that prevent them from undertaking certain roles in society.  Some arbitrary notion of "separate but equal" does not excuse this.

 

To the extent that Islam, or any religion, enforces this separate but equal notion, then it is absolutely sexist.

 

The teacher's attitude was typical of the sexist attitudes of Westerners towards Muslim women, who fail to see, or at worse blindly excuse, the atrocities suffered by women and girls, enforced in the name of religion.

 

--- Now, I don't blame him.  He's a nice guy and a good teacher generally.  But the curriculum that he has been given to teach, and which is wholly to blame, is not acceptable.

 

(On another note, it is a horrible over simplification and I am sure there are many modern Muslim women who would be grossly offended by this notion that they cannot work and have a career.  The young Pakistani Muslim campaigner Malala Yousafzai did not spend her young years campaigning for the right for girls to go to school, and almost get murdered for doing so, for no reason.  She recognised that women's right to be educated and work is an absolute right, and it is sexist to deny it.)

 
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(On another note, it is a horrible over simplification and I am sure there are many modern Muslim women who would be grossly offended by this notion that they cannot work and have a career.  The young Pakistani Muslim campaigner Malala Yousafzai did not spend her young years campaigning for the right for girls to go to school, and almost get murdered for doing so, for no reason.  She recognised that women's right to be educated and work is an absolute right, and it is sexist to deny it.)

There's a whole "I am Not Malala" movement going in Pakistan. She's being pilloried for distorted or false inferences from her sayings and book, to make her out as a bad Muslim and a stooge of the West.

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(On another note, it is a horrible over simplification and I am sure there are many modern Muslim women who would be grossly offended by this notion that they cannot work and have a career.  The young Pakistani Muslim campaigner Malala Yousafzai did not spend her young years campaigning for the right for girls to go to school, and almost get murdered for doing so, for no reason.  She recognised that women's right to be educated and work is an absolute right, and it is sexist to deny it.)

There's a whole "I am Not Malala" movement going in Pakistan. She's being pilloried for distorted or false inferences from her sayings and book, to make her out as a bad Muslim and a stooge of the West.

 

 

What a bunch of pricks.

 

When she is Prime Minister, hopefully they'll see that it's a good thing.

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She's trying to help them.

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(On another note, it is a horrible over simplification and I am sure there are many modern Muslim women who would be grossly offended by this notion that they cannot work and have a career.  The young Pakistani Muslim campaigner Malala Yousafzai did not spend her young years campaigning for the right for girls to go to school, and almost get murdered for doing so, for no reason.  She recognised that women's right to be educated and work is an absolute right, and it is sexist to deny it.)

There's a whole "I am Not Malala" movement going in Pakistan. She's being pilloried for distorted or false inferences from her sayings and book, to make her out as a bad Muslim and a stooge of the West.

 

 

Is this a solidarity movement or a denigrating movement? I support Malala in what she is doing, she is truly courageous and strong. I wish her all the best in the world! biggrin.png EDIT: Oh I didn't see Ficino's comment. Yeah what a bunch of prickbags. Yes, she should be a PM and may she can do what USA and various countries can't: change the culture.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, that is absolute garbage. Restricting people to separate roles based on something like their sex is insane. What about men who would rather be stay-at-home dads? What about women who would be most productive with a formal job? This nonsense devalues them, tells them they aren't normal. It's not that domestic work is degrading or careers are superior. To say that would be to insult people who stay home to take care of the household. The problem is they stuff people into jobs that they aren't necessarily meant for, and ignore everyone who doesn't fit their suffocating little mold.

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Ugh. Separate but equal. The cathylicks go on about this too, especially when their women are uppity enough to ask about male only ordination.

 

Wasn't SbE also used to justify segregation in the southern USA?

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I've also read that the complementarians and quiverfuls are like this too. Fully domestic guy here too, plenty more than willing and happy to do the things tradcon women in the churches said was not my place, and an invasion of their spaces. Ideologies are so stupid and ridiculous. It's good to be rogue.

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