[Evrviglnt]

Before you read any further, watch this short video. What follows will mean little if you don't.



Can we judge a culture on how it treats its women? Can a world where males subjugate females also be a world where the human spirit flourishes, wisdom is found and peace is preferred? Can honor be found where honor killings thrive?

No. I read essays and poems on this site about the grueling, grinding horror of war, about how greed and a lust for bloody battle animate the capitalist West against an equally fanatical and bloodthirsty Middle East, as if there is no difference between the cultures clashing and the future they envision. It is a cultural relativism that sees war as an evil in itself, never daring to ask whether there are battles worth fighting.

Throughout the Middle East and elsewhere men have been raised for generations believing that they are superior, that respect for women means demeaning them for their own good. What can be worse than death? Ask the Muslim woman who lives in a patriarchal world ruled by fear and loathing. As Samim explained, his older sisters should be kept ignorant, uneducated, shrouded behind a burqa and kept hidden behind closed doors because "It's my own bad luck that when I was small, you were allowed to go to school, and to have so much freedom. Now I can't control you. I have no power."

Samim is not rare, the Middle East has hundreds of millions of men who yearn to live in a world where the male has the power and women are relegated to slave status. It is the chauvinist dream, and it goes far beyond religious duty, it appeals to the darkest desires of men.

So what price for peace? Simpletons see all war as only greed and avarice run amok, suggesting that compromise and respect would end war on Earth. Compromise among those who celebrate dignity and equality can save lives, but how does one compromise with another who believes with all his heart that women deserve no freedom and less respect? If there is nothing worth fighting for, what will you compromise away for the dream of peace on earth?

[Bluejay]

Not sure I have a comment on all you said. But I do have some thoughts.

Samim is not rare, the Middle East has hundreds of millions of men who yearn to live in a world where the male has the power and women are relegated to slave status. It is the chauvinist dream, and it goes far beyond religious duty, it appeals to the darkest desires of men.

You go from a specific cultural mentality to all men. If that is the chauvinist dream, then I guess I'm not a chauvinist. My "dream" is for the women in my life (wife, mother, daughter, etc) to be happy and fulfilled. I've never had a dark desire to subjugate a woman (at least, not for any length of time ).

I'm not sure where you're going with the connection between women's subjugation and war. If the situation does need to be resolved (and, if the women in that situation feel oppressed by it, then I think it should), it will not be resolved by war. How you can you change the way people think with violence? Kill everyone who disagrees with you? The only way to change something like that is through education and gradual change of consciousness. You may not change the current generation, but get the ideas in there for the upcoming ones, and it won't seem so unusual and will eventually seem "natural". It's been the same way with women's rights, minority rights, etc. in this country (US). You have to change the mindset, but it happens slowly. And in some cases here, it's still happening...

I have no problem with war if it's the best course of action, and it has a purpose and a plan. The World Wars were like that - it had to be done, there was a clear plan, people knew what they were doing, etc. I must not know any simpletons, who lump all war the way you said - I don't know of anyone who thought WWII was about avarice and greed. Now the current war...

Perhaps you mean "war" in a broader sense, not necessarily involving soldiers, guns, planes, bombs, etc.

I think I generally get what you mean, but I'm not sure. Perhaps it would be better to state what you mean instead of couching it in questions.

[Corneac]

Samim is not rare, the Middle East has hundreds of millions of men who yearn to live in a world where the male has the power and women are relegated to slave status. It is the chauvinist dream, and it goes far beyond religious duty, it appeals to the darkest desires of men.

I disagree completely. I've grown up in a family where the females are the dominating sex; whether it be of their strength numbers in my household, or their superior adeptness in conversation and arguments. I have grown up where men have always taken a back seat, done the housework, childrearing. Now, this isn't because all men in m family are pussy whipped it's just that they understand that women (especially the ones they love) are just as successful and intelligent as they are, or even more so.

What can be worse than death? Ask the Muslim woman who lives in a patriarchal world ruled by fear and loathing. As Samim explained, his older sisters should be kept ignorant, uneducated, shrouded behind a burqa and kept hidden behind closed doors

Can Samin really be blamed for his views? His lack of understanding of Westernized values? He has grown up in a world so far form our own, where women are the lower class, these ideologies would have been instilled into him as a boy. By the sheikh's, his father, his culture and of course the way women treated him. Children are a product of their environment. Where as I am a product of a culture that values and respects women, he is a product of any environment with sometimes subjugates and denigrates women. Not that westernized cultures don't do that.

The burqa is actually an example and symbol of love and affection. For fathers, brothers, and sons; it is a way to secure and protect their wives, sisters and daughters from the prying eyes of other men. We may see it as a way to limit their freedom, oppress them, and demean them. But those men see as a way to protect their loved ones from unwanted sexual contact and wanted sexual contact. To protect not only their own and families honour but their female companion's as well.

Now, I am not defending the repulsive act of honour killings, nor am I defending the cultural statutes that subjugate women. I am just highlighting the religious and other differences that sometimes assist in producing these atrocities. Sure, there are some Islamic men who are chauvinistic murderers. But there are some Muslim men, who are decent human beings; attentive fathers, loving husbands, respectful sons.

I'm not sure where you're going with the connection between women's subjugation and war. If the situation does need to be resolved (and, if the women in that situation feel oppressed by it, then I think it should), it will not be resolved by war. How you can you change the way people think with violence?

I agree. How would this improve the situation for women in the Middle East? Wait until all the men are killed off "gruelling, grinding horror of war" and women can rule.....? As jnabonne happen by "education and gradual change of consciousness." It cannot be forced onto cultures that resist it. Like democracy cannot be forced upon countries that resist it aka the war that's going on now (but I'll get to that later.)

Simpletons see all war as only greed and avarice run amok, suggesting that compromise and respect would end war on Earth. Compromise among those who celebrate dignity and equality can save lives, but how does one compromise with another who believes with all his heart that women deserve no freedom and less respect?

I think your missing the point entirely. Women are the backbone of society. As wise women once said "Women are the issue - the core issue. They are the majority of humanity, whose rights are human rights. An attempt to solve any problem - poverty, peace sustainable development, environment, health - by making a end run around women will fail" Everywhere in the world women are pivotal; they "plant the seeds, till the land, harvest the crops, cook the food, tend the livestock, bear the children, find money for school fees, and spend whatever pennies they can scrape on the family's wellbeing." Don't you think if life is happier and easier for women then the whole situation for families get better; the environment, education, income, community stability and health.

Also if through war you would solve women's grievances in the Middle East isn't that a bit contradictive? I mean war is predominately a male thing. As Joshua Goldstein stated in his book "War and Gender", "As war is gendered masculine, so peace is gendered feminine. Thus the manhood men who appose war become vulnerable to shaming"

I agree that jnabonne that the Great War and World War II were not conflicts of "greed and avarice", but necessary to maintain the peace and prosperity in our nations. But also to usher in revolutions in all areas, and growth of human nature. But look at the Vietnam War. A prime example of men's insecure masculinity resulting in a prolonged devastating war, because they were scared of being called wimps or weak on communism. Nixon and LBJ were the main culprits that resulted in so much senseless loss of life, on both sides; Vietnamese, Australian and American etc. Even JFK is guilty of this. He told Arthur Schlesinger in November 1961, that if the United States ever went into the war in Vietnam, we'd lose just like the French. He was scared that if he did not enter the war though that he would lose face, and subsequently lose the next election. This sentiment was relighted with the Iraq war. Look at George W. Bush's macho attitude towards war. His "Are you man enough?" challenge to Kerry. Prime example.

Anyway, I think I've gone of the subject completely and started ranting...sorry. I don't know if I did miss the point a bit...the constant rhetorical questions were confusing.

[colinbaker62]

Hello Evrviglnt..(and a Happy New Year to one and all)


Your essential point is, I think, that many Muslim cultures are premised on the subordination of women. I have little difficulty agreeing with this general point although we should not loose sight of the fact that Benazir Bhutto for example (a woman of course) was prime minister of a Muslim country. The well-documented activities and particular attitudes of the Taliban (albeit a somewhat extreme example) toward women in Afghanistan and the wider Middle East makes the point however that the Muslim woman's lot is generally a difficult one. I believe that such realities are rooted in the relative division of labour and development of the productive forces in such countries. Many Muslim women are essentially living in subordination today, because of the manner in which the material life and fabric of society is necessarily produced and reproduced on a day to day basis. This is also a phenomenon in our own western society also but hardly as pronounced.


If I may, I'd also like to make a more general point about Islam itself. Few can now doubt that Islam is an ideology capable of organizing and mobalizing countless tens of thousands of people across the Arab world and beyond. However, there is also a good argument to be made that Islam itself, is hopelessly cross-cut with differences which in turn, makes it extremely unlikely that Islam will ever be able to mobalize a political alternative to the western states system as it currently exists. I personally cannot conceive of such a states system transforming over time into a mish-mash of Islamic despotism as some might have us believe. One only needs to cast an eye to contemporary Iraq to witness concrete bloody consequences of differences among followers of contemporary Islam.

This is not to say that Islam itself is an impotent political force having no role to play in future political transformations of international politics. On the contrary, Islamic peoples have a geography not simply in Islamic countries per se, but in one or other form, across many, if not all western countries. Such transnational networks of people will undoubtedly play a role in shaping not only the global present, but also the coming futureM

[little.gypsy]

I agree with some of the above comments. Samim is a product of his environment. His ignorance can be excuse, in my point of view. Most men, I believe, are raised differently in my culture, and they should not be excused. They know what women can do. Their ignorance is chosen, and therefore stupidity.
I also wonder what it would be like for a Muslim woman to have the freedoms we do after so many demeaning years. I think she'd be terrified.
The women, possibly, don't understand that there is a different life out there. This is all they know, and to break away from that would be very difficult.
Unfortunately women are still prejudiced today. My father works as a manager of an autoparts store. One of his female employees asked a man if he'd like assistance and he said he wouldn't buy from a company who hired women in a place where only men belonged.
As childish as it is, I'd like to stick my tongue out at him...

[Evrviglnt]

Surely, we can all agree that religion is a powerful tool for motivation and indoctrination. In the video excerpt Samim, when asked where in the Koran it justifies keeping women ignorant and enslaved, he says "No,I have not read it, but I went to mosque and all the mullahs preach this." Samim does not appear to be a bad person, he is polite and has an endearing smile. His tyrannical ideas, though, have become normative in his world. He talks of imprisoning his sisters with the pleasant nature of a morning greeting. Were he a rarity I would simply dismiss his as chauvinistic, but millions upon millions of men like him have been seduced by promises of blissful glory to indulge their most base of male instincts - this one being domination.

We have a collection of vibrant and tempestuous cultures brewing in the Middle East. What defines them most starkly is their complete embrace of medieval sexism. In Saudi Arabia women can't drive. In Iran they are trying to execute a seventeen your old girl because she stabbed and killed one of the three men that were raping her. In many countries woman can not leave home without a male family escort, and then must be covered from head to toe so that they cannot be seen.

This has little to do with "relative division of labour and development of the productive forces in such countries," it is a religious/social institution that has retarded the natural evolution of the dignity of man. Islam has done to humanity what every other religion in human history seeks to do - it has done what both Marxists and capitalists desire - it controls.
It dominates. Eleven hundred years ago it's mores were the norm. Today they are bloody obstacles to human potential.

And for those that cannot take Islamic fundamentalism seriously, take to mind Little Gypsy's perspective, where freedom and equality must be endured for some because their men are stupid, only having enough intelligence to set up a system that makes them masters over their women. Besides, the woman would be terrified of freedom! But what of her daughter? And her daughter's daughter? Must they be born into ignorance and enslavement by the stupid forever? When do we set them free? What mother would not endure the discomfort of freedom to bring her daughter into the world free?

[xtremelady]

As I agree with the comments made by the others on this issue and they have pretty much covered most of what I may have said, i have only one other small point to make;

The women in the western world have had to fight very hard for their rights i.e the women's movement and right to vote. Change has to come from within a society, not from outside, just because we believe they should change their views/ beliefs. This will only cause resentment and be seen as a slur on their way of life, by both men and women alike. Should we sneer at cultures not as advanced as our own? Look back in our own history 50 or 100 years ago and you will find a distinct resemblance in attitude towards women. I think guidance and understanding is more called for than war. And when those women fight the battle for equality, hopefully they will feel as proud as we in the western world for wining liberation. Something I personally would not take away by handing it to them on a platter.
Already I see signs of change in this area and I am pleased - these things just take time.

[RENA HANDS]

This was a very insightful point made. I strongly agree with the situation that women should never be treated like "slaves." I believe that no one man is above another. Why women should be treated with less respect then men it is without our love, our bodies for which they would not exist. I hope to be this informative and descriptive in my own analytical writings. The organization of this paper was excellent and made clear with the aide of the video clip.

[roquelledawn]

Hi, I know this is probably a closed argument. But I really do not mean to argue. I have to say, first off, that you (Evrvglnt) are obviously just trying to get people to think. Grab the readers attention, and make them question themselves.
It is a deeply routed male thing to have dominance over women. Because of the role they have as "man". I understand exactly where you are trying to go with this remark. However, just because it is a desire that bubbles up from within, does not make it all right. Does not excuse one's behavior.
Just as men have a unique desire to protect, and shelter the women in their life. However locking someone away is not protecting them. It's only hurting them. Keeping them from growing is not an exceptible way to shroud a person. No woman WANTS to be hidden. A woman wants to be seen.
A woman who is all right with being hidden away and live a life through a simplistic mindset, has no hope. Of a future, or freedom. It is caging a beautiful bird and never letting them freely sing. It is holding them back of true womanhood. And worse, it is driving thime out of fear. Yes, it may take another generation, as one point was made a moment before. Even several. As no war is won by only one battle. In order to get to that next generation to see the way their culture may flourish... is to take drastic measures to break down the barriers that have so long held them back from a future of freedom.
I am by NO means suggesting that every man in these cultures has no love for his wife and daughters. I went to school with a girl who's father was from Jordan... He wanted only the best for and of his daughter.
The point I am trying to make is that when someone is captive and we have the means to support and effect change in their lives then as humans, we have an obligation to fight alongside them. And if a society is not willing to help others (this goes along with our OWN issues) then we have no right calling ourselves humans. Animals that were raised in a zoo, do not know the ways of the wild. Their instincts are cut off at a young age and not excersized, and eventually, they grow accustomed. Abused dogs will fight for their master. That does not stop "civilized" society from creating laws to protect that animal, so why is it so hard for our world to really look at the way another country is doing things? Why is it so hard for us to speak up, and try to make change?

Samim had a choice to believe what he believes. Those women do not. They are not given a choice. They cannot even begin to make a change for their daughters. Which I believe that every woman wants to be free to speak when they wish. To be innocent when they are raped, and not have shame placed on them. We need to do something to help them. Or we have failed at being the one thing we ALL are: Humans. As a human, we should stand up for one another. So, what is a "peaceful" way to make that change happen??? You go into most of those countries spouting off a Westerner's view of women, and you will be run out of their faster than they could spit on you. That's if you are not thrown into a foul prison. Or worse.
Because, a war may not be the most effective way to make change in a society... atleast it's doing SOMETHING.

[Ferris]

This is just a thought going around in my head at the minute which was sparked after reading this...

Someone mentioned that women in arabic countries need to start their fight from within (or words akin to that). Now Im no social historian, but I dont recall women being butchered for their rights - and (god help me for saying this) I somehow foresee such massacres happening.

Perhaps there was a certain mindset that allowed women to fight for their freedom in western cultures? One that was quickly growing independant of its religious ties and therefore more open to the idea of female rights?

Anyone shed some light on this for me?

[alloallo3]

It is common knowledge these days that you can't change a culture from without -- that change has to come from within, in most cases through a kind of cultural evolution. If it takes a while, so be it.

Unfortunately, this is completely false. It is unfortunate because it gives us an excuse to stand by while the most horrible events take place. We justify our inaction by claiming there is nothing we can do.

Consider Japan. Just 60 years ago it was an entirely different place. The Japanese people were daily engaged in the cruel subjugation of much of Asia. Women were considered ornaments and vessels for procreation. The Japanese people literally worshipped their emperor -- he was god made man.

You can change a culture. You can impose new standards via force. You don't have to wait for some slow evolution to take place.

This is not an argument for imposing our will on everyone in the world. But that's not the question. The question is, is respect for women worth fighting for?

Of course. Yes. When it is required, it is our duty as fellow human beings to do so.