80 comments

BogHagOctober 30, 2024

Go a step further. I don't care how you were raised. If you reach adulthood and still see the abuse of women and children under the guise of culture or religion as acceptable, you're not a person deserving respect.

DurableBookOctober 30, 2024

I'm still working out how I feel about people who believe in one of the Abrahamic faiths but very selectively.

I know that all these patriarchal faiths are hideous if you actually bother to read their holy texts and learn their histories. That's not up for debate; it's simple fact. Anybody who knows what Islam or Christianity really is and actively supports it is someone I would not want to meet in a dark alley. I'm with you there.

But I also know that probably 99% of the believers I encounter have never read the entire holy book of their own faith, and are significantly less informed about the history of their religion than I (an atheist) am. Some of the most devout people I have ever met could not tell you the language in which their scriptures were originally written, let alone the number of times they have been translated.

I don't know how to feel about the vast majority of religious people who proudly proclaim their support for these horrible piles of patriarchal garbage, because they literally do not know what they are talking about. Does it make them less awful, because in many cases their personal values don't actually mesh with their professed religion? Does it make them worse, because they support it without bothering to vet it? Does it make no difference, because ultimately it comes down to social expediency for the majority of religious people, and all their "faith" tells you is that they are social primates who instinctively know they will thrive best if they are accepted by the tribe?

tabbycatcircusOctober 30, 2024(Edited October 30, 2024)

God I hate interacting with these people and I so badly want to tell them that they're misguided and latching on to a stupid collection of texts because they crave a sense of order and structure in their lives. But I don't want to tell them about the actual dark history and beliefs in fear they'll double down and actually believe it, like polygyny and treating women like cattle and the misogyny of not letting them speak in church or hold higher positions in church or teach men. Most of them aren't that harmful with the beliefs they do profess so the most I can say is "the bible isn't against abortion" and that's it.

notsofreshfeelingOctober 30, 2024(Edited October 30, 2024)

Islam is a belief system that emerged from warlords. The types of dudes that roll into a village, kill all the men, rape and kidnap the women and children.

Edit: And I am happy to critique any and all other religions and belief systems. I do not owe anyone respect or sensitivity around their deranged beliefs and practices, especially when these beliefs lead to the abuse and subjugation of others.

pennygadgetOctober 30, 2024

Islam is a belief system that emerged from warlords. The types of dudes that roll into a village, kill all the men, rape and kidnap the women and children.

And this is the main difference between Islam and other faiths. If every Christian actually behaved like Jesus Christ, the world would be a better place. If every Muslim behaved like their beloved prophet Mohammed, they'd all have to go to jail. The religion cannot be reformed the way Judaism, Christianity, and LDS has because the core of Islamic belief is reverence for a raping, murdering warlord

vulvapeopleOctober 30, 2024

The line that Islam is a religion of peace irritates me for just that reason. The Quran opens by celebrating the Islamic conquests. It's been a warrior religion from day one.

PerenelleFlamelOctober 30, 2024

There are some ancient cultures where women had higher legal standing and almost-as-many rights as men, such as in Ancient Egypt or pre-Christian Northern Europe.

HOWEVER, even the pre-Islamic cultures of the area from which it emerged were notoriously awful for women. It's absolutely endemic to that specific cultural milieu, there's no getting around it.

nomenarewomen [OP]October 30, 2024

no surprises there then

SnowWhiteOctober 30, 2024(Edited October 30, 2024)

No i think we are going way too easy on Islam. Being Islamophobic does not make you racist. Dismissing women's suffering just because they come from different background than you is what makes you racist. Saying their culture is "too complicated for you to understand" is a way to opt out of a difficult subject instead of doing the bare minimum and bothering to learn about these women and their oppression enough for it to no longer be "too complicated" to say that sexual slavery is wrong.

r/exmuslim is great place to hear stories from people who often have no other place to voice their true thoughts. As many of them still live in Islamic countries or are immigrants and scared for their life every day. Scared of their family, not scared of us or islamophobia. If you ask any of them, we aren't being islamophobic enough.

beingOctober 30, 2024

Dismissing women's suffering just because they come from different background than you is what makes you racist. Saying their culture is "too complicated for you to understand" is a way to opt out of a difficult subject instead of doing the bare minimum and bothering to learn about these women and their oppression enough for it to no longer be "too complicated" to say that sexual slavery is wrong.

this is a really good way of putting it. basically, supporting Islam means implicitly thinking that women's subjugation is okay in that context (Islamic countries / cultures) because "it's their culture" or whatnot. also there's a lot of reputation laundering of Islam among liberals in the US.

I second reading r/exmuslim to get a taste of what they say there

MaryDyerOctober 30, 2024

I think it’s hilarious when people try to claim that Islamophobia is driven by racism. Like…the Muslims literally initiated the African slave trade, and were not shy at all when it came to their “justifications” for enslaving Africans.

pennygadgetOctober 30, 2024

Like…the Muslims literally initiated the African slave trade, and were not shy at all when it came to their “justifications” for enslaving Africans.

And, to this day, the Arabic slang term for a Black/African person is "slave".

[Deleted]October 30, 2024

You seem to be suggesting that racists can not themselves be victims of racism - is that right?

nomenarewomen [OP]October 30, 2024

good to know, thanks (re exmuslims thinking we aren't being islamophobic enough)

Feminist_UsernameOctober 30, 2024

Why is it not more well known just how many Muslim marriages are to first cousins in some areas? The horror stories of women who fear to visit their families in case they get kidnapped and forced to marry their cousin... How does this not make them global laughingstocks?

AadirMorgendorferOctober 30, 2024

This happened to a friend of mine. Went to visit Pakistan, and part of her family tried to abduct her to marry her cousin. Another family member had to get her in the car and drive her to the airport so she could escape. Madness.

I had another Muslim friend in the UK who was bullied into marrying her cousin. She didn't want to. He beats her up now and her parents tell her sha has to "make it work".

Feminist_UsernameOctober 30, 2024

I feel so bad for both women. How can such men who force their own cousins to bed not be universally objects of disgust?

[Deleted]October 30, 2024
PerenelleFlamelOctober 30, 2024

I may be wrong about the number, but wasn't there a recent claim that up to 70% of Pakistani immigrants in the UK had cousin-marriages, and it was significantly impacting genetic diseases?

[Deleted]October 30, 2024(Edited October 30, 2024)

Cousin-marriage is often a more complex phenomenon than this would imply. Consider this example: The Sudan, where large extended family networks are highly present in and important to most people's lives and cousin marriage remains very common across all social classes. I have known many Sudanese women who actively choose to marry a cousin (marriages are not arranged in Sudan but rather decided on by the couples themselves). People speak of the protection it can offer a woman as the cousin-husband, as a member of the extended family, whose character the woman is likely to know well, is accountable to his own relatives (who are also her relatives) for his treatment or any mistreatment of his wife (whereas marrying into a stranger's family can isolate the wife from family support). There is also evidence that the normative status of cousin-marriage has enabled large extended family networks to collectively decide to abandon female genital cutting on the premise that if the 'uncut' women fail to find marriage partners in the wider community (due to being uncut) there will always be cousins within the network of relatives who have agreed not to cut their daughters who they can marry (norms of marriagebility are a major reason why many families who would otherwise abandon the practice continue to cut their daughters).

Feminist_UsernameOctober 30, 2024

Ah shit so basically men are so horrible that known evil is better than unknown evil if you don't have the choice of not getting married. Doesn't exactly make me support the practice tho lol

notapatsyOctober 30, 2024

Back in the 1800s, my ancestors were Mormon converts who came to the US from England. Two sisters married two of their male cousins who were brothers, because otherwise the women would have been married to old men who already had other wives. A "free" choice but not an unconstrained one.

[Deleted]October 30, 2024

Thankfully women the world over have strategies for avoiding and mitigating male violence. These are by necessity context dependent.

LouhiOctober 30, 2024

I get what you mean here, however I don't believe that the answer to female oppression is (or should be) inbreeding.

DerpinaOctober 30, 2024

But there is still the inbreeding risk

NoNameOctober 30, 2024

Thanks for those insights.

[Deleted]October 30, 2024

A brilliant socialist feminist and novelist, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, chose to marry her cousin.

dotconnectrOctober 30, 2024

"Islamophobia" is a slur with no foundation in truth, just like "transphobia." Words have meanings and meanings matter. The primary definition of "phobia" is "irrational fear" but female fear of male violence is perfectly rational, as is legitimate fear of the terrorist tactics of Islamist extremists and their stated goal of spreading Islam and Sharia law across the entire globe.

ArchieOctober 30, 2024

I don't know why "phobic" is the suffix that stayed but "homophobic" does not really mean afraid of the gays either. I think it makes sense to keep the "phobic" suffix... if we're talking about some far right man who actually hates the target demographic and wishes violence against them.

Of course since in 2024 words are now equal or worse than physical violence, anyone opposed to X for good reasons is Xphobic or something...

littleowl12October 30, 2024

70 comments in and I just got home. Damn you, offline obligations!

I'm sure it's already been said, but it turns out the rumors were right- the Southport stabber in an Islamic convert.

We pretend to be confused and astounded, like we don't know what's going on. We always hope it's a crazed white Christian dude when these bizarre crimes happen. But every fucking time: you know what this is and you know who did it.

That doesn't make every Muslim the kind who would engage in terrorism, sex slavery, trafficking of "kuffar," woman abuse, etc. But Mohammad modeled all of that. He ordered his believers to follow his example. So if you are a believing Muslim, I view that as a moral failing.

pennygadgetOctober 30, 2024

I'm sure it's already been said, but it turns out the rumors were right- the Southport stabber in an Islamic convert.

OMG I'm so shocked 🙄

NoNameOctober 30, 2024(Edited October 30, 2024)

My best friend is an ex muslim woman. When we were discussing Afghanistan a lot of people like to say that the Taliban isn't Islamic and I asked her about that. She said "No, that is Islam".

As far as Islamophobia, seems they have chosen to be hateful towards women. Most Islamic nations didn't force women to walk around in chadors, burqas, hijabs until recently. Sure, there may have been a head scarf.

If your religion wants to restrict what I can or can't do or wear because of an immutable characteristic, my sex, then I have no respect for it. I want nothing to do with it and you do not get to impose your belief that I am not fully human on me.

nomenarewomen [OP]October 30, 2024

yes, too often the Taliban and jihadis and Hamas etc etc get a blank check in the form of 'it's extremism, not Islam' - it IS Islam. Islam deserves the blame.

ChaniOctober 30, 2024

"It's not real Islam," "it's not real Christianity," etc. is just classic No True Scotsman.

[Deleted]October 30, 2024
lesbiansherlockThe Pussy BanditOctober 30, 2024

Je suis Charlie.

pennygadgetOctober 30, 2024

Its shameful how quickly people forgot about Charlie Hebdo.

lesbiansherlockThe Pussy BanditOctober 30, 2024

Not where I’m from.

Simon Fieschi, the webmaster of Charlie Hebdo committed suicide last week. He was the first person to take a bullet when the Kouachi brothers attacked the newspaper’s HQ almost 10 years ago. The repercussions are never-ending.

LouhiOctober 30, 2024

Oh gosh I had not heard of this. Do you have a link to a news story or anything?

Alice_eveOctober 30, 2024

That's terrible to hear. I had no idea.

Feminist_UsernameOctober 30, 2024

It was the first "change your profile pic for the cause" event exploited by social media that I could remember. I partially think that's why people forgot so quickly, they felt like they did something

dust_cloud86October 30, 2024(Edited October 30, 2024)

People deserve respect, not religions. Bullshit is bullshit, no matter how emotionally attached you are to it.

Respect also does not mean denying reality and accepting degradation.

DurableBookOctober 30, 2024

And "respect" doesn't mean "deference."

I am happy to maintain a truce with believers, wherein neither of us expects the other to participate in our personal beliefs.

If believers opt to break that truce by demanding that I alter my behavior according to their religious practices, then that means there is no reciprocal obligation for me to pretend courtesy toward their faith. I am not being disrespectful by declining a disrespectful demand.

ArchieOctober 30, 2024

Thanks, this is extremely well said, I might quote you later

nomenarewomen [OP]October 30, 2024

agreed