Three intertwined but separate things.
1] I'm part of a mailing list made up mostly of people I knew in high school. I'm probably the only clear supporter of the War on Terror on the list, might or might not be the most socially conservative person, probably not quite the most economically conservative. Most people indicated Dennis Kurinch as the presidential candidate most in sync with their views on a web quiz.
So.
A couple of days a person posted this video/news, with an iman discussing the proper way to beat your wife.
This led to a response and discussion in which it was directly said that we have as much or more violence towards women than other countries, and that Christian teachings and Islamic teachings about the role of women and violence towards women are the same. If this was a cartoon, my eyes would have bugged out and the top of my head would have exploded.
But it isn't a cartoon, so I wrote this instead:
I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree, but I'll try. I'm not going to even try to get links for everything, if we're actually interested in a debate on the facts then maybe we can try to find them.I suspect:
1) Primarily Christian countries have a much lower incidence of violence against women than primarily Muslim countries.
2) A not very large percentage of people who claim to be Christians are part of a church that believes the entire Bible is literally meant. Of that group, not all of the individual members will believe that the Bible is literally meant.
I know:
1) Within the last few years, there have been gays imprisoned and killed BY THE STATE for being gay in Muslim countries. That ain't happening in the US.
2) Last year, for every 100 men who graduated from college in the US, 135 women did.
3) The Reformation happened quite a while ago, for Christianity. It hasn't happened, and maybe can't happen, for Islam.
I believe:
1) That "my husband was abusing me" shouldn't be a get out of jail free card if you murder [note: murder-> planned it ahead of time] your husband.
2) 50 years ago or so in the US, with a divorced couple, the woman would end up with the short end of the stick. That has improved.
3) That you seem to equate the rights of women in the Christian world and the Muslim world is a problem. For example, Saudi Arabia. Women can't drive, have to wear specific clothes, can't attend the same schools if they even get to go to school, etc.etc. With a specific state sponsored police force to make sure the women follow these rules, and will beat the women in the street if they aren't.
4) For the answer to "Why do they hate us," at least part of it is how well women are treated in Western society.
5) For every 1 pastor who preaches that we should beat our women to get them to behave, 100 will denounce that as evil. The ratio is worse, if not reversed, in Islam.
6) Women's Liberation started out with a set of goals. A lot of progress has been made towards those goals in the US. At some point, further "progress" will require subjugation of men, rather than freedom for women. What that point is, I have no idea, and most likely there are quite a few points, for quite a few area.
7) The reason the iman is saying "beat your wife with a toothpick" in the video that started it all is that he would be laughed out of town if he said it is your religious duty never to beat your wife.
Why the heck any of this matters:
Islam has been quickly growing. Some fraction of the Islamic world has as it's goal a global caliphate, with everyone bound by Islam's religious laws. You would not like living under such laws.
9/11 happened to help Bin Ladin work towards establishing a caliphate in the Arab world. Saddam had been working towards a similar goal [and would have been well on his way there if we hadn't thrown him out of Kuwait, way back when]. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, wants to nuke Israel to prove he should be leader of such a state.
Islam, if it's going to survive and be a part of the modern world, needs to Reform. Giving excuses for it, saying Christianity is just as bad to women, reduces the chance that it will.And finally, a game- is this a picture of a church, a synagogue, or a mosque?
2] "The Future Belongs to Those Who Show Up." Instapundit linked to this brief note on The Corner, who linked to this 2006 article. The article takes a historical stance, specifically avoiding the question of whether this is good or not. It argues that there was a huge change in the kind of society most likely to survive from the Hunter-Gatherer stage to the Agricultural stage, which has continued today. Basically, it argues something that I might call a benign patriarchy is most likely to survive, because it gives strong societal pressure on men to have at least replacement numbers of children, including at least one male heir.
3] Lots of random thoughts. The Return of Patriarchy makes absolutely no future predictions, so it doesn't point out the obvious: we are heading to a time of as much societal change as hunter-gatherer-> agriculture. Either drastically longer lifespan occurs [can societies permit women to have 100 kids?], or in vitro gestation of children becomes possible, and then maybe mandatory, with societies quite able to raise children in creches, without intervention of genetic parents. And that ignores possibilities of human reproductive cloning.
The article seems to think that societies that reproduce more will always overwhelm those that don't, but there's another option that is clear to anyone who knows of the interactions between Elves and Orcs in D&D- the slower reproducing group must kill all of the faster growing group, including women and children. That may end up being the option Europe takes, in spite of the holier than thou anti-war stance currently taken by their rulers.
Before, if I was asked, was I part of the Evil Global Patriarchy, I would have said no. But even now I've got a fairly strong desire to have a kid, to continue the family line [as well as other reasons].
We'll see if I get a response to my email. Probably not.
Let's end with this
Posted by Owlish at November 8, 2007 06:32 PM | TrackBack