Muslim/Islamic Views on Women

[Farfisa]

Just something to say before I start. I'm just looking for opinions and personal experience on this subject, please don't let this thread be closed due to hateful comments.

Ok, I've been wondering this for awhile and I've yet to go to an Islamic country or read the Quaran. Are women really viewed as inferior to men in Islamic countries? I've been starting to look into the happenings of the uprisings in the middle east and how women have been treated. There has been a lot of talk of how women have been sexually assaulted and harassed in those countries, but I can't help but feel the fact that there is so much unrest in that part of the world and that leads to crimes against women. Why? I'm not sure, but in third world countries and in countries suffering civil wars there seems to be a lot of sexual assaults and crimes against women.

I've talked to a few Muslims in my life and they seem like everyone else, but with different beliefs. Granted that these conversations and meetings were short, and the ones I've met seemed liked generally happy and good willed. So, is it just the extremists and the general unrest in Islamic countries or is it that they really view women just as objects of sexual desire?

Please, if I've said anything offensive or uneducated, please correct and educate me. I don't want to be a sheep who follows lazily along to whatever the US media says.

[djchameleon]

I'm not sure why you would think they view their women as just sexual objects when their women wear that garb. I can't recall the technical name for it now. Do you think their eyes is good enough to say they are going to judge a woman by her looks and treat her like sexual object?

It does appear that they treat their women as inferior but I don't recall reading anything in the Quran that would justify that treatment.

I will double check and edit this post if I find something related to it in my Quran.

[Howard the Duck]

i remember reading some sura's that say you can hit a woman if she gets out of line, and also women are something like cattle, to be owned

well, the syaria' divorce laws are unequal - it's hard for a woman to divorce a man but not vice versa

[RVCA]

Everything you could want to know

[djchameleon]

Are you sure? With the whole owning thing it pertains to being in a marriage since the husband is deemed the provider and protector.

[Howard the Duck]

you can get rid of cattle pretty fast

[Mykonos]

Women are officialy held in equal esteem and importance in Islam. The whole 'but they make them wear burqas and control them!' argument is more partriarchal meddling than religious instruction.

[Farfisa]

So, it must be the fact that Islamic countries are in a general state of unrest and the fact that women's rights just haven't been established. I'm not talking about burqas and the conservative attire, but the fact that women in the few Islamic countries I've read about aren't able to receive the same schooling as men and aren't able to obtain a driver's license.

[Mykonos]

Again, that's more patriarchal oppression, although he Qu'ran can be interpreted as saying that women don't need schooling (I think it lists women as taking up a more inspirational role than an intellectual one. Like the Bible, the Qu'ran is interpreted differently by different people).

[Liljagare]

I would think that the subject of women's status in countries you refer to has more to do with the non-seperation of church and state and references to religious documents influencing state law. I mean, if you look at it, the Bible has just as many references to the inferiority of women/women as objects.

"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9)

"Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." (Eccles. 25:22)

"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. "(NIV, 1 Timothy 2:11-12)

And so on. Even in non Islam dominated countries, you still have women being paid less then men, not promoted due to the fact they are women, etc.

Ít just seems to come down to the fact that the more a majority of a country believe in one particular religion and if there is no seperation of church and state..well things such as the mistreatment of women can be justified by religious documents. It then becomes the "Word of God" and therefore the law. What is more interesting to me is what about the countries that do seperate church and state. What justifies women's lower status in these places?