Growing up Muslim

#146 Posted by zahida on

An interesting article and it raises some valid points but I get the impression religion is blamed for much of the misunderstandings between generations. As it`s already been said the case of parents pulling in the reigns and trying to hold on to the old way of life is true not just for ex-pats; this is to some extent true in every society, people always feel that today`s children are wilder than they ever were or that morals are dying out. Perhaps it`s true.

In my view, religions actually hold many of the answers. Islam teaches us to learn and to be educated. It doesn`t tell us what we are allowed to learn, there are no limits on expanding your horizons. The boundaries are constructed in the way religion is interpreted and how it is applied. When I was growing up in the Uk the majority of Islamic teachers were people who had learnt Islam in Madrassas back home, many of these were in small villages in the backwaters. They tried to teach the Islam as practised in villages across Pakistan etc. None of these teachers understood their pupils or the problems and issues that were facing them. Growing up I never quite knew who I was - was I British, Pakistani, Muslim? I liked bits of one way of life and bits of another. What we have a growing number of in the UK now, is Muslim teachers who have themselves grown up here and can teach Islam as it applies to the lives of British Muslims of Asian origin. This is what we need more of.

There is also the other important issue raised in the article of how parents fail to communicate with their children but instead pack them off to learn the Quran. Teachers can not be held responsible for teaching everything, parents have to take responsibilty for the values that their children are taught especially early in life. If these values are imparted in a mature and honest way they will become morals that the next generation will hold on to because they understand them and want to live their lives by them.

I agree with the conclusion though that all faiths should come together and see that much of the issues facing them run across the board. I wont hold my breath though.

zahida''

Its a wonderful idea that all faiths should come together. thanx for sharing it.

#147 Posted by rabiaanwar

The writer seems adamantly against parents teaching their children the Quran and suggesting that doing so would condition young girls to restrain their sexual impulses. Hello, anyone, is that a bad thing? Or should we all be doing the contrary, teaching our children to explore every sexual impulse that hits them, in an appropriate way or not.

Islam, and the Quran, teach sexual restraint when it is inappropriate. Between a husband and wife, its no holds barred. You can swing off the ceiling and live out every down and dirty fantasy possible. Considering how sexually restrictive Christianity is and always has been, Islam was a liberating force (albeit everything in moderation) sexually. Today anyone practicing self restrait sexually, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew, is characterized as being oppressed by individuals like this writer. Its sad that we`ve come to a point in time that sexual restraint is considered a vice instead of a virtue.

To the writer, good luck with your childen. You may want to see your daughters in tube tops and your sons experimenting but why curse the innocent -- may they defy you and practice sexual restraint.''

Agreed.its against eastren values.

War of the Sexes
Gita Roy June 18, 2006
Tags: feminism , gender issues

When one contrasts the truly feminine — and healthy — woman with the neurotic (totally or parcially frigid, filled with anxiety, stress, etc.) woman of today, certain questions come to mind at once. Why, for example, are there so many neurotic women today? Have millions of women always been this way, or is it a problem of our times only? Why — if being feminine can be so pleasant — do some women hold onto their neurosis though they know they can get help for it?

To answer these questions in part or in whole, you will first have to know a little history. For, though every case of neurosis represents a psychological problem in the individual, we have found that, sociologically speaking, neurosis is rooted in certain destructive events that have occurred to woman in the past two hundred years. If you grasp them you will begin to get a picture of the over-all problem that has beset woman, of how she lost her direction, her sense of self, and what she must do to find them again.

The history I am going to tell you about is the history of a war... a bitter and destructive war. It is often called “The War between Men and Women.� For far too many women — and men too — it is still going on.

It began toward the end of the eighteenth century, and the apparently innocent event that started it all was the invention of the steam engine, that ushered in the modern age. It seems hard to believe now that this — almost outdated — means of creating power could have been so important... but it was. It launched the so called “Industrial Revolution�, which was to change the whole fabric of society, our ways of doing things and making things, our living quarters and our living standards, our morals, religion, art... name it and you will find that the Industrial Revolution has turned it upside down and inside out.

Most of all, and most tragically, it changed the home. It would be more accurate, if somewhat bleaker, to say that it destroyed the home; at least as home was nown up to that time.

But let me tell you what home was like before the Industrial Revolution, for when you see that you will begain to discern the outlines of the great tragedy that happened to woman when the old-fashioned family home ceased to exist...
In that era our society was almost entirely rural and agricultural. In other words, most homes were farms. There were cities and some industry, of course, but where industries existed they were almost entirely home industries run by individual families.

Home, then, was, almost without exception, the center of all life, economic, social, and educational. Everything was produced at home. There were simply no stores in which to buy anything.

Woman’s place in this early family home was indisputably at the very center, a faithful, equal partner with her husband in all the manifold duties, responsibilities, joys, hopes, and fears of the entire household. Her work was heavy and constant; she cooked the food her husband had grown, wove the cloth, fashioned and made the clothes for the entire family. She cleaned and she swept, washed, and ironed from morning till night.

Children, as soon as they were old enough, lightened her labors, but she was responsible for their education (public schools had never been heard of), which was not just a matter of teaching them the three R’s but of inculcating in them all that she knew of the multitude of arts, crafts, and techniques it took to run such a home.

Her reward for all this was the fact that she was needed, loved, held in the highest esteem by her husband and her whole family. if she failed in her duties or if she died, it would be not merely a sad, inconvenient event for the family... it would be a disaster! For the activities of the distaff side, although different from those of the male, were of equal importance.

From what we can gather, even the concept of frigidity in marriage was unknown to that woman. Love, home, work, were a unified and profoundly satisfying experience on all levels. As a woman she was profoundly needed, and as a woman reared to respond to this need she had no single occasion to question her worth or her abilities.

And then one by one, slowly but surely, her responsibilities and her duties were removed from her; her close and equal working relationship with her husband was destroyed; her importance to her children was diminished sadly.

The new machines began to take over, to displace all those things that had been done by hand. Transportation, via the new Iron Horse, developed, and trade between sections that were once remote from one another was made possible. A man could make more money than he had ever dreamed of it he could supply a need of some group or community.

And so industry in the sense that we know it today started with a rush. Factories sprang up, and they needed men to run them. Now husbands who but recently had worked at home, hand in hand and side by side with their wives, labored outside the home, developed lives that were independent — to some extent — of the home’s activities and concerns..

It happened slowly, very slowly, over generations, in fact and the full results of the Industrial Revolution were not felt fully until this century. At first, so gradual was the process that only a few women, scattered here and there, felt the impact of the change. But as time passed and the process extended, more and more families were drawn into the vortex of industrialization, and at length it had changed the lives of every individual in the land.

Very slowly, too, but everywhere, women woke as if from a centuries-old dream of peace and happiness to find themselves dispossessed. Gone was their central place in the family home, gone their economic importance, gone their close working partnership with their mate, their functions of teacher and moral guide to the children... The children themselves were gone, to school, as the husband had gone to the mill or factory.

Yes. She was dispossessed of all those things that for centuries had defined her womanhood for her, that had supported her ego, given her the certain knowledge that being a woman, however hard, was a wonderous and most desirable thing. She felt her womanhood itself devalued, the things it represented unwanted.
And then... she reacted. She reacted violently and with rage at this depreciation of her feminine attributes, of her skills, of her functions. Unhappily this reaction was precisely the wrong one... the one from which no solution of a happy kind for her could be attained.

Looking about, she thought she spied a villain in the piece. Who was it? None other than her partner throung the centuries: Man. According to her, it was he who had deserted her, who was responsible for her loss of self-respect as a woman, a mother, an equal socially and mentally and morally. Surely men despised women. Very well! She would show them! She would simply stop being a woman. She would compete with them on their own level. To hell with being a woman! She would be... a man!

You don’t believe it? It seems too farfetched? Women — as a sex — would never have made such a decision? Well, let’s look a little more closely at some of the facts...

What did the Feminist Movement really want to achieve? Let me quote to you what two profound students of feminism, Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham, had to say about it in their book “Modern Women, The Lost Sex�:

“Far from being a Movement for the greater self-realization of women, as it professed to be, Feminism was the very negation of femaleness. Although hostile to men and hostile to children, it was at bottom most hostile to women. It bade women commit suicide as women and attempt to live as men... Psychologically, Feminism had a single objective: the achievement to maleness by the female, or the nearest possible approach to it. In so far as it was attained, it spelled only vast individual suffering for men as well as women, and much public disorder.�

What was the program of the Feminists? Actually Mary Wollstonecraft had enunciated it in its entirety in her book “A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women� and the Feminist Movement never deviated from her original demands. She had stated that men and women were, in all fundamental characteristics, identical, and that therefore women should receive the same education as men, be governed by the same moral standards, do the same work, and have identical political rights and duties. Women were to be treated exactly as men in every detail of living, and the same demands were to be made on them.

The appeal of this program was enormous. Nineteenth-century woman felt: “Ah, if we could only achieve this, then we would be happy once again.� The fact — and it’s a dreadfully simple one to see — is that now, indeed, the entire program has been realized and modern woman, having reaped the “benefits� of it in full, is more confused, perhaps even unhappier, than ever.

In so far as the feminist Movement pitted itself against the male, and at the same time advised woman to masculinize herself or divest herself of her feminine nature, it was dreadfully neurotic, and we have been reaping the whirlwind this movement started ever since.

The rage of the Feminist was directed against herself... We know, for example, that to fulfill herself biologically — that is, to give birth to children — a woman must heve security, the protection of the male, a permanent abode. Marriage has been society’s answer to this feminine need from time inmemorial. But the feminists pitted themselves against the institution of marriage. Woman — they held — had the right, even as men did, to be promiscuous sexualty, to live with whom she peased, for as long or as short a time as she pleased. If she wished to get married she should be able to do so, but she should also have the privilege of terminating this marriage when she wished to, when she tired of it.

We know, too, that maternal love for children, particularly love of her own children, is one of the major traits of womankind, as typical of her a her female anatomy. We know that only the very sickest women, mentally, will desert or neglect their children. Maternality is so deeply rooted in the biology of the female sex that its fierce protectiveness can be observed in many animals.

Maternality is a trap, said the Feminists, in effect, a bill of goods sold to women by men in order to keep them enslaved. Children should not be allowed in any way to interfere with the new “freedom� of women. So, advised the Feminists, put your child in the hands of some trained child handler or handlers. Public nurseries were advocated, pre-kindergarten groups were advocated; anything that “freed� the mother was advocated.

Freed the mother from her children...? For what...? To work in offices and factories as the men did, of course. To substitute boss for husband, to share the “privilege� of being hired or fired; to be, in short, men.

If space allowed I could continue with a long and circumstantial list of masculine goals which the feminists advocated. And I could give an equally long list of goals which ignored or denied the existence of feminine characteristics in womankind. Very few of the early feminists actually lived in the manner they prescribed... but it was as clear as crystal that they ardently desired to.

But here is the important thing to remember: The Feminist credo thoroughly discredited truly feminine needs and characteristics and substituted male goals for female goals. There weren’t so many feminists in actual numbers, but those there were, were incredibly vocal, and in the end their ideals and beliefs became the ideals and beliefs of millions of women.

This, then, is the heritage of woman today: On the one hand, from Victorian woman, a profound belief that she is and should be non-sexual, frigid, by natural law. On the other hand, from the feminists, that man is woman’s natural enemy, that she should drop her feminity altogether, oppose man, supersede him, become him.

Please stop for a moment now to think what effect either of these two attitudes must have had on the home and marital life of a woman who held one of them. Her hostility to her husband and all the misery such hatred implies, we take for granted; but it was the effect on the children that was decisive.

The attitudes inculcated into many modern women since their childhood would make one’s hair stand on end... At least they should. This is what some learned at their mother’s knee: Shame about their bodies and sex; shame about menstruation, and disgust with it; fear of pregnancy and childbirth; scolding and punishment for early and natural sexual feeling and experimentation; destruction and depreciation of the father as an ideal image for the child to love or to emulate. In general, modern women learned early — and too well — to depreciate, despise and even loathe their womanhood in all of its important manifestations.

Most psychiatrists passionately agree with (previously quoted) Dr. Marynia Farnham when she writes:

“The most precise expression of unhappiness is neurosis. The bases for most of this unhappiness ... are laid in the childhood home. The principal instrument of their creation are women.�

. The feminists were, after all, for more and more sexual freedom; Victorian woman was anti-sexual. I feel that is only superficially true. They were both, in their unconscious lives, against feminine sexuality, considering it a “weakness�. It is not possible for woman to be masculine sexually; to advocate that for her is exactly equal to demanding that she be non-sexual.

The depreciation of the goals of femininity, biological and psychological, became part and parcel of the education of millions of American girls. Homemaking, childbearing and rearing, cooking, the virtudes of patience, lovingness, givingness in marriage have been systematically devalued. The life of male achievement has been substituted for the natural life of female achievement.

The feminist-Victorian antagonism toward men has survived too... It has been handed down from mother to daughter in an unbroken line for so many years now that, to millions of women, hostility toward the opposite sex seems (almost) a “natural law�. Though many a modern woman may pay lip service to the ideal of a passionate and productive marriage to a man, underneath she deeply resents her role, conceives of the male as fundamentally hostile to her, as an exploiter of her. She wishes in her deepest heart (and often without the slightest awareness of the fact) to supplant him, to exchange roles with him. She learned this attitude at her mother’s knee or imbibed it with her formula. Little that she learns elsewhere to counteract this will soon be nullified by the great effectivity of the constant (and almost universal) repetition of these destructive statements around her.

Clearly, then, if this is the historical direction women have taken, the individual woman who wishes to become a real Woman must change this direction. This she can to only by taking thought... long thought. For among the women around her she will not find much support for her wish to be entirely feminine.

For over two hundred years now women have blamed their problems on the outside world. They have used the very real difficulties created by revolutionary social changes to avoid the task of looking withing for the real problem and the real solution. They have indulged in an orgy of finger pointing at men and self-pity.
If the results had been different, if this attitude had brought them happiness and fulfillment, if feminism and Victorianism had made them good mothers and joyful wives, or even pleased them with their new place in industry... the game might have been worth the candle. But it hasn’t been. The game has brought frigidity, anxiety, pain and restlessness and a soaring divorce rate, as well as neurosis, homosexuality, juvenile delinquency... All that results when the woman in any society deserts ther true womanly function.

Seeing one’s own responsibility in a situation is often difficult. However, in this problem, not to take the blame is even more difficult. It means — and has meant for millions — that one commits sexual suicide by embracing emotional isolationism as if it were the proper condition for womankind.

The change depends on the effort each woman makes to acknowledge both her errors as her true role... as a Woman.

Women can get rid of this neurosis by accepting, once again, the role of men as their leaders and protector in a loving d/s [dominant/submissive] relationship.


Times viewed:2537

interact read comments add to favorites email article

War of the Sexes
Gita Roy June 18, 2006
Tags: feminism , gender issues

When one contrasts the truly feminine — and healthy — woman with the neurotic (totally or parcially frigid, filled with anxiety, stress, etc.) woman of today, certain questions come to mind at once. Why, for example, are there so many neurotic women today? Have millions of women always been this way, or is it a problem of our times only? Why — if being feminine can be so pleasant — do some women hold onto their neurosis though they know they can get help for it?

To answer these questions in part or in whole, you will first have to know a little history. For, though every case of neurosis represents a psychological problem in the individual, we have found that, sociologically speaking, neurosis is rooted in certain destructive events that have occurred to woman in the past two hundred years. If you grasp them you will begin to get a picture of the over-all problem that has beset woman, of how she lost her direction, her sense of self, and what she must do to find them again.

The history I am going to tell you about is the history of a war... a bitter and destructive war. It is often called “The War between Men and Women.� For far too many women — and men too — it is still going on.

It began toward the end of the eighteenth century, and the apparently innocent event that started it all was the invention of the steam engine, that ushered in the modern age. It seems hard to believe now that this — almost outdated — means of creating power could have been so important... but it was. It launched the so called “Industrial Revolution�, which was to change the whole fabric of society, our ways of doing things and making things, our living quarters and our living standards, our morals, religion, art... name it and you will find that the Industrial Revolution has turned it upside down and inside out.

Most of all, and most tragically, it changed the home. It would be more accurate, if somewhat bleaker, to say that it destroyed the home; at least as home was nown up to that time.

But let me tell you what home was like before the Industrial Revolution, for when you see that you will begain to discern the outlines of the great tragedy that happened to woman when the old-fashioned family home ceased to exist...
In that era our society was almost entirely rural and agricultural. In other words, most homes were farms. There were cities and some industry, of course, but where industries existed they were almost entirely home industries run by individual families.

Home, then, was, almost without exception, the center of all life, economic, social, and educational. Everything was produced at home. There were simply no stores in which to buy anything.

Woman’s place in this early family home was indisputably at the very center, a faithful, equal partner with her husband in all the manifold duties, responsibilities, joys, hopes, and fears of the entire household. Her work was heavy and constant; she cooked the food her husband had grown, wove the cloth, fashioned and made the clothes for the entire family. She cleaned and she swept, washed, and ironed from morning till night.

Children, as soon as they were old enough, lightened her labors, but she was responsible for their education (public schools had never been heard of), which was not just a matter of teaching them the three R’s but of inculcating in them all that she knew of the multitude of arts, crafts, and techniques it took to run such a home.

Her reward for all this was the fact that she was needed, loved, held in the highest esteem by her husband and her whole family. if she failed in her duties or if she died, it would be not merely a sad, inconvenient event for the family... it would be a disaster! For the activities of the distaff side, although different from those of the male, were of equal importance.

From what we can gather, even the concept of frigidity in marriage was unknown to that woman. Love, home, work, were a unified and profoundly satisfying experience on all levels. As a woman she was profoundly needed, and as a woman reared to respond to this need she had no single occasion to question her worth or her abilities.

And then one by one, slowly but surely, her responsibilities and her duties were removed from her; her close and equal working relationship with her husband was destroyed; her importance to her children was diminished sadly.

The new machines began to take over, to displace all those things that had been done by hand. Transportation, via the new Iron Horse, developed, and trade between sections that were once remote from one another was made possible. A man could make more money than he had ever dreamed of it he could supply a need of some group or community.

And so industry in the sense that we know it today started with a rush. Factories sprang up, and they needed men to run them. Now husbands who but recently had worked at home, hand in hand and side by side with their wives, labored outside the home, developed lives that were independent — to some extent — of the home’s activities and concerns..

It happened slowly, very slowly, over generations, in fact and the full results of the Industrial Revolution were not felt fully until this century. At first, so gradual was the process that only a few women, scattered here and there, felt the impact of the change. But as time passed and the process extended, more and more families were drawn into the vortex of industrialization, and at length it had changed the lives of every individual in the land.

Very slowly, too, but everywhere, women woke as if from a centuries-old dream of peace and happiness to find themselves dispossessed. Gone was their central place in the family home, gone their economic importance, gone their close working partnership with their mate, their functions of teacher and moral guide to the children... The children themselves were gone, to school, as the husband had gone to the mill or factory.

Yes. She was dispossessed of all those things that for centuries had defined her womanhood for her, that had supported her ego, given her the certain knowledge that being a woman, however hard, was a wonderous and most desirable thing. She felt her womanhood itself devalued, the things it represented unwanted.
And then... she reacted. She reacted violently and with rage at this depreciation of her feminine attributes, of her skills, of her functions. Unhappily this reaction was precisely the wrong one... the one from which no solution of a happy kind for her could be attained.

Looking about, she thought she spied a villain in the piece. Who was it? None other than her partner throung the centuries: Man. According to her, it was he who had deserted her, who was responsible for her loss of self-respect as a woman, a mother, an equal socially and mentally and morally. Surely men despised women. Very well! She would show them! She would simply stop being a woman. She would compete with them on their own level. To hell with being a woman! She would be... a man!

You don’t believe it? It seems too farfetched? Women — as a sex — would never have made such a decision? Well, let’s look a little more closely at some of the facts...

What did the Feminist Movement really want to achieve? Let me quote to you what two profound students of feminism, Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham, had to say about it in their book “Modern Women, The Lost Sex�:

“Far from being a Movement for the greater self-realization of women, as it professed to be, Feminism was the very negation of femaleness. Although hostile to men and hostile to children, it was at bottom most hostile to women. It bade women commit suicide as women and attempt to live as men... Psychologically, Feminism had a single objective: the achievement to maleness by the female, or the nearest possible approach to it. In so far as it was attained, it spelled only vast individual suffering for men as well as women, and much public disorder.�

What was the program of the Feminists? Actually Mary Wollstonecraft had enunciated it in its entirety in her book “A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women� and the Feminist Movement never deviated from her original demands. She had stated that men and women were, in all fundamental characteristics, identical, and that therefore women should receive the same education as men, be governed by the same moral standards, do the same work, and have identical political rights and duties. Women were to be treated exactly as men in every detail of living, and the same demands were to be made on them.

The appeal of this program was enormous. Nineteenth-century woman felt: “Ah, if we could only achieve this, then we would be happy once again.� The fact — and it’s a dreadfully simple one to see — is that now, indeed, the entire program has been realized and modern woman, having reaped the “benefits� of it in full, is more confused, perhaps even unhappier, than ever.

In so far as the feminist Movement pitted itself against the male, and at the same time advised woman to masculinize herself or divest herself of her feminine nature, it was dreadfully neurotic, and we have been reaping the whirlwind this movement started ever since.

The rage of the Feminist was directed against herself... We know, for example, that to fulfill herself biologically — that is, to give birth to children — a woman must heve security, the protection of the male, a permanent abode. Marriage has been society’s answer to this feminine need from time inmemorial. But the feminists pitted themselves against the institution of marriage. Woman — they held — had the right, even as men did, to be promiscuous sexualty, to live with whom she peased, for as long or as short a time as she pleased. If she wished to get married she should be able to do so, but she should also have the privilege of terminating this marriage when she wished to, when she tired of it.

We know, too, that maternal love for children, particularly love of her own children, is one of the major traits of womankind, as typical of her a her female anatomy. We know that only the very sickest women, mentally, will desert or neglect their children. Maternality is so deeply rooted in the biology of the female sex that its fierce protectiveness can be observed in many animals.

Maternality is a trap, said the Feminists, in effect, a bill of goods sold to women by men in order to keep them enslaved. Children should not be allowed in any way to interfere with the new “freedom� of women. So, advised the Feminists, put your child in the hands of some trained child handler or handlers. Public nurseries were advocated, pre-kindergarten groups were advocated; anything that “freed� the mother was advocated.

Freed the mother from her children...? For what...? To work in offices and factories as the men did, of course. To substitute boss for husband, to share the “privilege� of being hired or fired; to be, in short, men.

If space allowed I could continue with a long and circumstantial list of masculine goals which the feminists advocated. And I could give an equally long list of goals which ignored or denied the existence of feminine characteristics in womankind. Very few of the early feminists actually lived in the manner they prescribed... but it was as clear as crystal that they ardently desired to.

But here is the important thing to remember: The Feminist credo thoroughly discredited truly feminine needs and characteristics and substituted male goals for female goals. There weren’t so many feminists in actual numbers, but those there were, were incredibly vocal, and in the end their ideals and beliefs became the ideals and beliefs of millions of women.

This, then, is the heritage of woman today: On the one hand, from Victorian woman, a profound belief that she is and should be non-sexual, frigid, by natural law. On the other hand, from the feminists, that man is woman’s natural enemy, that she should drop her feminity altogether, oppose man, supersede him, become him.

Please stop for a moment now to think what effect either of these two attitudes must have had on the home and marital life of a woman who held one of them. Her hostility to her husband and all the misery such hatred implies, we take for granted; but it was the effect on the children that was decisive.

The attitudes inculcated into many modern women since their childhood would make one’s hair stand on end... At least they should. This is what some learned at their mother’s knee: Shame about their bodies and sex; shame about menstruation, and disgust with it; fear of pregnancy and childbirth; scolding and punishment for early and natural sexual feeling and experimentation; destruction and depreciation of the father as an ideal image for the child to love or to emulate. In general, modern women learned early — and too well — to depreciate, despise and even loathe their womanhood in all of its important manifestations.

Most psychiatrists passionately agree with (previously quoted) Dr. Marynia Farnham when she writes:

“The most precise expression of unhappiness is neurosis. The bases for most of this unhappiness ... are laid in the childhood home. The principal instrument of their creation are women.�

. The feminists were, after all, for more and more sexual freedom; Victorian woman was anti-sexual. I feel that is only superficially true. They were both, in their unconscious lives, against feminine sexuality, considering it a “weakness�. It is not possible for woman to be masculine sexually; to advocate that for her is exactly equal to demanding that she be non-sexual.

The depreciation of the goals of femininity, biological and psychological, became part and parcel of the education of millions of American girls. Homemaking, childbearing and rearing, cooking, the virtudes of patience, lovingness, givingness in marriage have been systematically devalued. The life of male achievement has been substituted for the natural life of female achievement.

The feminist-Victorian antagonism toward men has survived too... It has been handed down from mother to daughter in an unbroken line for so many years now that, to millions of women, hostility toward the opposite sex seems (almost) a “natural law�. Though many a modern woman may pay lip service to the ideal of a passionate and productive marriage to a man, underneath she deeply resents her role, conceives of the male as fundamentally hostile to her, as an exploiter of her. She wishes in her deepest heart (and often without the slightest awareness of the fact) to supplant him, to exchange roles with him. She learned this attitude at her mother’s knee or imbibed it with her formula. Little that she learns elsewhere to counteract this will soon be nullified by the great effectivity of the constant (and almost universal) repetition of these destructive statements around her.

Clearly, then, if this is the historical direction women have taken, the individual woman who wishes to become a real Woman must change this direction. This she can to only by taking thought... long thought. For among the women around her she will not find much support for her wish to be entirely feminine.

For over two hundred years now women have blamed their problems on the outside world. They have used the very real difficulties created by revolutionary social changes to avoid the task of looking withing for the real problem and the real solution. They have indulged in an orgy of finger pointing at men and self-pity.
If the results had been different, if this attitude had brought them happiness and fulfillment, if feminism and Victorianism had made them good mothers and joyful wives, or even pleased them with their new place in industry... the game might have been worth the candle. But it hasn’t been. The game has brought frigidity, anxiety, pain and restlessness and a soaring divorce rate, as well as neurosis, homosexuality, juvenile delinquency... All that results when the woman in any society deserts ther true womanly function.

Seeing one’s own responsibility in a situation is often difficult. However, in this problem, not to take the blame is even more difficult. It means — and has meant for millions — that one commits sexual suicide by embracing emotional isolationism as if it were the proper condition for womankind.

The change depends on the effort each woman makes to acknowledge both her errors as her true role... as a Woman.

Women can get rid of this neurosis by accepting, once again, the role of men as their leaders and protector in a loving d/s [dominant/submissive] relationship.


Times viewed:2537

interact read comments add to favorites email article

writer seems to be feminist. you guys should read this wonderfull article.


War of the Sexes
Gita Roy June 18, 2006
Tags: feminism , gender issues

When one contrasts the truly feminine — and healthy — woman with the neurotic (totally or parcially frigid, filled with anxiety, stress, etc.) woman of today, certain questions come to mind at once. Why, for example, are there so many neurotic women today? Have millions of women always been this way, or is it a problem of our times only? Why — if being feminine can be so pleasant — do some women hold onto their neurosis though they know they can get help for it?

To answer these questions in part or in whole, you will first have to know a little history. For, though every case of neurosis represents a psychological problem in the individual, we have found that, sociologically speaking, neurosis is rooted in certain destructive events that have occurred to woman in the past two hundred years. If you grasp them you will begin to get a picture of the over-all problem that has beset woman, of how she lost her direction, her sense of self, and what she must do to find them again.

The history I am going to tell you about is the history of a war... a bitter and destructive war. It is often called “The War between Men and Women.� For far too many women — and men too — it is still going on.

It began toward the end of the eighteenth century, and the apparently innocent event that started it all was the invention of the steam engine, that ushered in the modern age. It seems hard to believe now that this — almost outdated — means of creating power could have been so important... but it was. It launched the so called “Industrial Revolution�, which was to change the whole fabric of society, our ways of doing things and making things, our living quarters and our living standards, our morals, religion, art... name it and you will find that the Industrial Revolution has turned it upside down and inside out.

Most of all, and most tragically, it changed the home. It would be more accurate, if somewhat bleaker, to say that it destroyed the home; at least as home was nown up to that time.

But let me tell you what home was like before the Industrial Revolution, for when you see that you will begain to discern the outlines of the great tragedy that happened to woman when the old-fashioned family home ceased to exist...
In that era our society was almost entirely rural and agricultural. In other words, most homes were farms. There were cities and some industry, of course, but where industries existed they were almost entirely home industries run by individual families.

Home, then, was, almost without exception, the center of all life, economic, social, and educational. Everything was produced at home. There were simply no stores in which to buy anything.

Woman’s place in this early family home was indisputably at the very center, a faithful, equal partner with her husband in all the manifold duties, responsibilities, joys, hopes, and fears of the entire household. Her work was heavy and constant; she cooked the food her husband had grown, wove the cloth, fashioned and made the clothes for the entire family. She cleaned and she swept, washed, and ironed from morning till night.

Children, as soon as they were old enough, lightened her labors, but she was responsible for their education (public schools had never been heard of), which was not just a matter of teaching them the three R’s but of inculcating in them all that she knew of the multitude of arts, crafts, and techniques it took to run such a home.

Her reward for all this was the fact that she was needed, loved, held in the highest esteem by her husband and her whole family. if she failed in her duties or if she died, it would be not merely a sad, inconvenient event for the family... it would be a disaster! For the activities of the distaff side, although different from those of the male, were of equal importance.

From what we can gather, even the concept of frigidity in marriage was unknown to that woman. Love, home, work, were a unified and profoundly satisfying experience on all levels. As a woman she was profoundly needed, and as a woman reared to respond to this need she had no single occasion to question her worth or her abilities.

And then one by one, slowly but surely, her responsibilities and her duties were removed from her; her close and equal working relationship with her husband was destroyed; her importance to her children was diminished sadly.

The new machines began to take over, to displace all those things that had been done by hand. Transportation, via the new Iron Horse, developed, and trade between sections that were once remote from one another was made possible. A man could make more money than he had ever dreamed of it he could supply a need of some group or community.

And so industry in the sense that we know it today started with a rush. Factories sprang up, and they needed men to run them. Now husbands who but recently had worked at home, hand in hand and side by side with their wives, labored outside the home, developed lives that were independent — to some extent — of the home’s activities and concerns..

It happened slowly, very slowly, over generations, in fact and the full results of the Industrial Revolution were not felt fully until this century. At first, so gradual was the process that only a few women, scattered here and there, felt the impact of the change. But as time passed and the process extended, more and more families were drawn into the vortex of industrialization, and at length it had changed the lives of every individual in the land.

Very slowly, too, but everywhere, women woke as if from a centuries-old dream of peace and happiness to find themselves dispossessed. Gone was their central place in the family home, gone their economic importance, gone their close working partnership with their mate, their functions of teacher and moral guide to the children... The children themselves were gone, to school, as the husband had gone to the mill or factory.

Yes. She was dispossessed of all those things that for centuries had defined her womanhood for her, that had supported her ego, given her the certain knowledge that being a woman, however hard, was a wonderous and most desirable thing. She felt her womanhood itself devalued, the things it represented unwanted.
And then... she reacted. She reacted violently and with rage at this depreciation of her feminine attributes, of her skills, of her functions. Unhappily this reaction was precisely the wrong one... the one from which no solution of a happy kind for her could be attained.

Looking about, she thought she spied a villain in the piece. Who was it? None other than her partner throung the centuries: Man. According to her, it was he who had deserted her, who was responsible for her loss of self-respect as a woman, a mother, an equal socially and mentally and morally. Surely men despised women. Very well! She would show them! She would simply stop being a woman. She would compete with them on their own level. To hell with being a woman! She would be... a man!

You don’t believe it? It seems too farfetched? Women — as a sex — would never have made such a decision? Well, let’s look a little more closely at some of the facts...

What did the Feminist Movement really want to achieve? Let me quote to you what two profound students of feminism, Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia F. Farnham, had to say about it in their book “Modern Women, The Lost Sex�:

“Far from being a Movement for the greater self-realization of women, as it professed to be, Feminism was the very negation of femaleness. Although hostile to men and hostile to children, it was at bottom most hostile to women. It bade women commit suicide as women and attempt to live as men... Psychologically, Feminism had a single objective: the achievement to maleness by the female, or the nearest possible approach to it. In so far as it was attained, it spelled only vast individual suffering for men as well as women, and much public disorder.�

What was the program of the Feminists? Actually Mary Wollstonecraft had enunciated it in its entirety in her book “A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women� and the Feminist Movement never deviated from her original demands. She had stated that men and women were, in all fundamental characteristics, identical, and that therefore women should receive the same education as men, be governed by the same moral standards, do the same work, and have identical political rights and duties. Women were to be treated exactly as men in every detail of living, and the same demands were to be made on them.

The appeal of this program was enormous. Nineteenth-century woman felt: “Ah, if we could only achieve this, then we would be happy once again.� The fact — and it’s a dreadfully simple one to see — is that now, indeed, the entire program has been realized and modern woman, having reaped the “benefits� of it in full, is more confused, perhaps even unhappier, than ever.

In so far as the feminist Movement pitted itself against the male, and at the same time advised woman to masculinize herself or divest herself of her feminine nature, it was dreadfully neurotic, and we have been reaping the whirlwind this movement started ever since.

The rage of the Feminist was directed against herself... We know, for example, that to fulfill herself biologically — that is, to give birth to children — a woman must heve security, the protection of the male, a permanent abode. Marriage has been society’s answer to this feminine need from time inmemorial. But the feminists pitted themselves against the institution of marriage. Woman — they held — had the right, even as men did, to be promiscuous sexualty, to live with whom she peased, for as long or as short a time as she pleased. If she wished to get married she should be able to do so, but she should also have the privilege of terminating this marriage when she wished to, when she tired of it.

We know, too, that maternal love for children, particularly love of her own children, is one of the major traits of womankind, as typical of her a her female anatomy. We know that only the very sickest women, mentally, will desert or neglect their children. Maternality is so deeply rooted in the biology of the female sex that its fierce protectiveness can be observed in many animals.

Maternality is a trap, said the Feminists, in effect, a bill of goods sold to women by men in order to keep them enslaved. Children should not be allowed in any way to interfere with the new “freedom� of women. So, advised the Feminists, put your child in the hands of some trained child handler or handlers. Public nurseries were advocated, pre-kindergarten groups were advocated; anything that “freed� the mother was advocated.

Freed the mother from her children...? For what...? To work in offices and factories as the men did, of course. To substitute boss for husband, to share the “privilege� of being hired or fired; to be, in short, men.

If space allowed I could continue with a long and circumstantial list of masculine goals which the feminists advocated. And I could give an equally long list of goals which ignored or denied the existence of feminine characteristics in womankind. Very few of the early feminists actually lived in the manner they prescribed... but it was as clear as crystal that they ardently desired to.

But here is the important thing to remember: The Feminist credo thoroughly discredited truly feminine needs and characteristics and substituted male goals for female goals. There weren’t so many feminists in actual numbers, but those there were, were incredibly vocal, and in the end their ideals and beliefs became the ideals and beliefs of millions of women.

This, then, is the heritage of woman today: On the one hand, from Victorian woman, a profound belief that she is and should be non-sexual, frigid, by natural law. On the other hand, from the feminists, that man is woman’s natural enemy, that she should drop her feminity altogether, oppose man, supersede him, become him.

Please stop for a moment now to think what effect either of these two attitudes must have had on the home and marital life of a woman who held one of them. Her hostility to her husband and all the misery such hatred implies, we take for granted; but it was the effect on the children that was decisive.

The attitudes inculcated into many modern women since their childhood would make one’s hair stand on end... At least they should. This is what some learned at their mother’s knee: Shame about their bodies and sex; shame about menstruation, and disgust with it; fear of pregnancy and childbirth; scolding and punishment for early and natural sexual feeling and experimentation; destruction and depreciation of the father as an ideal image for the child to love or to emulate. In general, modern women learned early — and too well — to depreciate, despise and even loathe their womanhood in all of its important manifestations.

Most psychiatrists passionately agree with (previously quoted) Dr. Marynia Farnham when she writes:

“The most precise expression of unhappiness is neurosis. The bases for most of this unhappiness ... are laid in the childhood home. The principal instrument of their creation are women.�

. The feminists were, after all, for more and more sexual freedom; Victorian woman was anti-sexual. I feel that is only superficially true. They were both, in their unconscious lives, against feminine sexuality, considering it a “weakness�. It is not possible for woman to be masculine sexually; to advocate that for her is exactly equal to demanding that she be non-sexual.

The depreciation of the goals of femininity, biological and psychological, became part and parcel of the education of millions of American girls. Homemaking, childbearing and rearing, cooking, the virtudes of patience, lovingness, givingness in marriage have been systematically devalued. The life of male achievement has been substituted for the natural life of female achievement.

The feminist-Victorian antagonism toward men has survived too... It has been handed down from mother to daughter in an unbroken line for so many years now that, to millions of women, hostility toward the opposite sex seems (almost) a “natural law�. Though many a modern woman may pay lip service to the ideal of a passionate and productive marriage to a man, underneath she deeply resents her role, conceives of the male as fundamentally hostile to her, as an exploiter of her. She wishes in her deepest heart (and often without the slightest awareness of the fact) to supplant him, to exchange roles with him. She learned this attitude at her mother’s knee or imbibed it with her formula. Little that she learns elsewhere to counteract this will soon be nullified by the great effectivity of the constant (and almost universal) repetition of these destructive statements around her.

Clearly, then, if this is the historical direction women have taken, the individual woman who wishes to become a real Woman must change this direction. This she can to only by taking thought... long thought. For among the women around her she will not find much support for her wish to be entirely feminine.

For over two hundred years now women have blamed their problems on the outside world. They have used the very real difficulties created by revolutionary social changes to avoid the task of looking withing for the real problem and the real solution. They have indulged in an orgy of finger pointing at men and self-pity.
If the results had been different, if this attitude had brought them happiness and fulfillment, if feminism and Victorianism had made them good mothers and joyful wives, or even pleased them with their new place in industry... the game might have been worth the candle. But it hasn’t been. The game has brought frigidity, anxiety, pain and restlessness and a soaring divorce rate, as well as neurosis, homosexuality, juvenile delinquency... All that results when the woman in any society deserts ther true womanly function.

Seeing one’s own responsibility in a situation is often difficult. However, in this problem, not to take the blame is even more difficult. It means — and has meant for millions — that one commits sexual suicide by embracing emotional isolationism as if it were the proper condition for womankind.

The change depends on the effort each woman makes to acknowledge both her errors as her true role... as a Woman.

Women can get rid of this neurosis by accepting, once again, the role of men as their leaders and protector in a loving d/s [dominant/submissive] relationship.


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[i had mistakenly posted my comment in ur article `sex and pakistan`.Though whatever i have said is equely true of all your article.i find most of your articles superficial and ridiculous.]
very well written but highly superficial and simplistic in both its content and analysis.you are perhaps so confident in thinking that whatever `today``s women think is right regardless of what its intellectual creditablity is.between the lines you have condemned islamic values by associating it with mullahism.you have a very poor understaing of islam and its devolopment throughout the history.islam is a civilization not an ideaolgy but a civiliztion is capable of producing innumerable ideaologies differing with eachother both in content and essence.you can not analyse civilizations an ideaologies with this kind of superficial analysis.structures of civilizations are incrediably complicated which is impossible to comprehend without the help of indepth analysis of philosophical systems and 20th centuary philosophical movements.civiliztion itself is an evidence of human behaviours n conducts.sometimes civilizatons can take different forms by resisting other civilizations and abstarct ideaologies.you just seem to be completly unaware of the basic methods of social analysis.As for as islam is concerned one has to understand it as a whole.its not a misogynistic religon by any means though it instists on some sort of basic moralities which can be understood by psychological methods not by logical[u dont know even logic].i can refute your pseudo analysis in one article.but i wont coz i know u r unawre of philosophical thinking and methods.just try to see things with proper methodologies rather than doing it with qoutations n superficial articles of newspapers.i m doing phd in philosophy[from germany,i m not very well up in englis[.so i m superficial in english[LoL].

The writer seems adamantly against parents teaching their children the Quran and suggesting that doing so would condition young girls to restrain their sexual impulses. Hello, anyone, is that a bad thing? Or should we all be doing the contrary, teaching our children to explore every sexual impulse that hits them, in an appropriate way or not.

Islam, and the Quran, teach sexual restraint when it is inappropriate. Between a husband and wife, its no holds barred. You can swing off the ceiling and live out every down and dirty fantasy possible. Considering how sexually restrictive Christianity is and always has been, Islam was a liberating force (albeit everything in moderation) sexually. Today anyone practicing self restrait sexually, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jew, is characterized as being oppressed by individuals like this writer. Its sad that we`ve come to a point in time that sexual restraint is considered a vice instead of a virtue.

To the writer, good luck with your childen. You may want to see your daughters in tube tops and your sons experimenting but why curse the innocent -- may they defy you and practice sexual restraint.

An interesting article and it raises some valid points but I get the impression religion is blamed for much of the misunderstandings between generations. As it`s already been said the case of parents pulling in the reigns and trying to hold on to the old way of life is true not just for ex-pats; this is to some extent true in every society, people always feel that today`s children are wilder than they ever were or that morals are dying out. Perhaps it`s true.

In my view, religions actually hold many of the answers. Islam teaches us to learn and to be educated. It doesn`t tell us what we are allowed to learn, there are no limits on expanding your horizons. The boundaries are constructed in the way religion is interpreted and how it is applied. When I was growing up in the Uk the majority of Islamic teachers were people who had learnt Islam in Madrassas back home, many of these were in small villages in the backwaters. They tried to teach the Islam as practised in villages across Pakistan etc. None of these teachers understood their pupils or the problems and issues that were facing them. Growing up I never quite knew who I was - was I British, Pakistani, Muslim? I liked bits of one way of life and bits of another. What we have a growing number of in the UK now, is Muslim teachers who have themselves grown up here and can teach Islam as it applies to the lives of British Muslims of Asian origin. This is what we need more of.

There is also the other important issue raised in the article of how parents fail to communicate with their children but instead pack them off to learn the Quran. Teachers can not be held responsible for teaching everything, parents have to take responsibilty for the values that their children are taught especially early in life. If these values are imparted in a mature and honest way they will become morals that the next generation will hold on to because they understand them and want to live their lives by them.

I agree with the conclusion though that all faiths should come together and see that much of the issues facing them run across the board. I wont hold my breath though.

zahida

Re: plats 8:
When we say that men and women have equal rights over each other then that does mean that men are as much forbidden to cheat on their wives as women are on their husbands. Adultery is considered a crime in both cases.


raza

very nice article........i think the among the immigrants, the young will agree with this.......the adults here are living in contradictions......and that leaves the youth with very confused identity........these auldts can`t accept nor deny the reality they and their children live in..........wake up!

Sorry, previous post should read
``no sane human being will DENY that difference and inequality are separate issues``

razzz #141

I will ask you again. Please point out (explicitly) the logical inconsistency of my
statement that role-reversed men and women. Why shouldn`t righteous men be
devoutly obedient and not sleep around when their wife isn`t there ? Why cannot
a woman admonish her husband for being disloyal, then refuse to share his bed
and then beat him lightly ?

I`m being gracious here and presuming that the beating is figurative and not literal.
Women are not biologically incapable of these actions, unlike the ``having babies`` bit
you mention.

Indulge me, please. Statements like ``Being different and being unequal are entirely separate issues`` ( no sane human being will claim that difference and inequality are separate issues) or making unsubstantiated statements about my deficient
mental capacity is not going to do it.

Re plats8:
Quite an illogical inference.......the way you came up with that interpretation. If you use the same mental capabilities which you seem to have applied in this case, the next step you would take is interpret all the feminist work about men being equal to women as

``Men should have babies from now on.``

Point to note`` Assigning different roles does not imply that one is being degraded or being declared unequal to the other.`` Being different and being unequal are entirely separate issues.


cheers
raza

Razzz #139,

Somehow, your highlighting ``intellectuals`` reminds me of BJP-walas calling anyone
who disagrees with them ``Pseudo-secular`` - an extremely convenient strawman construction, played to an appropriate gallery.

For someone who is not a Muslim, am I to assume that
``Women have similar rights over men as men have over women.`` (2 : 228) implies that

`` Therefore the righteous MEN are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the WIFE`s) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those MEN on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); ``

On a different note, what makes you think that the American society is atheistic ? In my experience, this is a fairly god/religion-obsessed country. If American society is immoral in your estimate, it surely isn`t due to lack of religion in public life. The issue is that presence of moral values has nothing to do with presence of religion in private life. The correlation is even weaker when one talks about societies in general.

Logic should be advocated by those who examine the issue rationally.....and that sometimes applies reading things in their proper contexts..........A sentence reproduced without its proper context can mean a totally different thing cant it. But over here on chowk all people do is to pick out on sentences and discuss them then an issue at hand. Just rteflects on the narrow mindedness of the supposed INTELLECTUALS.
Try reading the whole Quran without any biases before commenting on it.
For your benefit there are a couple of ayat which shows how untrue your beliefs are.

``Women have similar rights over men as men have over women.`` (2 : 228)


``Believers men & women are friends to one another (Wali), they enjoin right, forbid wrong, establish Salat, pay Zakat ,obey Allah & His Prophet`` (9 : 71)


cheers
raza


P.S thats why i say read the whole thing before commenting on it.

Re plats8:
i am not saying that atheism promotes an un moral attitude but it certainly is not a shining example of morality either......is the american society a beacon of morality ?????....which the author wants the immigrants to blindly follow.....so look at both side of the picture over here.

cheers
raza

Razzz #136,

The only way you cannot detect gender inequity in this translation is if
you choose not to see it. Now, religion is non-falsifiable and all that, and you
can choose to believe whatever you want, but do not try to put a veneer of
logic on it - it simply doesn`t fly.

On a related note, morality does not need to have religious crutches. Growing
up in a functionally atheist environment does not make one less moral. I am
yet to find a religious belief system that adds moral parameters that we don`t
have already.

Re: Manto
The actual translation is given below and please dont tell me you couldnt find a single muslims scholars`s commentry on quran from the 1 billion muslims which inhabit this earth. whats with the fascination with the west, that nothing can be accepted without the western approval and you have to quote them rather then a muslim scholar. The link to the side is given below for your benefit so you could check it yourself. I hope you understand what difference does quoting in the RIGHT context means....

http://faridi.net/quran/?chapter=4

http://www.al-nasir.com/DivineIslam/Quran/iqra.php

(these are two of the most respect translations of QURAN )

4:34 Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband`s) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).


Now if men by virtue of their being physically stronger are appointed as protectors of women does it make them superior over women. Does a policeman become more IMPORTANT then us if he is assigned to protect us. Equality and designation of different roles is not the same thing. So keep your BIASED prospective to yourself.

cheers
raza

P.S.
I meant thes and not thek.

Aamir:
``The rules for marriage in Islam are pretty clear, as far as I know. Rahee baat brownie points ki, Islam is unequivocal on that; there is no compulsion in religion and you cannot coerce someone to convert to Islam, even through marriage.

Aap se aisi baat sun ke maayusi huee.``

Aap ke jazbaat ko thek pahunchaane keliye muaafi-shuda hoon!
To err is human and, in that respect, I am the most-human human, especially since I have a low recall factor. My understanding of the rules of marriage are:
-a muslim man can marry an ahle-kitaab non-muslim, without the woman converting, as long as the children will be raised as muslims;
-a muslim woman cannot marry a non-muslim man unless he first converts to islam.
Please tell me if this understanding is correct.

As for conversion, I am well-aware of the ayat you quoted. Notwithstanding this ayat, I have read (don`t remember, where!) that there are four approved ways of expansion of dar-ul-islam into dar-ul-harb, namely, persuasion, marriage, jehad and a fourth one that I cant remember right now.
I would appreciate it if you could correct me where my understanding is wrong so that I dont repeat the mistake.
Thanks.

razzz,

Here is another perspective for your benefit... it is by Godot a respected writer on this website... I am not saying you are right or wrong, I am merely letting you know that there are other perspectives out there..

#90 by godot on August 16, 2003 7:09am PT

QURAN 4:34

Re: Manto and Q4:34

Manto, with reference to Quran 4:34, please allow me...

First, the actual translation...

“Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God’s guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; God is All-high, All-great.” (Q4:34)

The following is a commentary on that verse from Michael Cook, a scholar at Princeton University. It is his book “The Koran: A Very Short Introduction”, from which the following is quoted.

“[T]here was room for a variety of interpretaion of this verse in the traditional Islamic world. But two things are hard to deny: the verse endorses male dominance, and it sanctions it by according to the husband a right, among other things, to beat a rebellious wife. Male dominance was far from being a novelty in monotheist scripture. The God of Genesis tells the woman ‘thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee’ (Gen. 3:16); while the New Testament lays down that a woman should ‘learn in silence with all subjection’ (iTim. 2:11) – a counsel no longer much observed in modern secular education. Beating a wife, however, was new to scripture – though not, of course, to society...the main concern of the traditional commentators was to distinguish legitimate physical punishment from assult and battery; but what to them was common sense is to modern ears outrageous.

“Once the principle is established, all commentators are concerned to emphasize the limits to the husband’s right to beat his wife – limits which they find set out in traditional Muslim literature. They stress, for example, that exercising this right is a last resort. Maghniyya states with some exaggeration that all the traditional scholars agree that it is better not to beat one’s wife. Qutb in a strongly worded passage avers that there is no license in the verse for treating a woman like a chained dog; if Muslims have behaved in such a way, this represents the degradation of their customs, not the will of their God.

“[I]t is apparent that the modern commentators divide into two broad groups. Commentators in the first group tend to be strongly affected by the relevant Western value, and on occasion to bend their scripture to meet it. These are the Islamic modernists in the tradition of Muhammad Abduh. Commentators in the second group brace themselves against the pull of the Western value, and make a point of not bending scripture to accommodate it. These are the Islamic fundamentalists of recent decades. The first group has more of a tendency to swim with the Western tide, the second to go against it; but both groups are actually aware of it.

“We can also discern a significant change over time. Schematically, the traditional commentators are followed by the modernists, who in turn are followed by the fundamentalists. One implication of this is that the fundamentalists are twice removed from their traditional forebears. Moreover, the Western values they confront are not just current fads, but integral components of the world the human race is likely to live in for some time to come. These considerations suggest that the present strength of the fundamentalist interpretaion of scripture in the Islamic world may not represent a stable equilibrium.”

Further, to quote another passage from the above book, “[The] mixed signals may remind us of the language of the declaration on family life which was adopted by the Southern Baptists in 1998. A wife, according to the this document, is to ‘submit graciously’ to her husband’s authority. And yet this authority is referred to by the ambivalent phrase ‘servant leadership’, and in the next breath the wife is said to be ‘equal to’ her husband.”

RE saminasha:
Ok according to you i might not have been able to conclusively prove that quran is not anti women.....but tell me does that make your calling it anti women believable just on your word......without any evidence to back it up......NONE whatsovever that is. In the eyes of any sane individual it wouldnt. Just saying one thing because of your own biased perception doesnt make it true....so next time when you pass a certain value judgement back it up with something........dont make tall claims about something of which you have no clue.
As for my quoting from the bible........lady if you dont have a weak eyesight you should be able to see those are followed by ayah`s from QURAN which do show the EQUAL...and i do mean EQUAL status given to women in QURAN........so get out of your complexes and the need to prove that you are a modernist and try to take an unbiased approach over here.
As for the point you are trying to prove over here.......well why do you forget that in most of the world religious text does tend to become a part of one`s social life.......you cannot stop religion from incorporating some aspect of your life....and tell me one RELIGION in this world in which morality is based upon the wrong principles....be it hinduism, judaism, christian and Islam.
Do any of these religions have the wrong concept of RIGHT and WRONG......whats the harm in applying the principles of these religions in one`s life in THIS century ? As for the children seeing their parents behave.....what do you expect immigrants from south asia to do...........change their social life and their culture over night and mould it to the western model.........Any rational person would realize that its quite difficult to do that in such a short span. How can a person who has grown up in a bit more traditional society like south asians suddenly embrace the concept of teen dating and no sexual repression for her/his kids when he/her themselves have been brought up on an entirely different set of values.

Not everyone is frustrated with his childhood experiences i guess.

cheers
raza

Mittar-jee,


``And in case of Muslims, a Muslim man marrying a non-Muslim woman is not even breaking any religious rules, he may actually gain some browny paints in ``aakhrit`` as marriage is one of the four recommended forms of expanidng dar-ul-Islam.``

Where did you read this, Mittar-jee? The rules for marriage in Islam are pretty clear, as far as I know. Rahee baat brownie points ki, Islam is unequivocal on that; there is no compulsion in religion and you cannot coerce someone to convert to Islam, even through marriage.

Aap se aisi baat sun ke maayusi huee.

lol saima shah... looks like p-mishra, by his actions, has now convinced you of the two nation theory... It is the arrogance, superiority complex and an air of self righteousness that P-mishra has exhibited is what is the real cause of the division amongst the Brown man.

Keep up the good work Saima... your article has been well received where it was meant to... I hope we have more like you amongst the Pakistani diaspora, and maybe the Pakistani diaspora would amount to something...

-Manto

Saima shah

Fair enough. May be I did not understand your points because you did not explain them to me very well. On the other hand you blamed my misunderstanding on my maddrassah education. regretfully I have never been to a madrassah. I am a twinkling little star of the baba black sheep education system:)

re razz

My name is Saima Shah--let`s get that clear please.

Also, I dont see why you are blocking up the replies with quotes from the bible? surely a good muslim like you doesnt need to resort to the bible to prove your point? the Quran should be enough?

In any case you cannot prove the point that the Quran is not anti-women--I see that you are down to proving that the bible is more anti-women than the Quran. I dont know how that is relevant to my article--where I talk about how teaching children Quranic morality is a bit inappropriate since it wont teach them the morality you would ideally want--all it will teach them is that women are somehow a little inferior and that a good woman listens to the man. Or even worse develop a hatred of their identity or other kafirs visavis 9-11. Nowhere have I recommended that children should read the bible as an alternative to the Quran. If anything I find all these monotheistic religious texts a bit tiresome...now I suppose you will post the bhagvat Gita? My point was and I think you must have got it but it challenged your assumptions too much--to my mind, morality isnt in the books, it is in how children see their parents behave regarding questions of right and wrong.

re: Pmishra2
I completely agree with you--muslims should not try to co opt any of the other communities. I changed my mind--I thought they should because of the common values and culture--but you have proved the realists right--the petty divisions, prejudice and hatred in the brown man is too deep. You can feel superior and dismiss the Muslim immigrant, but fact is he of all the others has the balls to fight a different civilization--whether rightly or wrongly.

Urstruly;

If you want to talk about the horrors of Western civilization--go ahead. It is obvious to me that your comments have nothing to do with my article anymore so I shall ignore them.
Nowhere in my article or replies have I said the things u seem to read into it. You are welcome to pass judgement on a society that is sexually open and imagine what you will. If you think that the way Pakistani parents teach their children will be successful in this century, you are welcome to that belief. You keep skirting the point I made over and over again in this article and the replies..that the methods that parents use, the style and the assumptions they make are inappropriate. I have not told you or anybody else that the way children are brought up with in western homes is better, the best or anything else.

Re Saminasha:
and you say Quran is Anti WOMEN.......next time dont pass value judgements until you know where you are speaking from.

1. The Bible Convicts Women as the original Sinners, (i.e. Eve picking from the forbidden tree){Genesis 2:4-3:24}. The Quraan Clarifies it was Adam Not Eve {Quraan 7:19-25}

2. The Bible says, ``The Birth of a Daughter is a loss`` {Ecclesiasticus 22:3}. The Quraan says both are an Equal Blessing {Quraan 42:49}

3. The Bible Forbids Women from Speaking in church {I Corinthians 14:34-35}. The Quraan says Women Can argue with the Prophet {58:1}

4. In the Bible, divorced Women are Labeled as an Adulteress, while men are not {Matthew 5:31-32}. The Quraan does Not have Biblical double standards {Quraan 30:21}

5. In The Bible, Widows and Sisters do Not Inherit Any Property or Wealth, Only men do {Numbers 27:1-11} The Quraan Abolished this male greediness {Quraan 4:22} and God Protects All.

6. The Bible Allows Multiple Wives {I Kings 11:3} In The Quraan, God limits the number to 4 only under certain situations (with the Wife`s permission) and Prefers you Marry Only One Wife {Quraan 4:3} The Quraan gives the Woman the Right to Choose who to Marry.

7. ``If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl`s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives`` {Deuteronomy 22:28-30}

One must ask a simple question here, who is really punished, the man who raped the woman or the woman who was raped? According to the Bible, you have to spend the Rest of Your Life with the man who Raped You.

The Prophet Muhammad Says {Volume 9, Book 86, Number 101} Narrated by Aisha:`` It is essential to have the consent of a virgin (for the marriage)``.

#122 SaimaShah

You are welcome to your beliefs. I am merely stating facts that are well known. I realize that facts are counter to your agenda of co-opting us brown people. My statements have nothing to do with my feeling better. They have to do with informing you that the sun does rise in the east and there is a difference between night and day. You are free to ignore all such statements.

BTW, I forgot to comment on Indian christians and parsees. They have the highest rate of literacy for women in India for any community. They are much more freer from these problems of suppressing their women. So please don`t patronize them either.

In general, post-9/11 there has been a great flow of ``love`` from predominantly muslim leaders and commentators towards the rest of us brown folk. The general idea is pretty clear: somehow or the other entangle the authoritarian and regressive islamic traditions with broader third-world issues. But these guys never acknowledge that there are some intrinsic problems with authoritarian and regressive islamic traditions which muslims should address vigorously and change.

Until that happens, don`t bother including us in your ``ummah``.

Saima Shah

…………… A child of six should not be made to feel guilty about a change in the channel--which she may or may not have done. Quite unknowingly I bet. This is early sexualization. Whether the TV is regulated or not is besides the point.

The regulation of TV is the whole thing that there is. The question is why TV is regulated in the first place; because the market demands the regulation. And what is market? The market is the parents who purchase the services provided by the TV; and why parents demand regulation; because the content on the TV do not qualify his moral and ethical values which he wants to teach his children. So a parent who is restricting his child to flip thru channels is imposing the self-regulation whereas a parent who demands a mass regulation is doing the same thing but differently because he may feel that he cannot supervise his children all the time. But since the parent who is doing it at individual level and he happens to be a non-white Muslim therefore he must be wrong according to your standards.

If we extend this argument further, we know that the Muslim ethical and moral values do not approve of unbridled sexuality. That is the reason Islam closes the doors to all sensuality as well. If sexuality is the fire then sensuality is the fuel that feeds it.

The question is why we have to jump blindly and knowingly into the bottomless pit where Westerners find themselves fallen into. I never understood what purpose it fills to let children experience their sexuality. To gain experience? Gain experience to do what? And by the way how many sexual experiences a child must have before he becomes an experienced lover? Two? Ten? Fifty? And how many abortions a preteen should have before she may be considered an experienced lover? Two? Ten? Fifty?

The fact of the matter is that the unbridled and uninhibited sexuality breaks down the social and family structure. It creates apathy, distrust, contempt, and insolence for the opposite sex- as we see it everyday here in Western society. West has no option because they have lost the innocence of their children but we still have the option.

But here you and me disagree. Because you and me subscribe to different set of moral and ethical values. What I perceive as a bottomless pit is a zenith of human development for you. That is the chasm my friend. The chasm.

The chasm is in your mind--you can bridge it if you try to be less suspicious of what the other person is saying. This has little to do white, brown or black men. It is about our fear and suspicion of our own children. It isn`t fair on them.

Yes, so you see that the chasm really is in our mind; what I perceive as confines of abyss is a liberating experience for you. It has nothing to do with suspicion. The results of what you propose are out there for everyone to see in this society. But how we interpret those results is different for you and me.

btw, I sang no hymns of praise for anybody. I admired a writer and quoted Socrates`s ideas perhaps to start a dialogue on values, culture and what is worth preserving. Tomorrow I may quote Rumi--will you accuse me of singing the praises of brown man?

I was referring to your last post addressed to me.

Whether a writer was white or off-white is besides the point. Race purity for me is not a value--quite obviously some people think otherwise.

Yes the color is beside the point; the point is the values. The Western values just happen to be white values; otherwise Philipinos and people of Bangkok also practice Western values but they are not white. However, in sub-continent at least some people do think that white man can never do anything wrong. I am addressing only those people.

Thank you, these replies provide me the additional evidence of just why the Third world is the third world. Coz their values are third rate.

Here you said it. This is the evidence of the chasm, schism, and the great divide. See? It is all in our heads.

Your accusations disappointed me. I guess I expected some fair criticism.

Fair criticism? What kind of animal is that? Where it is found?

SaimaShah:
`` I personally know three cases where the Muslims were able to accept the Hindu, but the Hindu never accepted the Muslim.``
Just out of curiosity, did any of these cases involve a Muslim girl and a non-converting Hindu? I am asking this question because, as I had said in an earlier post, there is a great gender bias in the matters relating to inter-religious marriages. And in case of Muslims, a Muslim man marrying a non-Muslim woman is not even breaking any religious rules, he may actually gain some browny paints in ``aakhrit`` as marriage is one of the four recommended forms of expanidng dar-ul-Islam.

119 by pmishra2 on August 11, 2003 5:52pm PT
[quote]
But no, the Muslims sit in a huff in a Masjid, the Christians in the Churches, the Hindus stay in the Mandirs and the Sikhs stay bound to the Gurdwara.
[end-quote]

But the facts don`t support you. It is very well known that achievement and relative social emancipation among Indians is considerably further ahead than Pakis and Bangladeshis. Further, and lets be blunt here, that sikhs and hindus have considerably fewer difficulties in assimilating that muslims. There are plenty of surveys to back this up.

So don`t bother to co-opt the rest of us ``brown folk``. Instead try to focus on the core of your problems.

---

Now that you have made yourself feel better--it is a `Muslim` problem, not yours after all. I agree that in many socially obvious ways--clothes, names lifestyles Hindus and Sikhs absorb local culture better--Can I also tell you, that even though the Sikhs, the Hindus are in your opinion so such better at assimilation--the brown part of BC has the highest crime rates--the greatest number of false insurance claims made are by the assimilated and emancipated Hindus and Sikhs. So, you are better at getting along and seeming to tolerate others--what about the fact that in a mixed marriage, it is the Hindu parents who create the biggest fuss, who NEVER acknowledge the marriage. I personally know three cases where the Muslims were able to accept the Hindu, but the Hindu never accepted the Muslim. What do you call that? emancipation?

People in glass houses shouldnt throw stones.

re:#114
Urstruly--

Sorry to read your response. You obviously misunderstand or are very authoritarian in your outlook and therefore dont see the point at all. At the age of 6 a child is made to feel shame at an innocent act. A child of six should not be made to feel guilty about a change in the channel--which she may or may not have done. Quite unknowingly I bet. This is early sexualization. Whether the TV is regulated or not is besides the point. IF the parents care what their children watch--why don`t they ban playstation? or endless cartoons which have violence and sometimes very adult themes. Why not reduce the number of channels they receive--instead of making the child cry about something she knows nothing about?

There is a time to explain your cultural values--when a child is ready to understand the issue. At six a child is too immature.

The chasm is in your mind--you can bridge it if you try to be less suspicious of what the other person is saying. This has little to do white, brown or black men. It is about our fear and suspicion of our own children. It isn`t fair on them.

btw, I sang no hymns of praise for anybody. I admired a writer and quoted Socrates`s ideas perhaps to start a dialogue on values, culture and what is worth preserving. Tomorrow I may quote Rumi--will you accuse me of singing the praises of brown man? Whether a writer was white or off-white is besides the point. Race purity for me is not a value--quite obviously some people think otherwise. Thank you, these replies provide me the additional evidence of just why the Third world is the third world. Coz their values are third rate.

Your accusations disappointed me. I guess I expected some fair criticism.

test

Thanks for generously including us all in your lot.

[quote]
But no, the Muslims sit in a huff in a Masjid, the Christians in the Churches, the Hindus stay in the Mandirs and the Sikhs stay bound to the Gurdwara.
[end-quote]

But the facts don`t support you. It is very well known that achievement and relative social emancipation among Indians is considerably further ahead than Pakis and Bangladeshis. Further, and lets be blunt here, that sikhs and hindus have considerably fewer difficulties in assimilating that muslims. There are plenty of surveys to back this up.

So don`t bother to co-opt the rest of us ``brown folk``. Instead try to focus on the core of your problems.

hamidm …

Once again you underestimate the power of shariah … and shortchange the ullema. The word has it … they are aware of limitations of hefty amount of meher money before legitimate sex … and are working hard at developing the concept of muttah.

Multiple partners … prom nights … various uses of tongue on total strangers … all will be a-ok under this proposal. I am not sure if the sunni ullema are ahead of their shia counterparts … or what … but sooner or later, one party will emerge victorious … and will take in hoards of believers sprinting to join their ranks. As for me … I’ll gladly downgrade abu bakr and omar in favor of Ali … or vise versa … and accept that gabriel bungled up by going to mohammed instead of ali. Being dead for over a thousand years … I am sure they will overlook this minor indiscretion on my part.

This mud wrestling with shariah hands us the best of both worlds. Easy sex now … while the goal of 70 virgins in the hereafter remains within reach. Heck … if naqshbandi can have his flying mahdi … urstruly can have his fire-breathing donkey … the rest of the ummah should be able to walk away with the sacred muttah …

So I say … hail to the bearded chief … and let’s go back to reciting the kalima and offering tahajjud…

It`s funny how people pick a few words and get all riled up - if it`s growing up muslim - it must mean all muslims, and therefore all `good` muslims need to stand up defend the concept.

#115 razzz: what are the traditionalist values? I don`t see the author advocating `white` values.

115:razz

[``...............emulate the white man just for the sake of it and to think of everything coming from your religion as being repressive. ..................``]

Sorry razz: it is not the color (race) that is deviant . Just can`t be . very unIslamic, this thought.There is an overwhelming majority of devoutly religious white--and many muslims among them as well.

The desire to regress back to the days of the `glorious` days of the pharoahs et al and take mores & morals to the abyss of milleniums is not exclusive to the white man. These led-astrayed ones are scrambling all-over to go back to pagan days--live in minus-2000years & more. Want to meet Conan & Barbella.

The dream of fascists like Nasser, Asad, Saddam, Mussolini , Raza Shah--just to name a few was to bring back the `glory` days of pre-religion. In Pakistan Mushy-types want the skeletons from the closets of moenjo-daro & harrapa be given preference over the emaciated living.

Atheist communists had put a complete stranglehold on matters spiritual. Closed down mosques, punished the reciters of Qura`an, created a chasm between generations , but look! what triumphed again.

The religious ones are perhaps fanatics but it helps them. No secularist/heathen will ever be able to muster such fanatism....and that is something which wil never alter.

Whoever cherishes Life the most, is never afraid to die. Isn`t sacrifice the true test of Love & devotion. Mothers are universally `notorious` to give up a lot to save their child.


Majority of the population in U.S is mashallah fundamentalist and practising. The turf-war in Canada & other countries on secular/theology hot-issues is really between the Catholics & protestants. These are proxy-wars but in the guise of language (quebec), race (ireland), secularism ( U.S & europe) and sin-industries (everywhere).

The most disturbing thing about this article is that the author in it is as intolerant to the values of the traditionalists as the so called maulvis are to the reforms being proposed by the moderates or the liberals. Whats the use of being so open minded and liberal when your basic aim is to emulate the white man just for the sake of it and to think of everything coming from your religion as being repressive.
cheers
raza

saima shah

And I am shocked that you were shocked of the very obvious. Saima you and I are representatives of two very different people - we stand across the great chasm that has divided our society and this schism is ever widening. That is the reason our perspectives and perceptions are so different.

Take the example of a parent who restricts his children to go to certain TV channels, which you refer to as ``channel fipping`` in your article; you perceive it as the greatest oppression and repression of sexuality of children. Your perception is that those parents who do that are religious fanatics and fundamentalists who are extremely insecure about anything and everything; whereas I perceive them as concerned responsible parents. At the same time when white man invents V-chips and parental controls, and rates the videos, movies, and even video-games to control and restrict the exposure to the children of these things you sing the hymns of praise of white man. wah ji wah kia baat hey goray sahib ki - bachchoN ka khayal rakhna to bas in par khatam hay aur ek hum haiN........

see?