On a far more intelligent note, there’s Katha Pollitt’s conversation with Wajeha al-Huwaider.
Katha asked
Some Muslim feminists are trying to reinterpret—they would say, correctly interpret—the Koran in a gender-egalitarian way. For instance, they point out the Koran says only that women should dress modestly, not that they need to be swathed from head to toe, or even cover their hair. Do you think there can be a feminist Islam?
The answer is definite:
There is a feminist Islam, mainly led by Muslim women in the West. But they tend to forget that none of the monotheistic religions treat men and women equally, and there’s a limit to what scholarship can do to change that. For example, daughters inherit half what sons inherit. Men are allowed to marry up to four wives. Two female witnesses equal one male. Secular society is a better bet for women—and men too.
There you have it.
Read the whole thing.
Comments
17 responses to “None of the monotheistic religions treat men and women equally”
Monotheism is all about the ultimate pecking order…oppression is what they DO.
If monotheism is compatible with feminism, it’s compatible with ANYTHING.
Brilliant. Thanks for the link.
“they point out the Koran says only that women should dress modestly”
I’d say the moment the law establishes social rules directed specifically to one particular gender, equality jumps off the window. Of course this applies to our society as well.
People understandably find it difficult to accept that the religious tradition that dominates their culture cannot be reformed to reflect their secular values. But it can’t be. It can only be left behind. Morgan Meis: It doesn’t lessen one’s respect for how important the dilemmas of faith have been in human history hitherto to admit that going forward it might be otherwise.
That seems like a rather bold claim. It seems historically that many religions have come and gone and changed over time. The Judaism of today doesn’t much resemble the sacrificial cult of the bible. Is this a “no true Scotsman” argument? Are you arguing that any religious tradition that was reformed to reflect secular values would by definition have been left behind?
There is supposedly some historical evidence that Islam was successful amongst women in Malaysia and Indonesia because it was better for them than the Hinduism that was there before. Of course, that only goes to show how horrendous Hinduism was (and is).
I’m not aware of any major religion,whether monotheistic, polytheistic or non-theistic, that does not discriminate against women in some way or another. It is because they all enshrine the ethos of the time of their founding at least two thousand years ago. Trappings may change, inconvenient practices like large animal sacrifice may have been abandoned but the core remains set in the distant patriarchal past. How many Hasidim will not “make fire” on the sabbath because of a book of moses? How many christians will repress women on the basis of letters forged two thousand years ago? How many honour killings still take place today in hindu India? How many widows were murdered?
The past needs to stay in the past. The only way forward is to leave religion in the past. It cannot help the present or the future.
The problem is that any revealed religion is static – it is hostile to development and change as concepts. From time to time religions have changed – but only when subject to force majeure from outside sources too loud to ignore and too powerful to face down. Even then, they can never admit that what was originally established was wrong – reform must always be (deceitfully) presented as a restoration of lost purity.
@Didactylos
The problem is that any revealed religion is static – it is hostile to development and change as concepts.
Indeed, and this is the single crucial question apparently no religious person dare to ask themselves:
“Why have potent gods (or even stronger: an omnipotent god) chosen to reveal “the truth” at one particular historical time?” Why does not (a) benevolent god(s) reveal truth dynamically ?
And I suspect we agree on the answer as to why this questions is not asked: It is way too powerful in revealing the answer of another question: “Is man made by god(s), or god(s) made by men?”…
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Cassanders said:
They usually answer the question by claiming that their god does reveal truth dynamically but it is in a manner that the people of the time can understand. That way slavery, for example, was okay and moral-ish back in the day and as presented in the bible but isn’t any longer. I think the better phrasing of the question, should they answer that way be: “Then why does holy scripture never come in the form of a three- ring binder?”
That’s such a pathetic “answer.” So generations and generations of slavery were okay and moral-ish until after enough time had passed. Too bad for all the people who lived at the wrong time!
Exactly. Of course it’s easy for someone today to give such an “answer” since they’re unlikely to ever be in danger of having to suffer from the old system.
Religious people may certainly be reformed, but to answer whether religion can be reformed, we have to define what the religion IS. Is it the book? The traditions? Its priesthood hierarchy?
Those who claim any of the big three are “religions of peace” are talking about the religion’s peaceful followers. I don’t think it’s at all reasonable to say that, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to entirely discount them, either. Everyone is going to define the religion differently. Perhaps it would be most reasonable not to treat them as entities for the purposes of discussion, and individually discuss the immoralities of various particular beliefs, practices, traditions, institutions, and so on? It’s wasteful to argue with a Christian who says “no, no, all that genocide isn’t Christianity. I just believe ‘x’” when almost certainly, ‘x’ contains things perfectly silly in their own right.
I think there’s a reason there are lefties calling “new atheists” bigots: they just don’t understand our views. But we aren’t helping them understand when we make sweeping statements about religions in general.
I do not like saying this but the irrational statements of my religious friends (on sexism on reality name it) always come off as sounding like “it is true because mickey mouse told me so”. There are perhaps channels for knowledge outside of my ken (point: am a methodological naturalist), but of such channels I must desist and ask: what weed are they smoking.
@Cassanders:
One of my favourite quotes from Robert Heinlein (put into the mouth of his immortal anti-hero, Lazarus Long; I use it in my signature line on an atheist message board I frequent) is:
“Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child”
I stand honestly corrected. I was, for a long time, one of those atheists who regarded moderate religion as the best counterweight to fundamentalism, and I think it was that delusion to which I was referring, and reading into al-Huwaider’s remarks. But, yes, religions have and will continue to reform with respect to cruelty and oppression.
No monotheistic religion could. Unless God hasn’t a gender, you’re saying something about the way reality is composed if you say a super-magical person of this gender created everything.