Małgorzata has sent me another gem – a lecture on tv by an Egyptian cleric explaining why men have to beat up women.
Abd Al-Rahman Mansour: Islam instructs a man to beat his wife as a last resort before divorce, so that she will mend her ways, treat him with kindness and respect, and know that her husband has a higher status than her.
That’s usefully blunt. We know where we are. We’re among stupid unreflective people who have not managed to figure out that stronger does not equal better or higher, and that the mere fact that person X is able to beat up person Y does not mean that person X is better than person Y. It’s the morality of street thugs. What do you do if you’re a street thug? You look for people you can take, as opposed to people who can take you. That’s not morality, it’s just engineering.
When ‘Aisha thought ill of the Prophet Muhammad, believing that he did not treat her the same as his other wives, and that when he left her room, he would go to another wife, she followed him and spied on him. ‘Aisha said that when the Prophet found out about this, “He gave me a shove that was painful.”
This was done in order to discipline her, not because the Prophet enjoyed beating or inflicting bodily harm. The Prophet did this in order to discipline this woman.
“Discipline” nothing. He did it to make her knuckle under and let him fuck around the house as much as he liked. She wasn’t as keen on polygamy as he was, so he punched her to force her to do what he wanted.
A good woman, even if beaten by her husband, puts her hand in his and says: “I will not rest until you are pleased with me.” This is how the Prophet Muhammad taught his women to be.
Well of course he did, because it make things so pleasant for him. It’s been making things pleasant for Muslim men ever since.