The Enforcement of Liberal Conformism

[calamity]

Here is a good representation of women's rights country by country.

Best and Worst Countries for Women, the Full List - The Daily Beast


Any honest poster can see a pattern. Only an extremely dishonest propagandist would try toclaim Islam dominated countries are no different than any other.

Think about this though, as it relates the thread topic--number 147, Saudi Arabia is a major ally of ours. We really screwed up, or consciously ignore our ideals for the sake of convenience. THis is what we did with the Mujaheddin, a truly bipartisan screwing-over of the Afghan women.

 

[calamity]

Doubtful. Islamic radicalization was already under way in the 1970's. And the USSR would likely still exist, a net loss all around.eace

But...we ended up losing. No?

 

[Jack Hays]

But...we ended up losing. No?

That was likely in the cards regardless.eace

 

[Gardener]

Think about this though, as it relates the thread topic--number 147, Saudi Arabia is a major ally of ours. We really screwed up, or consciously ignore our ideals for the sake of convenience. THis is what we did with the Mujaheddin, a truly bipartisan screwing-over of the Afghan women.

This has nothing to do with geopolitics or silly partisanshap. It has to do with cultures, ideology,women's rights, and perceptions.

 

[calamity]

This has nothing to do with geopolitics or silly partisanshap. It has to do with cultures, ideology,women's rights, and perceptions.

And us making allies of countries and/or warlords which are truly enemies of women's rights.

 

[Jack Hays]

And us making allies of countries and/or warlords which are truly enemies of women's rights.

"I don't hold America responsible for the largely oppressive governments in the 22 Arab countries. There are repressive Arab governments that are our allies and there are those that are our nominal enemies. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference to what extent we're involved in propping up those governments."
Lawrence Wright

 

[Gardener]

And us making allies of countries and/or warlords which are truly enemies of women's rights.

You seem more interested in finger pointing than the actual subject of this thread,which has to do with the conformity of opinion in our universities.

I haven't seen anybody here claiming that we should be supporting Saudi Arabia or Tchad, or Somalia,or Iran, or Pakistan, or any place else where women suffer from oppression. Your trying to make it into some sort of partisan finger-pointing game is a red herring.

 

[calamity]

You seem more interested in finger pointing than the actual subject of this thread,which has to do with the conformity of opinion in our universities.

That would be me not conforming.

I haven't seen anybody here claiming that we should be supporting Saudi Arabia or Tchad, or Somalia,or Iran, or Pakistan, or any place else where women suffer from oppression. Your trying to make it into some sort of partisan finger-pointing game is a red herring.

I haven't seen anyone say anything to the contrary. Who in the US dares to call out Saudi Arabia? Hell, even though 19 of the 20 terrorists on 911 (includes the one they had in custody) were Saudi Islamists, we attacked the secular country, Iraq.

 

[calamity]

"I don't hold America responsible for the largely oppressive governments in the 22 Arab countries. There are repressive Arab governments that are our allies and there are those that are our nominal enemies. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference to what extent we're involved in propping up those governments."
Lawrence Wright

Obviously not the wisest opinion.

 

[Jack Hays]

Obviously not the wisest opinion.

It's quite wise. Most countries don't care even a little what we think of their internal arrangements.eace

 

[Gardener]

That would be me not conforming.


I haven't seen anyone say anything to the contrary. Who in the US dares to call out Saudi Arabia? Hell, even though 19 of the 20 terrorists on 911 (includes the one they had in custody) were Saudi Islamists, we attacked the secular country, Iraq.

You are certainly conformist when it comes to being a broken record regurgitating a bunch of hackneyed talking points that have nothing to do with the subject matter.

Instead of just going with the same old ,same old anti-neocon mantra, why not develop amoreoriginal world view based upon what you stand FOR rather than just all this silly knee jerk towards what you stand against?

 

[calamity]

You are certainly conformist when it comes to being a broken record regurgitating a bunch of hackneyed talking points that have nothing to do with the subject matter.

Instead of just going with the same old ,same old anti-neocon mantra, why not develop amoreoriginal world view based upon what you stand FOR rather than just all this silly knee jerk towards what you stand against?

Because the bulk of the planet's population is not atheist and science-based. I stand for high speed internet and bullet trains, not praying that the candles stay lit.

 

[calamity]

It's quite wise. Most countries don't care even a little what we think of their internal arrangements.eace

I understand pragmatism...I just do not always agree with it. After all, at one time it was pragmatic to stay out of the war in Europe and then ally ourselves with the USSR when that was no longer feasible. Common enemies and all that. WHether the end result there was for the best or not, it seems to be our modus operandi.

 

[Jack Hays]

I understand pragmatism...I just do not always agree with it. After all, at one time it was pragmatic to stay out of the war in Europe and then ally ourselves with the USSR when that was no longer feasible. Common enemies and all that. WHether the end result there was for the best or not, it seems to be our modus operandi.

It is historically the SOP of island maritime/naval powers in dealing with other states that are land powers.eace

 

[Paschendale]

I am always stunned when I see pictures from Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Iraq, say prior to Pres Ronald Reagan.

Yeah, helping the fundamentalist dictators overthrow the populists really worked out in the long run, right? Derned commies!

Your sentence went downhill after that promising start. How youshould have concluded it was "it is far less prevalent and magnitudes less severe.

Comparing two things that are wildly different and trying to claim they are the same is an equivocation, and as such,intellectually dishonest.

Have you read the bible? It makes women out to be chattel, children murdered for the acts of their parents, some races superior to others, definitely some cultures superior to others, and not only condones but demands violence against other cultures. The Quran says the same thing. When Europeans took their religion seriously, they committed the exact same atrocities that Saudis commit right now. If westerners weren't secular like we are, we would be just as barbarous as they are.

 

[Jack Hays]

Yeah, helping the fundamentalist dictators overthrow the populists really worked out in the long run, right? Derned commies!



Have you read the bible? It makes women out to be chattel, children murdered for the acts of their parents, some races superior to others, definitely some cultures superior to others, and not only condones but demands violence against other cultures. The Quran says the same thing. When Europeans took their religion seriously, they committed the exact same atrocities that Saudis commit right now. If westerners weren't secular like we are, we would be just as barbarous as they are.

Please see my #69 and #70. Learn first. Then post.eace

 

[Gardener]

Have you read the bible? It makes women out to be chattel, children murdered for the acts of their parents, some races superior to others, definitely some cultures superior to others, and not only condones but demands violence against other cultures. The Quran says the same thing. When Europeans took their religion seriously, they committed the exact same atrocities that Saudis commit right now. If westerners weren't secular like we are, we would be just as barbarous as they are.

Congratulations. I see you have now hit the apologist's trifecta. Not content in comparing too things that differ so greatly in terms of the prevelence or magnitude of various attitudes, you now resort to the ruse of comparing two different time frames.

I'm never quite sure whether it is due to a malignant dishonesty that drives this pattern of sophistry or simply the lack of intelligence necessary to discern one thing from another, but this reflexive need to defend Islamism at all costs strikes me as more the product of a certain form of cultural self-loathing than anything else. Rather than establishing a positive brand of liberalism based upon liberal values, the authoritarian leftist simply hates his or her own culture, so is quick to defend the enemy of the enemy by any means necessary.

 

[Paschendale]

Congratulations. I see you have now hit the apologist's trifecta. Not content in comparing too things that differ so greatly in terms of the prevelence or magnitude of various attitudes, you now resort to the ruse of comparing two different time frames.

I'm never quite sure whether it is due to a malignant dishonesty that drives this pattern of sophistry or simply the lack of intelligence necessary to discern one thing from another, but this reflexive need to defend Islamism at all costs strikes me as more the product of a certain form of cultural self-loathing than anything else. Rather than establishing a positive brand of liberalism based upon liberal values, the authoritarian leftist simply hates his or her own culture, so is quick to defend the enemy of the enemy by any means necessary.

In what weird universe do you think that I, a very outspoken atheist who consistently says that religion is awful and the world would be immensely better if it all went away... defend Islam? I condemn it quite loudly. But all too often, people condemn Islam from a misguided sense of moral high ground. We don't actually have that. Having a healthy sense of our own shortcomings and flaws is by no means "cultural self-loathing". I love my culture. I want to see it improve.

I understand what you're never quite sure, because you clearly do not understand the position that you're actually criticizing. The entire point of the conversation so far was "Yes, criticize Islam. There's a lot of bad stuff in there. But don't do it from a position of 'we're so good and they're so bad', because we're not as a good as we like to think we are, and they're not intrinsically bad and learn to be secular and modern like we can." Understanding that our foes are not caricatures and that we must own up to our mistakes and shortcomings... these are wise positions to take. Blind hatred of them or blind support of our own actions are the positions of fools.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Here is a good representation of women's rights country by country.

Best and Worst Countries for Women, the Full List - The Daily Beast


Any honest poster can see a pattern. Only an extremely dishonest propagandist would try toclaim Islam dominated countries are no different than any other.

I'll suppose this list is both definitive and salient in all its points (digression: I'm not sure what "politics" means in this context, but if you factor it out, the list starts to look rather different. If it just means the number of women in politics...I'm not sure that's necessarily relevant to oppression, which calls to mind things like being stoned for being raped, lacking access to education, lacking the same legal rights as men, and so on. There are many reasons women might not be in politics, and not all of them have to do with oppression as such).

You're right, I do see a pattern: Africa. Some Islamic countries land in roughly the middle third of the list, while some Christian African countries are near the bottom. Indeed, it looks like almost all of the African countries are near the bottom. Oppression of women in Africa goes back many centuries to well before the arrival of Islam. If you factor out politics (see note above), most non-African Muslim countries would move up.

I do not deny that Islamic nations treat women worse than they ought to be treated. Women ought to be equal to men in terms of rights, wages, opportunities, intellectual esteem, and so on, and I agree they are not in Islamic nations. But this isn't so very different from other nations that aren't Islamic. While this doesn't excuse the oppression of women, even in mild forms, it also doesn't license viewing Islam as the very source of misogyny in the world.

 

[Jack Hays]

I'll suppose this list is both definitive and salient in all its points (digression: I'm not sure what "politics" means in this context, but if you factor it out, the list starts to look rather different. If it just means the number of women in politics...I'm not sure that's necessarily relevant to oppression, which calls to mind things like being stoned for being raped, lacking access to education, lacking the same legal rights as men, and so on. There are many reasons women might not be in politics, and not all of them have to do with oppression as such).

You're right, I do see a pattern: Africa. Some Islamic countries land in roughly the middle third of the list, while some Christian African countries are near the bottom. Indeed, it looks like almost all of the African countries are near the bottom. Oppression of women in Africa goes back many centuries to well before the arrival of Islam. If you factor out politics (see note above), most non-African Muslim countries would move up.

I do not deny that Islamic nations treat women worse than they ought to be treated. Women ought to be equal to men in terms of rights, wages, opportunities, intellectual esteem, and so on, and I agree they are not in Islamic nations. But this isn't so very different from other nations that aren't Islamic. While this doesn't excuse the oppression of women, even in mild forms, it also doesn't license viewing Islam as the very source of misogyny in the world.

Islam is among the sources of misogyny in the world.eace

 

[ashurbanipal]

Islam is among the sources of misogyny in the world.

I think it's probably more correct to say that Islam inherited misogyny, as did Christianity and Hinduism. What I will say is that there's plenty in the scriptures of Islam to help with the problem, and it would be nice if more Imams started pulling out those points a little more forcefully. The status of women in Islam in the 11th-16th centuries was, comparatively speaking, among the best in the world. Now, clearly, that's no longer the case, though I continue to insist this isn't Islam per se as the culture over which Islam lays (any more than Christianity as such is a source of misogyny. Hinduism may be another story). Again, Africa is a more constant pattern here than is Islam itself...as Gardener's own list seems to show.

The situation is complicated, and won't be easily remedied. In many cases, it is women who perpetuate the issue. One point that wasn't brought up in earlier discussion in this thread about female genital mutilation in Egypt (and North Africa generally) is that mothers often opt to have the operation performed on their infant daughters, with no overt pressure from the father. In other African countries, it is often the mother who performs the operation on her daughters. Similarly, there has been a marked increase, perhaps as a result of recent western incursions into the middle east, in women voluntarily opting to wear a veil in public.

 

[Jack Hays]

I think it's probably more correct to say that Islam inherited misogyny, as did Christianity and Hinduism. What I will say is that there's plenty in the scriptures of Islam to help with the problem, and it would be nice if more Imams started pulling out those points a little more forcefully. The status of women in Islam in the 11th-16th centuries was, comparatively speaking, among the best in the world. Now, clearly, that's no longer the case, though I continue to insist this isn't Islam per se as the culture over which Islam lays (any more than Christianity as such is a source of misogyny. Hinduism may be another story). Again, Africa is a more constant pattern here than is Islam itself...as Gardener's own list seems to show.

The situation is complicated, and won't be easily remedied. In many cases, it is women who perpetuate the issue. One point that wasn't brought up in earlier discussion in this thread about female genital mutilation in Egypt (and North Africa generally) is that mothers often opt to have the operation performed on their infant daughters, with no overt pressure from the father. In other African countries, it is often the mother who performs the operation on her daughters. Similarly, there has been a marked increase, perhaps as a result of recent western incursions into the middle east, in women voluntarily opting to wear a veil in public.

What an awful misogynistic post. The idea that Egyptian mothers are acting as they do without male pressure is just bizarre. There is an entire culture of male Islamic expectation weighing on those mothers. Islam is the motor of misogyny, not the receiver.eace

 

[ashurbanipal]

What an awful misogynistic post. The idea that Egyptian mothers are acting as they do without male pressure is just bizarre. There is an entire culture of male Islamic expectation weighing on those mothers. Islam is the motor of misogyny, not the receiver.

I'm not sure it's so bizarre when you think about it. First, though, I want to clarify that I'm not saying that no men support the practice, or that no men apply any kind of pressure. However, it's at least as often the case that women are the ones who perpetuate the practice without any interference from men. The reason for this is that it's simply become tradition. People have gone along with plenty of practices which are deleterious to themselves because those practices were traditional, and even in the absence of any pressure.

See, for example:

Female Genital Mutilation On The Decline, But Still Too Common : Shots - Health News : NPR

BBC News - Newsnight - Female genital mutilation rife in Egypt despite ban

Women

Interesting quote from the second link:

The practice is not restricted to Muslims, as has often been claimed, but also carried out by Christians, who make up 10% of Egypt's population.
The practice predates the arrival of either religion in Egypt - there is evidence that it was practised back in Pharaonic times.

This accords with my understanding of the issue.

Some interesting findings from the third link, which summarizes the findings of a broad survey of Egyptian Women on the subject of female genital mutilation:

In the current study, up to 82% of the women supported the continuation of FGM.

The vast majority of women in Egypt support continuation of the practice.

In our sample, the attitude of the women towards FGM was associated with their social status. Women that living in the urban areas, having a higher level of education/literacy, and those who were working, were more likely to support discontinuation of FGM. However, only the residential-area and education variables remained significantly associated with discontinuation of FGM in the multivariate analysis. Furthermore, access to information was independently associated with a less tolerant attitude towards continuation of FGM. It seems that educationally empowered women, are more exposed to the controversy surrounding the FGM.

Those that don't tend to be better educated, and, presumably, are more likely to be aware of the negative consequences of the practice.

At the same time our findings revealed that women who had heard about FGM at meetings in the community, mosque or church were less likely to opt for continuation of FGM.

Mosques are apparently treating the practice in a negative light.

It's worth noting that female genital mutilation was banned in Egypt in 2008 by a predominantly male legislature.

 

[Jack Hays]

I'm not sure it's so bizarre when you think about it. First, though, I want to clarify that I'm not saying that no men support the practice, or that no men apply any kind of pressure. However, it's at least as often the case that women are the ones who perpetuate the practice without any interference from men. The reason for this is that it's simply become tradition. People have gone along with plenty of practices which are deleterious to themselves because those practices were traditional, and even in the absence of any pressure.

See, for example:

Female Genital Mutilation On The Decline, But Still Too Common : Shots - Health News : NPR

BBC News - Newsnight - Female genital mutilation rife in Egypt despite ban

Women

Interesting quote from the second link:



This accords with my understanding of the issue.

Some interesting findings from the third link, which summarizes the findings of a broad survey of Egyptian Women on the subject of female genital mutilation:



The vast majority of women in Egypt support continuation of the practice.



Those that don't tend to be better educated, and, presumably, are more likely to be aware of the negative consequences of the practice.



Mosques are apparently treating the practice in a negative light.

It's worth noting that female genital mutilation was banned in Egypt in 2008 by a predominantly male legislature.

How much time have you lived in countries that practice female genital mutilation? Twelve years for me. Don't tell me who does and does not support the practice.eace

 

[ashurbanipal]

How much time have you lived in countries that practice female genital mutilation? Twelve years for me. Don't tell me who does and does not support the practice.

Well, since female genital mutilation is practiced in the U.S., I suppose that would be 42 years. However, I've never lived in a country where the practice was widespread; it's certainly a rarity here, though I think it would be naive to think there aren't any cases of it happening within our borders. I know plenty of people that have come from countries where the practice is widespread, though, and my views are largely shaped by listening to their stories and thinking about studies such as the one I linked. I'd be interested to hear your stories and insights, however. Perhaps it would change my mind.