Quran: Men Are In Charge Of Women
One of the reasons it's completely stupid for us to try to export democracy (or rather, try to bribe Muslim countries into becoming democratic with billions of our tax dollars) is that Islam demands the antithesis of respect for the individual and individual rights -- especially for the individual woman.
From the WSJ, Sohrab Ahmari writes of Manal al-Sharif, the woman who got behind the wheel in Saudi Arabia, where women (men's living property, under Islam) are not allowed to drive:
It was a stunning act of defiance in a country that takes very seriously the Quran's teaching: "Men are in charge of women."...As she recounts, a traffic officer stopped the car, and soon members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi morality police, surrounded the car. "Girl!" screamed one. "Get out! We don't allow women to drive!" Ms. Sharif and her brother were arrested and detained for six hours, during which time she stood her ground.
...In November 1979 in Saudi Arabia, a band of Sunni jihadis took control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, killing hundreds of worshipers and security forces. It took two weeks and the help of French commandos to break the siege.
The incident, infidel rescuers included, was a huge embarrassment for the reigning al-Saud dynasty, whose monarchs style themselves as "Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques." To prevent future jihadi attacks, "the government did everything it could to please the fundamentalists," Ms. Sharif says. "It gave them control over education and women. So women were removed from all public life in Saudi Arabia, and there is now complete separation between the genders."
The kingdom had always been deeply religious. Yet it was only after the 1979 siege that the al-Saud began promoting radical Islam at home and abroad as a way of staving off challenges to their own legitimacy. Thus was born what former Wall Street Journal publisher and author Karen Elliott House identifies in her book "On Saudi Arabia" as "Islam Inc."--the symbiosis of clerical obscurantism and oil riches that keeps the al-Saud in power.
One result is a society where women make up just 12% of the workforce and own 5% of businesses, a country where 15 young girls were doomed to perish in a 2002 schoolhouse fire after the morality police prevented their rescue because the students were improperly dressed.
References for how men are in charge of women under Islam are here.
Maybe we should start pumping oil here. Possibly break the back of the oil cartel and stop propping up these Islamic theocratic states with our money.
Bill O Rights at March 23, 2013 9:31 AM
Carmen Bin Laden's book, while poorly written, was still interesting to read. She talks about the mosque incident. Apparently in the years preceding the incident, Saudi Arabia was getting progressively more liberal and open, and then boom! Clampdown!
NicoleK at March 23, 2013 10:25 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/03/quran-men-are-i.html#comment-3653596">comment from NicoleKI just love the juxtaposition of "Carmen" and "Bin Laden." It makes me flash on a picture of burka (presumably with a woman underneath) with a bunch of fruit piled on the woman's head.
Amy Alkon
at March 23, 2013 10:35 AM
Shorter Amy: The practice of Islam is incompatible with democratic forms of governance.
And there's a perfectly good word to describe women folk who live under Islam: chattel. Go look it up in the dictionary. Allow the meaning to seep into your bones.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 23, 2013 11:00 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/03/quran-men-are-i.html#comment-3653650">comment from I R A Darth AggieAbsolutely.
Amy Alkon
at March 23, 2013 11:01 AM
On the subject of Saudi women driving, take a look at this photo of a Bedouin lady trucker from "Women of Saudi Arabia" in the October 1987 National Geographic:
http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/women-saudi-arabia-photos/#/saudiarabia-women-trucker_3142_600x450.jpg
As the caption notes, "Bedouin women...enjoy greater freedom of dress and movement. Besides managing the family tent, some have even taken to driving the tribe's water truck. Driving is a privilege denied women in the city".
This Bedouin was driving out in the desert, where no one could see her except her fellow tribesmen, and where the religious police don't show their faces. Manal was driving in the city, where everyone could see her and where the religious police are always on alert for any affront to morality. Out in the sand dunes, tribeswomen pulled their weight as a matter of survival, which entitled them to more respect & freedom. Well-off modern urban Saudis, with foreign servants to perform their every chore, find it easier to keep their women prisoner.
Martin at March 23, 2013 1:23 PM
The Quran's teaching: "Men are in charge of women."
And those men are doing such a damn fine job at it, aren't they?
/snarky off
Charles at March 23, 2013 1:45 PM
If men don't take charge of women, they will be taken charge of BY women -- as the last 50 years in this country has shown. We have pussies leading the pussy-whipped.
Men being in charge is not a problem, since they look out for both men's and women's interests. Women look out for women. Period.
At the end of the day, "patriarchy," for all its supposed failings, is preferable to the hell of matriarchy -- for women as well as men.
American women have been led by feminism to believe that they can indeed have the toasted ice they crave -- and wonder why less "civilized" women look askance when exorted to adopt the same practices and attitudes of unbridled feminine superiority.
Jay R at March 23, 2013 2:14 PM
Men being in charge is not a problem, since they look out for both men's and women's interests. Women look out for women. Period.
And the men in the Middle East are doing a fantastic job of looking out for the interests of men AND women, which must be why the Middle East is an oasis of economic prosperity and human rights. It's much better for everyone if all we have to worry about is stoning instead of of the horror of possibly paying child support for a kid who isn't yours.
MonicaP at March 23, 2013 6:57 PM
That's one way to stop their women from texting while driving-- don't let them drive!
jefe at March 23, 2013 9:20 PM
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