If you want to know how civilized a culture is, look at how they treat its women

Just no... What type of people do you hang out with?

 

Right, you're definitely not projecting your racism or anything.

 

Maybe he is projecting his lack of higher education. If his social group included college educated women or current female college students he certainly wouldn't hold that opinion. Majority of the ladies I know who are either in college or graduated are serious about their degree/career.

 

What is "Angry Middle Aged Christian White Man" Alex?

 

I bet her name is Vee H. Won.

 

Blah blah, and college educated girls in the Middle East are treated with a great amount of respect and courtesy. Pakistan's female president, queen Rania of Syria, Queen of Jordan, etc. America needs a huge cultural overhaul and pointing fingers at a few barbaric tribes in the ME throwing stones at woman (do we really have to mention all the domestic battery cases against women and objectification which they enjoy) isn't going to change that. look at yourself before you point fingers at others!!

 

What a coincidence that the more secular a Muslim dominant nation is the greater the chances women in that respective nation have to be involved in government. The western world does have the higher moral ground in the treatment of women relative to Muslim dominated regions and that is an objective fact. The very notion that the U.S has a higher rate of REPORTED domestic violence against women has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that in the United States and in the rest of the western secular world women are less afraid to actually report rape and assault than women in Muslim majority nations. You have created a false caricature of western women. Just go look at Forbes' list of the world's most powerful women and report back to me how many of them originate from Muslim nations and how many of them originate from western secular nations. Here in he U.S., a woman has the ability to chose any proffesion from stripper to stay at home mom to the CEO of G.M. Here is my final question for you. Who do you feel is less prone to an assult : A middle eastern women in a hijab walking around in a random suburb of Massachusetts or a white women in a skirt walking around in a random neighborhood of Pakistan?

 

Actually, if you look at UN statistics, the difference between several majority Muslim countries and the US is enormous (as in double digit percentages). While there is undoubtedly under-reporting in these countries, when combined with the fact there there is also significant under-reporting in the US, it is highly unlikely that the end result would be significantly higher actual domestic abuse rates in majority muslim countries. At the very worst, most would probably be comparable to or slightly higher than the US.

Also, studies of Muslims in America place the domestic abuse rate at around 15%-20%, which is significantly lower that most other groups except East Asians. Again, while there is undoubtedly under-reporting, I personally would not be comfortable claiming that Muslim men are more prone to abusing their spouses based on these numbers and vague notions about "under-reporting."

 

The US has a major problem with sexual assault and the reporting of it.

However, rape in the Middle East is vastly under reported and it shouldn't take a scientific study to prove that to you. In cultures where women can actually be imprisoned or killed for being raped and at the very least will end up divorced and destitute, it's impossible to get any sort of gauge on what the rape statistics are.

We also classify things as sexual assault that most 3rd world countries do not. Although it is only a recent development, we now consider it possible for a husband to rape his wife. The majority of countries on Earth do not.

A 30 year old having sex with a 14 year old would get classified as rape in this country. In many Middle Eastern countries that is the norm, not some taboo where the man would be a pariah.

I'm not defending America here trust me. We have a really bad culture of violence against women.

 

I think its a good quote, though not a hard-fast rule, and should be generalized to how well they treat ethnic/religious minorities as well.

To take an extreme example, a country which makes no distinction between men and women but also herds an ethnic minority group into concentrations camps should not be considered civilized.

 

Why single out women? If you want to know how civilized a culture, just look how they treat everyone.

Living a moral life is pretty simple; just don't be an *******. This applies to people, the earth, and to animals.

 

Woah...dude.

You sound like Cho or Rodger. NOT A GOOD SIGN.

 

LMAO. In Islam the women are pretty much servants in life and have zero freedom. The girl is likely part of 6 other wives to the same man.

 

For real. Nothing screams paternalism than talking about gender equality without representation from the subject matter.

It's not deliberate, but it won't be fruitful either.

 

You live in a fantasy world.

 

... or so the liberal media will have you believe. Remember, Islamic culture offers a great recluse for those who indulge in it and most civilized women have the option of wearing the hijab or not + have reasoning behind it. I am not speaking of barbaric places in Saudi, but of places like Bahrain, Iran, UAE, Qatar etc. Bottom line is - while women have tons of traditional freedoms in the US, the "CULTURE" they are subjected to growing up makes them desire to be objectified. They idolize the hot drunken mess stereotype. You can look past this and say it's only a few, but these are the figures garnering the most interest and $$$ which relates to success in a capitalistic society. NOT MY VIEWS, but the result of a cultural wasteland.

We should not be judging the cultures of others before we try to reform, OR HELL, even create one of our own. I have studied all the major religions and although Islam has many flaws, I believe they are miles ahead of America when it comes to RESPECTING women. That is a reflection of American culture, not any religion.

 

May I ask you what your background is and what experiences you have dealing with American girls. If you are not comfortable divulging your background and experiences let me divulge mine. I was born and raised to Bengali Muslim parents. They moved to the U.S. 5 years before I was born along with majority of my extended family which includes almost all my aunts, uncles and cousins. Up until the age of 16 I attended jummah prayer every Friday and religious school every Sunday. It was around my late adolescence that I was skeptical of my religion and that skepticism eventually turned into atheism. I attended a regular public school system(Fort Bend ISD). I regularly visited Bangladesh up until the age of 17 almost every other summer vacation. After graduating high school I took a rather unconventional route for someone of my background(child of Muslim immigrants with decent grades and SAT scores). I joined the Marine Corps. After serving four years I took advantage of my GI bill and now currently am attending school at the University of Massachusetts Amherst(due to my parents moving to Massachusetts right before I joined the Marine Corps I became a resident of Mass.)

The reason I took the time to give you a general summary of my background and experiences is to show you that I am a product of two cultures and am quite experienced in dealing with women of both backgrounds. I am here to tell you that everything you typed is from pure ignorance. For example, the stat that you provided that suggests 15-20% of Muslim women in the States are victims of domestic abuse and that number is lower than non-Muslim American women who are victims is a rather misleading statistic because it still falls victim to the "Reported" error. Here, let me use my experiences to give you some insight on why that statistic is so heavily flawed. Though this may be anecdotal I have enough confidence that these behaviors I'm about to explain are heavily influenced by culture and religion.

My mother has been slapped by my father on multiple occasions when I was a child. Not once did she feel the urge or had the courage to report these incidents to the authorities. Now on to my experiences in the Marine Corps. In the Marine Corps and in the military in general, service members have a tendency to marry and produce children relatively early in life. Thus, at the age of 22, I had quite a significant portion of friends that were in my unit that were already married. One of my closest buddies married as soon as he was discharged and moved to Hawaii with his wife who was stationed there serving in the Navy. One random night I receive a call from him explaining how he just got out of jail and is being charged with domestic assault. Apparently my buddy and his wife were in a heated argument and he allegedly slapped her(no physical marks were found). She immediately dialed 911 and he suddenly found himself in jail over the weekend charge with domestic assault. He eventually gave into a plea bargain that had him stuck in Hawaii with 1 year probation and some domestic violence courses.

So in other words, the multiple times that my father has slapped my mother is not reported in that 15-20% statistic while my buddy's incident is. I have experienced enough of both cultures to make a general conclusion that wives from recent Muslim/Middle Eastern immigrants and naturalized citizens have a much higher tenancy to view submissiveness as a positive quality in a wife. Many of these women fear their husbands leaving them. Not being accustomed to the culture in America they fear not being able to stand up and make a living on their own two feet and this leads to them eventually putting up with physical abuses from their husbands which never are reported. On top of that, could you imagine replaying the case of my Marine buddy in any Middle Eastern court where the wife alleges that her husband slapped her with no marks to be seen and no witnesses besides the accuser?

Now on to the idea that American women love to be "objectified"... what ever that means. Tell me, what is your experience with dealing with American women? How much interaction have you actually had with them? I think you are confusing less clothing as "objectifying". You go onto some asinine rant about women idolizing women who receive their own reality tv shows because they had intercourse with rappers... I'm sorry buddy, but this ultimately shows your inexperience with actually interacting with Americans in general. Hey, maybe I just hang out with the right crowd but I can safely suggest that majority of Americans view those shows as comedy and majority of women at least those who are attending college or graduated college view these shows as the low bar in American culture.

Ultimately, objective analysis is the most reliable source of information. Let's go to the Forbes 100 most powerful women list shall we. http://www.forbes.com/power-women/list/#tab:overall I'll let you do the counting of how many of those women originate from Western secular nations and how many originate from Muslim nations. I think it is a safe assumption to make that the culture that respects women more will produce more powerful and successful women.

 

People like downbytheriver are foreign to concepts such as "work hard party hard". He watches some random MTV spring break special and witnesses these girls in their bikinis drinking beers while ignoring the men there who are also shirtless drinking beers and draws a half assed conclusion that these women are being objectified knowing little knowledge of what many of these women actually do when they are not on vacation. Downbytheriver's ideology is nothing unique. He comes from a patriarchal society where women must be protected from exploring their sexuality. To him, a woman exploring her sexuality is considered objectifying herself.