I believe it's not where it's supposed to be since there's no hub for this kind of topics, but it deserves to be shared with this beautiful community....
Just watch carefully & please, no prejudice, think about it ;)
http://youtu.be/Nc1-sNfikr0
I really, really hope you're trolling. If not, I'll gladly go over the worrisome points I see with this video.
So basically... you're trying to promote Islam?
"Resturants use naked girls as tables in America & Europe"
We can't really take you seriously if that's what you think. OPer is certainly not trolling though.
That music is depressing.
Issam, you are welcome to our community. We do encourage free and intelligent discussion... and on any subject (nut just hardware and software). I hope you are here to do more than post this video and leave.
I think that the video is missing the heart of the issue and I believe that most religions have it wrong. I think that American culture is WAY off too. Everyone has been so very wrong about this issue.
The problem lies in the way that men see women. They obviously do not see them as equals. If they did there would be way less rape or sexual harassment. There would not be a need to separate the genders. Men are ignorant. What we need to do is spend some time educating them so that they can function in society without harassing women. This video inadvertently insinuates that men are uncontrollable animals... It insinuates that they are ignorant and unable to control themselves around women. Why else would the women need to be protected?
Creating laws and limiting our freedom is a terrible solution. The problem will never be corrected in this way. Men need to learn that women are equals. Creating a "safe" environment is not true freedom. They do not have a choice. That is the biggest crime one can commit... removing one's choice, and this is true in all ways... What right do I have to remove your choice to wear whatever you want... what right do I have to remove your choice to live? It's all about choice... this religion claims to be protecting women but they are removing their ability to choose... this is terribly inhuman to me. What if I told you that you could only go to male amusement parts or that you had to wear a certain article of clothing in public because you were male? You would tell me to fuck off because I do not have a right to choose for you... So what right does anyone else have to choose these things for women?
Now... America. It disgusts me that women do not hold more positions of power in the USA but things are slowly changing. While I was in NY I noticed that the genders were almost equal. There are still cases of abuse and rape... this is NEVER the woman's fault. We are slowly progressing... we need all these religions to shut the hell up... They always put the male as the lead... and they always find a way to blame the women when a man does something stupid. They tell her that she was dressed like a whore or that she was tempting him by having a boobs... seriously... I can't believe we are still going over nonsense like this in this day and age. There are books... People, read and enlighten yourselves... the knowledge is available and obvious. The genders are equal.
I had to pause the new Foreshadowing album to write this response >.< (everyone should listen to it, it's freaking awesome). It's sad that religion can be so distorted towards anyone's personal agenda. You could have a very feminist reading of the Koran--the text seems to provide more liberal freedoms for women than the Bible.
Anyways, my response: what really strikes me about this video is the complete lack of a female voice. It is talking about women, making assumptions about women, without actually consulting with women. Women, who are up for discussion, are not a part of the discussion.
I'll say it plainly: women are treated as "others" in Western culture, despite the fact that they make up about 50% of the population. However, women are still given a higher level of agency in Western culture than what the video describes as the "ideal". It's very patronizing to, for example, see the video describe how well they take care of their women--by providing for them and essentially barring them from work. I would feel completely stir-crazy if I weren't enabled to do work. I would feel like less of a person if I were not given the choice to work. And there are some people (regardless of gender) who don't want to work, don't have any aspriations, and that's fine. I know plenty of men like that, doesn't mean I generalize it to all men. Don't assume that's true of an entire gender, and don't impose such helplessness on an entire gender.
The video paints the picture of women working in maid jobs or secretarial jobs or things like that. I think part of that has to do with generation gaps, since a lot of girls my age go to college and go into "professional" fields. Actually I think at this point more girls are going to college than guys. "Gendered" jobs exist because of weird lingering social norms, but I think they're slowly starting to be phased out. We have to be more proactive about not raising our kids to think "that's a girl's job" or "that's a guy's job" or "girl's can't do math" or whatever. It's a slow process...but that doesn't mean it isn't happening, and that we may as well lock women up at home.
What really strikes me about this video is the abundance of information about STD's, rape, etc in Western culture...with no information given about how Islamic cultures are faring on those topics. Btw, I'm restricting my attention to the MIddle East (I know there's a very large Muslim population in Indonesia and South Asia, among other places). That seems to be where this video is coming from. Anyways, apparently North Africa and the Middle East have the fastest growing rates of AIDS (source). The rates are still low, but they're growing rapidly. Anyways, it's tough to get data on rapes, STD's, etc, in those cultures because sex is such a taboo that many people don't report. I mean, many people don't report rapes in the US (especially men who are raped), but the rates are higher because less blame is placed on the victim. Seriously, threatening to stone a woman to death for being raped--or forcing her to marry her rapist--doesn't really make a victim want to come forward.
Plus, this video talks about how women are raped, abused, beaten, etc by Western men. Again, no statistic regarding how many women in the Middle East are treated that way. But you may find this article interesting (nsfl, acid-disfigured faces): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17676542
It's worrisome to me that the video completely denies the inherent benefits of (safe) sexual practices. Morality should not hinge on whether someone has sex or not. Western culture is really bad about this too, especially in more conservative regions. Sex is healthy, and has nothing to do with how "good" of a person you are. I generally am not a fan of Freud, but I do think there's some potential danger involved with actively suppressing a part of human nature and bonding. I think that tends to come out in both cultures in very different ways. I mean, talk to any dominatrix and they'll say that their weirdest and most messed-up clients are the hyper-religious ones (and I'm not passing judgement on the BDSM community, there's definitely a healthy way to approach all that. Just saying that often the very-repressed aren't able to approach it healthily).
Anyways, this video's general message seems to be "men, we can't control ourselves, so let's control our women!" which is really creepy. Seriously, let's try to normalize interactions between men and women. We're all freaking humans, we all have similar capabilities and the like. We can all make decision, so let us.
Creating laws that limit our freedom is absoultly horrid in virtually every case and creating laws to protect woman is basicly underming women and making them appear as less.
Logan some of the biggest issues for rape is that the idea of men being greator then woman being past down from parent to child, and or the gang mentality pushing it to men too. That and at a young age men are pressured to lose their viriginty, which is another thing that needs fixing. That and at those younger ages men outnumber woman.
Theres also the idea of "sluts", this idioligy needs to be burned also, or be applied equally to men.
Yeah we should definitely get rid of the "slut" thing, morality should not be so tied up in a girl's virginity and "pureness" (as though having sex or even wanting sex makes a girl impure).
Sex is a highly personal decision between the parties involved, and is in and of itself amoral (not immoral, amoral).
Go religion! /sarcasm
Islam should timetravel back to the 12th century and stay there. There's total chaos and misery in islamic countries, there's no progress with islam. And yes western culture have declined but is still far superior to islamic culture.
Spirituality is where it's at.
Well of course you'd say that!
I don't really think it's fair to say an entire religion is fucked...there are some legitimately decent individuals who believe in and practice Islam, just as that's the case with Christianity. And there are some really scary Christian zealots, just as there are Islam. I think extremism is more scary than any individual religion...
And the largest population of Muslims resides in Indonesia, not any of the Middle-eastern countries. Indonesia, from what I can tell, seems to practice a less (what we would classify) extreme version.
I would argue that Western culture hasn't declined, but it's in a weird transition phase, which frustrates the hell out of everyone involved.
Every person should be treated the same or how they choose to be treated.
If a person believes in a religion, which makes them different from men because they are female and to be treated differently, then that's fine aslong as its what they believe it is right.
But if a person is abused beyond their will because they are a female, by another man due to their religion or way of life, then thats most certainly not fine.
Personally I don't believe in religion, to me it is complete nonsnese. We are all here because we are on a rock the perfect distance away form the sun, with water and perfect heat/atmospheric conditions that allows bacteria to grow, which is how and why we are here.
Although I dont dismiss anyone who believes in religion and respect them, same as I don't dismiss anyone who believes in ghosts, they can believe what they want to.
If a cat falls on all fours and shouts "I'm a penguin" then thats just weird......
I think the chaos and misery in Middle Eastern countries says more about their cultural sensibilities outside of their religion than the religion itself. Humans have a way of letting their personal cultural ways seep into the way they choose to interact with their gods.
The main issue, as I see it, is just the shortsightedness of men and society in general. I don't really like to say religion is the issue because- since it's many things for different people- people usually just kind of use religion as an excuse (whether they know it or not) to do what they do.
Religion, in my opinion, is not actually the issue when you think about it. I know that sounds wierd, but it's human nature to both hate and fight with other people who you percieve as being different than you as well as not want to take responsibility for your actions. People kill and discriminate against each other and say it was in the name of God. It's quite sad, really.
BTW, I'm loving this convo. Nobody's trying to slice each other's throats out and having a nice discussion about controversial issues. ^^ Let's keep it up!
i do not feel like Islam treats women fairly, i feel that video was extremely biased in my own opinion. in response to watching that video i recommend to the OP that they watch Not Without My Daughter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Without_My_Daughter. This video does take place during a different time in Iran but it does deal with some current issues in the Muslim culture
Thanks Logan :)
No, i'm not here to post the video & leave, actually, i've been following your work for a while now & i really like what you do... so it won't be the case.
Anyway, I hope I got what you said right (english ain't my mother tongue after all) cuz i see some wrong statements up there (in my opinion). I think you would agree if i say that, amongst men and women, females are the most delicate, emotional and sentimental rather than reasonable & it's different with men in general... which makes a woman weaker than a man & deserves to be protected & let's not bullshit about this point since we're not living in a perfect world cuz saying that we should educate ourselves is a brilliant idea but is it that possible to expect that all men, some day, would not have some kind of thoughts while being with an attractive woman, @ work for example, & that some of them would even develop & will do more than thinking... Then, men won't be men anymore, attraction between men & women is the reason why we are all here, not showing it up is a choice that not everybody will make unfortunately, that's why we have to deal with exceptions in a different way "rules & laws"...
Women are the half of the society and they give birth to the other half so in short, women are the entire society, that's why they deserve to be treated the right way, and this, is a common responsability & submitting ourselves to the rules is a fairly reasonable way to deal with it. Actually, the only ones that would disagree are the "exceptions" I mentionned before.
When i asked to think about what i shared without prejudice i was pretty sure that almost everybody would do exactly the opposit cuz what they know about islam is nothing but horrible things media show about, in addition to how some muslims picture it to the world.
Hope I made myself clear with my poor english, eventhough i still have lots to say...
Females are actually, at birth, no more emotional or sentimental than men. It's cultural conditioning -- saying "don't cry" to boys but not to girls, and such -- that turns boys into emotional rocks (and I' wayyy over generalizing, there are plenty of dudes out there who are way more emotional than females).
I'm not sure how emotional = weak. I think that's a bias that many cultures share, but in fact emotions are healthy and need to be expressed rather than suppressed.
I'm finding that treatment of women differs by generation in the culture in which I've been brought up. Not saying there are no misogynists in my age group, but there seem to be a lot more guys in their teens, twenties, and thirties who are cool with, say, a woman going to work and earning the same amount for the same job. I think that has to do with education (of the sort Logan was talking about). To simply dismiss education as a possibility without even trying it is a dangerous mentality, and will never result in change. But then I'm guessing you don't actually want change, since you seem quite comfortable with the current status quo.
I think most people here are reacting to extremism rather than any single religion. As I've said before, the Koran lends itself to a far more feminist reading than the Bible does. There are plenty of (extreme) Christians out there who completely agree with your ideas of what a man or woman should be. And there are plenty of Christians and Muslims who would disagree with your views. I know several, and I'm guessing there are more than just the ones I know.
Here's some of the prophet's sayings (peace be upon him) about women, & as you may have known, every muslim has to follow the prophet's teachings:
- Women are the twin halves of men.
- The world and all things in it are valuable; but the most valuable thing in the world is a virtuous woman.
- God enjoins you to treat women well, for they are your mothers, daughters, aunts.
- Shall I not point out to you the best of virtues? It is your doing good to your daughter when she is returned to you having been divorced by her husband.
- The rights of women are sacred. See that women are maintained in the rights assigned to them.
- Whoever hath a daughter, and doth not bury her alive (before islam people used to bury their daughters thinking it's shameful to have'em born) or scold her, or prefer his male children to her, may God bring him into Paradise.
- Admonish your wives with kindness.
- He is the most perfect Muslim whose disposition is best; and the best of you are they who behave best to their wives.
- ... etc
Actually, I do not think this is unfair, in no case... But as I already said, exceptions are there & will always be as long as human beings are never perfect & islam ain't responsible for muslims not applying the rules, they're called muslim though, you see what they do & may think "Is that islam!! what a horrible thing!!"... You cannot expect someone who eats cake for the first time in their life to find it delicious if you make it with cement instead of flour...