The Culture of Misogyny

"A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy."
"When being raped, she shouldn't fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they'd have dropped her off after 'doing her', and only hit the boy."
"You can't clap with one hand -- it takes two hands. A decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal."
"Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 percent of girls are good."
Mukesh Singh, one of the six Indian men convicted of the Delhi bus gang rape

"If my daughter or sister engaged in premarital activities and disgraced herself and allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take this sort of sister or daughter to my farmhouse, and in front of my entire family, I would put petrol on her and set her alight."
A.P. Singh, defence lawyer, India

MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images   In this photograph taken on September 11, 2013, Indian Defence lawyer AP Singh addresses the media outside the Saket Court complex in New Delhi.

The gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh, 23, a university student returning from an evening out at the cinema with a male friend, horrified the world. India was embarrassed enough that its parliament voted in new laws on punishment for rape. The atrocity where this young woman was beaten, gang-raped and had iron bars inserted in her stomach cavity destroying her viscera and killing her, was an expression of the contempt in which certain members of Indian society view women.

Dibyangshu Sarkar / AFP/Getty Images   Indian activists from the Social Unity Center of India (SUCI) shout slogans against the state government in protest against the gang-rape and murder of two girls in the district of Badaun in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and recent rapes in the eastern state of West Bengal, in Kolkata on June 7, 2014. The protests came amid a growing uproar over the killings in Uttar Pradesh, with the United Nations saying violence against women should be regarded as a matter of basic human rights. The two cousins, aged 14 and 15. 

 

Despite a toughening of the laws against rape, women and girls continue to be attacked, raped, and murdered. Low-caste girls and women have few protections against the predators that think nothing of committing these crimes. Indian police notoriously are disinterested in pressing charges, much less investigating complaints. The shame inherent in a girl or woman having been raped -- if she survives -- is such that families make every effort to conceal the event.

AP Photo

The interview where this convicted rapist/murderer made his statements was for the production of a BBC documentary. Mukesh Singh claimed that Jyoti Singh, the victim, was the criminal, not the victim, and by extension the six men who brutalized and murdered her are victims of her criminal act of resisting them. Had she and her friend not attempted to fight back to protect her from what occurred, the gang would have had no reason to inflict the savagery she experienced.

The killing was a mere "accident", according to this odious man. Indian courts passed death sentences on the gang. Mukesh Singh, 26 at the time of the carnage, was a slum-dweller and he drove the bus the gang had commandeered. The presiding judge at his trial rejected his claims of non-involvement in the gang rape, stating that the case had "shocked the collective conscience" of India.

Evidently not the conscience of those like Mukesh Singh, and lawyers like A.P. Singh -- representing low and high social order -- who will continue to believe they did nothing wrong, and that custom validates that belief, evident in the ongoing reports of repulsively vicious attacks on girls and women throughout India, including unfortunate tourists, innocent in their belief that they can be safe as women in public in India.

Complainant, Heal Thyself

"[I plan to press Prime Minister Harper to] open his heart [to understand the problem of missing and murdered aboriginal women is]a black mark on Canada [requiring an investigation]."
There are root causes that have to be addressed. The homelessness, the poverty, the alcohol and drug abuse. The systems that are there need to be changed."
Perry Bellegard, newly elected chief, Assembly of First Nations

"I beg to differ that the federal government is the ultimate solution here. The solution is at the community level."
"Now, who are the chiefs and councils assembling in their) communities to address this issue?"
"[The federal government will help [but, you know, someone has got to take ownership of this issue. And even if we try to do it at the federal level, it won't change anything. If we're honest here [it's apparent what the problem is]."
"Obviously, there's a lack of respect for women and girls on reserves. So, you know, if the guys grow up believing that women have no rights, that's how they are treated."
"If you really have heart, and if you take this at heart, you will not ask the government of Canada to spin its wheels for years over an enquiry that will bring about what? Exactly what we know today."
Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt

The 16-year-old pulled herself out of the freezing waters of the Assiniboine River Saturday morning after she was allegedly attacked twice and sexually assaulted sometime Friday night. Her family has said she is expected to make a full recovery.
Justin James Hudson, 20, and a 17-year-old young man were arrested on Tuesday and are charged with attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon.

Recent federal legislation has recognized the rights of on-reserve aboriginal women, taking action to provide in law for matrimonial property rights. As potent an indication as any that the federal government is vitally interested in promoting the rights of women. And which speaks volumes of a culture that is inherently misogynist in its traditional refusal to give equal rights to men and women. This is the same culture that appears to nourish the belief that women are inferior to men and as such men can control women.

Violence against women on reserves is legendary. And the kind of violence visited upon aboriginal girls and women that leaves them defenceless victims of abuse and worse, takes place within the broader society in most places on Earth, but in civilized communities it is condemned as immoral, as an offence against basic human rights, and laws are enacted to combat it and protect the rights of women. The First Nations' communities' lag in this instance will not be solved by a government enquiry.

The problem exists as an iniquitous custom long ignored if not tolerated, and it is past time that First Nations communities in general and the Assembly of First Nations in particular must address it head on, rather than punting the issue over to the government which is helpless in and of itself to turn the culture around. This is an issue that must be confronted by aboriginals and the solution found within themselves.

Even in the face of the knowledge that the assailants who raped and beat and left 16-year-old Rinelle Harper for dead in Winnipeg last month were themselves both aboriginal, her tragic case has been used by the AFN and its new chief to verbally assault the government for its refusal to launch a completely useless inquiry. Which would only conclude what previous enquiries have done, that this is a problem within the aboriginal community which must heal itself.

The West's Dangerous Enchantment with Islam Muslim Women Thrown "Under the Bus" by Uzay Bulut November 9, 2014 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4841/west-enchantment-islam There are no women's rights in Islam; there are no women's rights in most Muslim countries. And there is no freedom of expression in these countries; people have become virtually voiceless. To make a positive change in Muslim countries, we need to be able to speak openly, without putting one's life at risk, and tell the (too-often criminalized) truth about what Islamic teachings and traditions actually contain. If one is called "racist" or "Islamophobe," the answer is that these are the accusations bullies always use to silence those who disagree with them. The real Islamophobes are those who degrade, abuse and kill their fellow Muslims. If oppression of women is rooted in the culture, shouldn't one be asking, 'what makes a culture that misogynous?' There is a situation even more frightening. It now seems to be difficult to speak openly about fundamentalist Islam even in Western countries. The worst thing any Western progressive or feminist can do is to stay silent. The loudest voices in the West now seem to come from many progressives who say that criticizing of Islam is racist, intolerant, bigoted and Islamophobic. Injustices, they claim, take place all around the world, not just among Muslims or in Muslim countries. The criticism, they go on, comes from wrong interpretations of Islamic teachings. They say that Islam respects women, and that there are good and bad Muslims, just as there are good and bad people in all religions. In just seven years, however, between 2002 and 2009, the rate of murdered women in Turkey has increased by 1400 percent.[1] There are also more than 181,000 child brides in Turkey.[2] When those figures are provided by state authorities, they are based on factual statistics. But when they are expressed in a critical manner by Canan Arin, a lawyer and women rights activist, they are, apparently, a "crime." Canan Arin, 72, is a feminist lawyer who has dedicated her life to women's rights struggles in Turkey.[3] The Antalya Bar Association, in December 2011, invited her to its newly founded Women's Rights Enforcement Centre to give training to the lawyers on violence against women. There, she delivered a speech about early and forced marriages, and gave two examples -- one from the 7th century, the other from the 20th century -- to clarify her point. The first example concerned Muhammad, the founder of Islam, who married a girl of seven. The second was about Abdullah Gul, then-President of the Turkish Republic, who became engaged to his wife when she was 14 and married her when she was 15, in 1980. Although both of those examples are supposedly based on the truth, speaking the truth in Turkey now seems to constitute a crime. A year later, therefore, a warrant was issued for Arin's arrest, and on December 12, 2012, she was brought to court for "insulting religious values adopted by a part of the society" (Turkish Penal Code Article- 216/3) and for "insulting the President" (Turkish Penal Code- Article 299/1). On May 30, 2013, the court declared its final decision, which was the adjournment of the trial. According to the ruling, if Arin commits a similar crime in three years and receives a punishment for it, her case will be reopened. "If I do not open my mouth for three years, and do not engage in [discussions of similar] subject matters, this trial will be ignored. Their ruling is like running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. But this trial should have never been opened in the first place," Arin said to the Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet. It is bewildering that any prosecutor actually considers child marriage a "value." According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, in 2012 alone, the rate of parental consent for legal marriage under the age of 18 increased by 94.2%. This increase is not taking place in a country ruled by Islamic sharia law, but in Turkey, the only so-called "secular" Muslim country. There are no women's rights in Islam; there are no women rights in most Muslim countries. And as there is no freedom of expression in these countries, people have become virtually voiceless. Yet many people, especially the so-called progressives, seem to find limitless excuses for fundamentalist Islamic atrocities against women. These include beheadings, stonings, domestic violence, honor killings, female genital mutilation, official legal inequality, home confinement, child marriages, and Saudi Arabia's prohibition against women driving, to name a few. Statements that come up with "multicultural" excuses to provide cover for the practices of fundamentalist Islam, however, never have, and never will, help to liberate women who suffer under Islamic misogyny, gender apartheid and jihad. To make a positive change in Muslim countries, we need to be able to speak openly and tell the (too-often criminalized) truth about what Islamic teachings and traditions actually contain. Yet in Muslim countries, it is impossible speak openly about what is in these Islamic teachings and traditions, without putting one's life at risk. There is a situation even more frightening. It now seems to be difficult to speak openly about fundamentalist Islam even in Western countries, in part thanks to the dangerous enchantment of Western progressives and feminists who romanticize Islamism. Women in the Muslim world desperately need the voice of Western progressives and feminists. But when it comes to finding excuses to neutralize critical questions about Islamic violence, Western progressives seem endlessly creative. Known by an increasing number of women as "Excuses for Abuses," these include: Criticizing Islam is racist and reveals "intolerance," "bigotry" and "Islamophobia." For the record, Islam is not a race. Moreover, if you discuss the violent and misogynous teachings of Islam, it does not mean that you hate or are intolerant of Muslims, just of violence and misogyny. It does mean that you care about Muslim women; that you do not want them to be forced to find four male "witnesses" to "prove" they have been raped, or to be punished by Islamic courts as adulterers if their rapists do not confess. It means you believe that their testimony in court, or their inheritance, should be valued as highly as a man's; that you do not want them to be the victim of honor killings or child marriages at the hands of their Muslim family members, and that you do not want their husbands to be able beat them with impunity. It also means that you want children to grow up to be honest, informed, compassionate adults, filled with love for life and fellow human beings, and who can speak up for rights and liberties that can never be taken for granted -- all gained as a result of centuries-long wars, struggles and social movements. It means you do not want to see children blowing themselves up on a bus, or people buying or selling women, or killing their sisters for not wearing the hijab. And finally, it means that you do not want children getting married at the age of seven, especially to men they have never met, or to be hypocrites who have to say, "Islam is a religion of peace" to defend themselves every time another Muslim commits a crime justified by proclaiming Islamic beliefs. "Injustices against women take place all around the world, not just against Muslims or in Muslim countries." If the oppression of women is rooted in the culture, shouldn't one be asking, 'what makes a culture that misogynous?' What is progressivism if its objectives do not include helping emancipate women from Islamic oppression, such as honor killings, child marriages, stonings, flogging and punishing rape victims (while releasing rapists) -- all of which are employed in the Muslim world, in line with Islamic teachings, allegedly to "protect" and "respect" women and to keep them "pure," but more probably to keep women in their place? "What you are seeing is not the real Islam; Islam has been hijacked." The problem with this view is that Islam actually does teach that a woman is worth less than a man. Many teachings in Islam are misogynous -- from wearing veils; requiring four male witness to prove rape; issues of inheritance; court testimony; rules of marriage; rules of divorce and remarriage; a man's "right" to marry up to four women and then beat them, and so on. If Western progressives and feminists care at all about their Muslim sisters, they need to protest against the actual roots of this injustice: these Islamic teachings. Many progressives, however, seem not even to want to learn about them, let alone speak out against them. Perhaps they fear that if they knew more, they might actually have to speak out. Or perhaps they remain silent from indifference or inertia. But if all they really care about in the West is their (understandable) ability to get abortions and equal pay for equal work, they have badly failed to grasp the consequences of a theocracy on everyone, not only on women. If they wished to inform themselves, they might read just the verses of the Quran relating to women and glance at the hadith sunnah literature -- all easily found on the internet. Then -- if they sincerely wished to raise future generations with humanitarian values, equal justice under law, and a respect for human rights -- they might educate others about those teachings, while basing their opinions on knowledge, not on wishful thinking. "If you accommodate Islamic misogyny," says the writer Pat Condell, "you legitimize it and you invite it into your own life and into the lives of your children ... because it's coming your way. You also help to ensure that the woman in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, who gets beaten every day, will continue to be beaten and treated as a piece of property, as will her daughters and granddaughters all the way down the line." "It is not about Islam. Crimes were committed and are being committed in all places throughout history." The world is no paradise, but in the West, if economic, political or social causes of injustices are freely discussed, why should religious, or Islamic, causes be exempt from discussion? In many Muslim countries, where only Islam -- but not the people -- has the right to survive, such discussion is impossible without extreme risk. Even in Turkey, considered one of the most "liberal" of Muslim countries, if you dare to discuss or criticize the teachings of Islam, you can be killed, arrested, attacked, exposed to social and psychological lynching campaigns, brought to court and given a prison sentence. Do progressives not oppose supremacy and oppression? Why then do they turn a blind eye to Islamic supremacy and oppression? In Gaza, for instance, for whom Western progressives claim to have so much sympathy, women are systematically murdered in honor killings, and the Hamas government does not protect them. Appeals court judge Ziad Thabet, told Al-Monitor that "during his time in the judiciary, he had noticed that honor killing defendants were usually given light sentences. Three years in prison was the harshest.... Life sentences or execution were never a consideration." Al Jazeera also reported that "the number of so-called 'honor killings' in Palestine doubled in 2013 from the previous year. ... For the past three years, the number of women killed has increased each year." Can Western feminists not stand up even against a terrorist group, Hamas, on behalf of Gazan women, who cannot speak up for themselves for fear of reprisals? Or would this not be as pleasurable as condemning Israel, the only Middle Eastern country where Muslim women do have equal rights? Or can these progressives only parrot propaganda, such as, "Palestinian women are exposed to honor killings by angry Palestinian men due to the Israeli occupation"? "Not all Muslims are the same. There are good and bad Muslims, just as there are good and bad people in all religions." First of all, thank you very much for this genius discovery. But how can it help reduce the Islamic violence around the world? Of course it is true that there are many good Muslims, whose values do not follow Islamic teachings verbatim, but also include humanitarian values. They do not wage war on other religions or try to bring them under submission to Islam. In the eyes of jihadis or Islamists, however, who live by the harshest interpretation of most doctrinaire Islamic teachings, such a quality makes them "bad Muslims." "All religions are essentially the same." Well, not quite. Biblical values are far more benign than Islamic ones, and generally descriptive rather than proscriptive. Furthermore, the most violent of them were long ago abandoned. No religion, for instance, other than Islam, has ever commanded that those who insult or leave it should be put to death. (See Surahs 6:93, 33:57, 33:61) On September 24 after being found guilty of "heresy" and "insulting prophet Jonah," Mohsen Amir Aslani, 37, an Iranian psychologist, was hanged in a prison near the city of Karaj west of Tehran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Aslani, it seems, had given religious classes where he provided his own interpretations of the Quran. In one of his classes, he apparently told his audience that Jonah could not have emerged from the whale's belly; it was this statement that led to his charge of insulting the prophet Jonah, the Iran Wire website reported. Left: Canan Arin, a feminist lawyer arrested in Turkey for "insulting religious values adopted by a part of the society" and "insulting the President," after she mentioned that the Muslim prophet Muhammad married a 7-year-old girl and the President of Turkey married his wife when she was 15 years old. Right: Mohsen Amir Aslani, an Iranian psychologist who was hanged in Iran for the crimes of "heresy" and "insulting prophet Jonah," after he said that the biblical prophet Jonah could not have emerged from a whale's belly. How much time will pass until Islam is reformed or reinterpreted? How many people will be killed, attacked or enslaved until that happens? How many Muslims have the free will or courage to speak out? Will Islamists even ever allow them to, without threatening retaliation? Are the Islamists so uncertain that what they are preaching can stand on its merits -- as the Quran instructs, "without compulsion" -- that they cannot even tolerate even a single comment about one of their prophets? What Western progressives and feminists are doing for the sake of political correctness -- or a well intentioned, if misguided, "multiculturalism" -- does nothing to help Muslim women. On the contrary, "political correctness," silence, or making excuses for atrocities caused by Islam, can only add to the suffering of women in the Muslim world. If progressives truly want to protect Muslims, they cannot achieve this goal by "protecting" Islam from criticism. If one is called "racist" or "Islamophobe," the answer is that these are accusations bullies always use to silence people who disagree with them. The real Islamophobes are those who degrade, abuse and kill their fellow Muslims. The worst thing any Western progressive or feminist can do in the face of the suffering caused by Islamic teachings, is to stay silent. Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist based in Ankara. [1] According to the Turkish Ministry of Justice, 2009. [2] According to the data of the Turkish Statistical Institute in 2012. [3] Arin co-founded the Purple Roof-Women's Shelter Foundation, the Association for the Support of Women Candidates and the Women's Rights Enforcement Centre of the Istanbul Bar Association. Between 1994 and 1997, she acted as an expert on violence against women for the Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe.

Celebrating Freedom, Experiencing Terror

"My concern for the women of Afghanistan or Pakistan, it's really concern for these women who need champions to speak on their behalf. Malala [Yousafzai] has been a great champion."
Conservative Senator Salma Ataullahjan

"[Malala Yousafzai issued a cri de coeur against those within the Muslim world hostile to the education of girls speaking of] a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism."
"Let us pick up our books and pens, they are our most powerful weapons."
"One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world."
Malala Yousafzai, 2014 Nobel Laureate

Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize at 17-year-old, will receive honorary Canadian citizenship, putting her in the company of Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and the 14th Dalai Lama.    (Darren Staples/REUTERS)

This was the day that the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, was set to go to Toronto to appear at the "Strong Girls, Strong World" event taking place there. Malala Yousafzai would be the honoured guest. Wednesday was the day that he would honour this Pakistani young woman's courage and her campaign on behalf of girls in the Muslim world and beyond deserving of an education. The plan was to award her with the rare presentation of honourary Canadian citizenship.

This is an honour that has been bestowed seldom. To the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg whose determination and defiance in the face of fearsomely deadly Nazi domination saved thousands of Jews from the death chambers, a post-mortem honour. To the Dalai Lama a recognition of his place in the world as an international messenger of peace and a prick to the conscience of those who decry China's totalitarian oppression of minorities.

For Malala Yousafzai the recognition would be in honour of her having the stolid determination to dangerously defy the decree of the Taliban-led hill tribe leaders of Pakistan, denying education to girls. She was awarded the punitive distinction of being shot in the head in October 2012 in recognition by the Taliban of the influence that a young girl could wield in her defiance of their deadly orders to obey and remain modestly silent in the face of misogynistic oppression.

Her ongoing promotion for the schooling of girls has brought her the recognition that infuriates fundamentalist Islamists. Her survival after her ordeal with restorative surgery bringing her back to robust health after months of recovery helped her to become an international symbol of the heroism of girls in the face of threats to keep them dependent on the whims of men in an an achronistic paternalistic society based on the subservience of women.

But the day dawned inclement to the purpose at hand. Violent Islamist attackers of the very mould of those who had shot Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan imposed their vision of jihadist fascism in the capital of Canada, killing a member of the Armed Forces on guard before the National War Memorial and going on to attack the very seat of government in the Canadian Parliament, effectively shutting down Parliament and the centre of the capital for the day, while security forces attempted to restore order and security.

Canadians who felt they had good reason to believe that the violence and terroristic fear that plagued countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Syria would never drop by their doorsteps have discovered that Islamist fanaticism has tentacles everywhere, even in liberal democracies that pride themselves on their pluralistic outlook of equality and liberty. Attacks that take place in faroff Pakistan can also plague peaceful Canada.