dialamah

My sister is living the life she chose. Why is her choice invalidated or devalued because other women have either more or less "freedom" than my sister?

Of course you have, you just don't recognize it because it's part of your cultural conditioning, aka "brainwashing". Unless you are telling us that the clothes you choose do not enhance your female form, that you don't wear makeup, show cleavage, wear high heels, have your hair colored or styled, shave regularly, or any number of other things Western women do on a daily basis to be "presentable", whether that's "slutty" or "classy". Then I might believe you that you are "your own person" that way.

Yes. Even if I don't care for niqabs, hijabs, men in beards and turbans, women in half-length skirts and bonnets, or people wearing the crucifix, it's not my business to.dictate how people can dress. Its also not the governments business. One of our Canadian values is allowing people to worship as they wish. Those who want to limit that freedom are wrong. That is your assumption based on nothing more than appearances. My neighbor wears hijab and is in no way an "Islamic Fundamentalist", she doesn't care what others believe, if they are gay, if they live in sin, if they drink; she doesn't even believe dog noses are haram. She is Shia, hubby is Sunni (or maybe the other way around, I don't remeber). Both of them seem to me to be more open-minded, tolerant and accepting of differences than many of the commentators on this thread. You cannot tell someone's internal belief based in what they are wearing. At 63, you should know this already. The rest of your post about the influence of religion on domestic violence I don't have time to respond to - have recently (last couple of days) come across studies that support some of what you say, but want to read up on it more before responding.

My sister also finds.it freeing to not have emphasis placed on dressing in ways that enhance her sexuality. Why are you so offended by people who value different things than you?

Most people are heterosexual. Some are homosexual, some are bisexual and some are asexual. Sexuality is one of the basic human instincts, along with breathing, eating and drinking and people have killed themselves because their instinct was so at odds with what their family/community would accept. To suggest that such a basic part of a person can be changed by school posters or learning about how people are different in their sexuality is ludicrous. Lucky for bisexual people throughout history that they could at least appear to be normal without having to suppress all of their entire sexual desires.

Sexual attraction isn't a choice. If a person feels equal sexual attraction to males and females, why is that less valid than an attraction to one or the other?

I have no idea what you perceive as a problem with bisexual women, or how that's related to their attractiveness relative to men.

Yes, making kids feel ashamed of their sexuality should be out of parent's control. Normalizing normal human behavior through media us a good thing imo. Instead of having kids grow up loathing themselves and hiding a huge part of themselves from family and friends, they can now look forward to acceptance within Western society, even if some people are still stuck in the dark ages. Kids I knew experimented, even without media portraying same-sex relationships. We didn't even know what homosexual meant: merely practicing with each other to be ready for boyfriends in a few years time. Or, in the case of one girl, practicing what her daddy taught her.

People kill themselves because of gender dysphoria. Just because hardly anybody talked about it in the 90s doesn't mean it didn't exist. Are you really sure that young people killing themselves is a better outcome than making other people "uncomfortable"?

A soul for a soul, kinda like what some US States practice, no Islam involved.

I've always maintained that the Koran supports misogyny, oppression, homophobia and terrorism by those who want it to. The difference between me and many Westerners is that I understand all religions do the same. There are Christian terror groups in Africa behaving much like ISIS does, and do you suppose the Buddhists and Hindus who are practicing genocide on Muslims are defying their religious beliefs? Certainly not; they've found some rationale in their teachings to make it God-approved. Even the Nazi's considered themselves Christian and doing God's work as they slaughtered Jews. All of these groups had to start out with the idea that their targeted group was "the worst" - exactly as you do. Then they found reasons to limit that groups freedom as Quebec has done with Bill 21 and which you support. Now, I doubt you support mass internment or slaughter of Canadian Muslims, and I don't expect Canada would ever go that far. But then, I doubt most Germans supported mass slaughter of Jews would be the final outcome during the slow erosion of Jewish rights and freedoms.

Sounds to me like an instruction not to murder innocents, which goes against your oft-repeated claim that Muslims are primed to murder for any or no reason. And if I recall correctly, that part about "corruption" is more along the lines of treasonous actions, not killing women because they failed to cover. Fail.

Women are at risk in this world for not dressing or behaving according to custom decreed by their culture. In the West, this means that if a woman who doesn't "dress modestly" is raped, she was "asking for it". Even dressed more modestly, is she's in the wrong place or happens to have had alcohol, well - she's to blame. After all, men can't be expected to control their urges if they come upon a woman who is alone and/or helpless. Even short of raping, if a woman dresses a certain way or behaves a certain way, she is slut shamed - regardless of her actual sexual behavior. You don't "get it" Goddess. You seem to think that misogyny is a staple in the Islamic religion and among Muslims, and that in every other religion its merely incidental. Culture creates misogyny, which is why Western women are still at risk of domestic and sexual violence and being blamed for that based on their dress and behavior, by conservative-minded people regardless of religion or no religion at all. In the Islamic countries, non-Muslim women are also subject to the same misogynistic practices as Muslim women, from FGM to domestic and sexual abuse because its culture, not religion, that dictates it. Religion is a convenient excuse - "God said, men enforce." And because its culture and not religion, when Muslim men and women grow up in Canada, they become less accepting of domestic and sexual violence against women, as per Western culture and by third or so generation, their attitudes are essentially indistinguishable from non-Muslim Canadians, which includes a range of more conservative to more progressive.

My question is "Is it a teaching of Islam?" In the countries where honor killings are carried out, it's not just Muslim women, but also women from other religions, including Christianity. In India, honor killings are also prevalent, even though it is not a Muslim majority country. So far as my understanding goes, honor killings are not supported by any religious texts or any government, but they still happen because of cultural beliefs that are disguised as Godly directives. And in Christian majority countries. I agree with you is that abuse of women is 1) a serious problem; 2) more socially and culturally acceptable in the developing world than in Western countries. What I don't agree with you is that this is specifically or especially an "Islamic" problem. It's a problem for women around the world, especially among poorer and uneducated populations, whether that's a village in Africa, India, the Middle East or in the backwoods of the poorest US states. It doesn't matter what religion these at-risk groups follow, or if they follow none at all.

Where does Islam require women to be killed for not wearing a headscarf, a niqab, a long skirt, long sleeves or showing too much cleavage? This is not to say that it doesn't happen, but is it an actual Islamic teaching or is it something that individuals promote or practice and claim its Islamic?

Same for Mennonites, Hutterites, Mormons and several other more mainstream Christian churches who advise women to "dress modestly"? Is there a Christian church who does not ask women to "dress modestly", even if they don't explicitly specify length of skirt or sleeves, cleavage allowed, or bathing suit style? Is it all based on the same trope "women are whores ..."?

Her husband prefers her to wear 3/4 sleeves, a shirt long enough to cover her butt when wearing pants, skirts below the knee and little to no cleavage. Left to her own devices, she'd dress more modestly than she did in her pre-Islam days, but less modestly than that requested by her husband. Is my sister more or less free than my Muslim neighbor who dresses modestly and also wears a headscarf because her husband prefers it?

You are assuming an awful lot here. The only two things you know for sure about Marocc is that she's female and a Muslim. Assuming she does now and has always covered when leaving the house, has never gone to the beach in a bathing suit or has not experienced "true freedom" reflects your beliefs about Muslim women generally and not Marocc's specific experience. My sister, who converted to Islam 15 or so years ago and lives in Egypt, does not cover unless she's going to Mosque, and has, in her lifetime, worn bikinis at the beach, worn revealing clothing, gone out to clubs and danced the night away. She chose Islam and whatever strictures her beliefs put on her dress and she feels that her more modest form of dress is freeing, because it removes focus from her sexuality. Also, Christian converts often feel that discovering God has made them "freer" even when their chosen sect imposes certain behaviors and ways of dress on them. Maybe it's the same for some Muslims.

1. That an adult could think a few posters are so powerful that they could persuade a high-schooler to change their gender is a problem equal to the problem of forcing gender on a young child. 2. What? 3. They do, actually. Children categorize gender between 18 and 24 months and as young as 3 will claim a gender for themselves. I don't support parents or the medical establishment rushing such a young child into reassignment surgery, that should wait till adulthood, imo. However, non-judgemental support and education are things I fully support, even at a young age. Else we end up with teens who beat down other teens who are "different" and adults who think posters can change a fundamental aspect of a person's sexuality.

They are being forced to choose between their religion and employment with the government, especially those women who already work in government, or whose career is in government paid institutions, such as teacher, police, nurse etc. Those women are forced to leave the province, their family, or disrupt their family to move. Sure, they can find other employment but why should a woman have to give up years of education just because they wear a hijab? Same question about a man or woman who wears a turban, btw. I fail to see how forcing these "choices" on (primarily) women is any different than choices forced by Islam, husbands or fathers. What does it accomplish, other mollifying people who dislike Muslims?

So, here is a news story about a Kenyan official claiming that lions were learning to be gay because ... gay tourists. This claim, that a girl decided to become a boy because she saw some posters at school, sounds about the same level of cluelessness about sexuality.

I found this when I googled "students exempted from sex ed Quebec". Various iterations of "Muslim students exempt from sex ed Quebec" got no hits at all. Clearly fake news and look how many people were happy to fall for it.

If you'd like us to use "correct names", perhaps you'd be kind enough to provide them. What, for example, would we call Salafis who believe that violence is the way to promote and expand Islam? Salafi is considered to be a more pure form of Islam because it seeks to emulate the first generations of Islam, correct? It was common in Mohammed's time to own slaves, and he did so himself. If a Salafist owns a slave, is he/she doing 'something wrong', or 'following the best of generations in Islam"? If any activity which we, today, would call wrong but which was common in Mohammed's time, would be a legitimate behavior of Salafis wouldn't it? No, it doesn't, to me. More often I've heard of Wahabism associated with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is considered among the most extreme when it comes to Islam; the women are extremely limited in terms of their freedom, any criticism of the ruling class or society is dealt with harshly, non-heterosexual people are also dealt with harshly. Saudi Arabia didn't get around to aboloshing slavery until 1962, but even today, minorities who "work" for the ruling class are little more than slaves anyway. So, what do we call these Muslims, if not Salafi?

This is true; I also don't call out Taxme who I find equally ridiculous and too often incoherent. Excluding Altai, I think the other two folks have actually confirmed what I think think (some) Muslims believe, even the stuff I've argued with them about.