Invade the West, Liberate Their Women!

“The image of the oppressed Muslim woman can all too often serve as another self-righteous reason for Europeans to congratulate themselves on their superiority.”
– Carl Ernst, Following Muhammad

All too often, recent advances in the west concerning women’s rights, are considered to be an indispensable part of the west – and another illustration of Muslim savagery and backwardness. Yet while Muslim women have been guaranteed inheritance and property rights under Islamic law since the seventh century, English women were only granted such rights in 1870 and 1882 (as a result of the Married Women’s Property Acts).

When Lady Mary Wortley Montagu visited Constantinople in 1716, with her husband, the British ambassador, she was “amazed to meet there Ottoman women of the nobility who owned large estates and managed their own property without male interference. Lady Mary even found the veil to be a liberating device that freed women from the prying eyes of men.”

People here do realize that up until very recently, it was common place for Muslim men to wear veils, especially the upper and ruling classes?

Additionally, as Ernst points out in another erudite example, that “emblem of Western technological superiority, the Internet, is saturated with pornographic images.”

The west continually sexualizes and objectifies women. Sex sells, everything from music, to movies, to food and clothing. Ads illustrating naked women, sell perfume and lingerie to other women.

The west also perverts cleanliness, associating it with virginity. Yet, as we’re all aware, this only concerns women, setting up yet another double standard that’s often overlooked – the distinction between a “player” and a “whore”.

Traditionally, Christian scholars have derided Muhammad, for he had married several times. What type of prophet is that? Jesus was celibate, and indeed even his mother was virginal. The west, along with their dominate mode of thought – Christianity – associates sex with dirtiness, uncleanliness. Perhaps setting us up with all of the problems in present-day society.

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How confident are we with our relations between the sexes? Or perhaps the real question is – how confident should we be?

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This article and more can be found at The Progressive Voice!