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billpalto t1_jahrq6b wrote

Women all through the ages have had to fight to get equal rights. The biggest obstacle seems to be religion. All the western religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) say the woman is a helper to man, the man is the leader.

A woman committed the first Sin, and got humanity kicked out of the Garden of Eden. For that, she was cursed to have trouble during childbirth.

Islam, being the newest and youngest religion, seems to be the furthest behind in recognizing that women are God's creation, as much as men, and should be treated as such.

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NeedlessPedantics t1_jaioyjy wrote

“Women are gods creation, as much as men”

Yes the solution to religious indoctrination is to start splitting untestable theological hairs. 😒

No, no, no, don’t treat women like second class citizens according to Islam… treat them like second class citizens according to Christianity… there we go, much better.

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Standard_Gauge t1_jahy7bt wrote

> All the western religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) say the woman is a helper to man, the man is the leader.

To be fair, in the Hebrew Bible, Deborah was a judge, who made rulings that men as well as women had to follow. There is nothing Biblical about saying women can't have authority or should be subservient to men.

Reform Judaism has been completely egalitarian for decades, with Conservative gradually coming around.

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billpalto t1_jai4pfu wrote

Yes, there are exceptions. In general though, women are considered subservient to men in those religions. The more conservative they are, the slower they come around.

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cam94509 t1_janzzkk wrote

Reform Judaism is hardly the exception. It's by far the largest of the three major branches of Judaism in the US, larger than the two major others combined. (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/22/denominational-switching-among-u-s-jews-reform-judaism-has-gained-conservative-judaism-has-lost/,current denomination question has reform at 33%, conservative (which has woman leaders) at 18%, and orthodoxy (which a woman leaders but is still fighting itself about it) at 8%.)

That's not an exception at all.

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boofbeer t1_jajmx48 wrote

>There is nothing Biblical about saying women can't have authority or should be subservient to men.

"I do not let women teach men or have authority over them. Let them listen quietly." 1 Timothy 2:12

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Standard_Gauge t1_jajwye9 wrote

Sorry, I am talking about the Hebrew Bible. I am not too familiar with the Christian Bible. The poster to whom I was replying was painting with a broad brush "all" religions and specifically included Judaism. My point is that religions are not one monolith.

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boofbeer t1_jak2a6b wrote

Obviously not a monolith, as your nod to Orthodox Jews concedes. Those guys still refuse to sit next to women on airplanes.

In general, I think it's fair to say that religious people tend to endorse more restrictions on what is acceptable behavior for women than non-religious people. #NOTALLRELIGIOUSPEOPLE

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cam94509 t1_jao0r66 wrote

I mean, I'd agree that religious people tend to, but I wouldn't agree that that's not really true of religious Jews compared to the rest of the population.

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boofbeer t1_jasog0o wrote

The most religious Jews are Orthodox Jews, and they segregate the sexes during worship (and, as I mentioned earlier, insist on it when using public transportation as well), and have dress codes for women as well as for men. The secular world has none of that.

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cam94509 t1_jayyfq1 wrote

I think my rabbis would be a little upset by being called "less religious" than Orthodox rabbis, tbh.

Hell, I'm mildly upset, it's just less funny when I phrase it that way.

It's also not quite as simple as you're suggesting, but I'll concede that there are ultra-Orthodox sects who's practices look like you're describing.

I'll grant that more conservative subsets of Judaism are more likely to have certain views of women, but I'd put to you that religious Jews are more likely to be progressive on women's rights than atheists in general, so I don't think it's fair to describe the faith as conservative with regards to women in general.

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Woe-man t1_jaqfezn wrote

Western religions? What? Those are all abrahamic religions originating from the middle east.

Oh and those aren’t even the worst. (Excluding islam, its always the worst) Buddhism for example don’t even view women as subservient, they are just lesser beings that haven’t progressed enough to be born as men yet.

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serpentechnoir t1_jail42z wrote

Has nothing to do with Islam being young, it has to do with the population being radicalised by constant attacks and political interference by the west in their communities.

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I_Framed_OJ t1_jaivjfu wrote

“This is all the West’s fault!” You know, it gets really tiresome when any country or population, not just Islamic ones, cannot take responsibility for their own policies and practices, and instead play the eternal victim, blaming Europe and America for every little thing that has gone wrong. Like their lot in life is due to “colonialism” or something. The “West” is not responsible for Iran stoning people to death, or hanging homosexuals in public. The “West” never forced the Afghanis to sew their women up in cloth bags and deny them an education or employment. If the “West” is engaged in political interference these days, it’s by providing moral support to protest movements against unjust, barbaric governments. As far as “constant attacks” go, Israel has indeed engaged in crimes against the Palestinians. Let’s be perfectly clear, here. Powerful Muslim nations such as Iran and the Saudis do not give a fuck about the Palestinians. They want them to suffer, so they can demonize Israel and America and distract their own populations from the depredations they themselves inflict on their own people.

Yes, colonialism caused a lot of damage from which many nations may never fully recover, and America has engaged in despicable acts throughout their short history. But honour killings do not happen in the West, except among immigrant communities from Muslim countries. Throwing acid in a woman’s face because she rejects a marriage proposal does not happen in the West. Cutting criminals’ body parts off, or having them publicly flogged, does not happen in the West. Nobody here ever told Muslim societies to do any of these things, either. Muslims decided that stuff on their own, based on the ravings of an illiterate, bronze-aged sheep-herder turned violent warlord (and paedophile - his 3rd wife Aisha was still playing with goddamn dolls when he consummated their disgusting marriage).

It isn’t even strictly Islam. This stuff doesn’t happen in Indonesia, for example. They’ve got other problems. But people in the Middle East will keep fighting and quarrelling and killing each other with bombs so long as they remain in thrall to their religious leaders and continue blaming the “West” for all the evils in the World. Spare me your belly-aching. My compassion and patience have run out.

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serpentechnoir t1_jajawcq wrote

You just admitted it doesn't happen in Indonesia, guess what cos we don't leave their cities in rubble. I'm not an Islam apologist, all religion becomes abhorrent when radicalised, Christianity is just as bad when it has the opportunity.

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I_Framed_OJ t1_jajka68 wrote

I gave a list of things that do not happen in Indonesia, that are perhaps specific to certain cultures in the Middle East and South Asia. However, radicalization and violence are not exclusive to those regions. There have been a series of terrorist attacks in Indonesia targeting westerners, and militant Muslim groups in the Philippines have kidnapped and actually beheaded western hostages. They do all of this in the name of Islam, and it’s not because America bombs their countries. They may have genuine grievances against the West, who have supported anti-Communist dictatorships in the past, but you cannot draw a straight line from the West’s influence to these barbaric acts of violence, as if the militant terrorist groupe have no choice but to kill people and cut their heads off.

The Christian world has indeed committed barbarities (don’t mention the Crusades - the Muslim world started that shit - look it up), but we in the West have moved past that ever since the Protestant Reformation (again, look it up) and the de-legitimization of clerical authority along with the emphasis on the New Testament, in particular the Sermon on the Mount. There has been no Reformation in Islam. They still hold to the exact word of the Quran, written over 14 centuries ago and held to be the inerrant and final revelation of God, and the Hadith, which comprise the opinions of the Prophet and therefore subject to his whims and desires, which instruct them to slay unbelievers wherever they are found, take the women of the enemy as sex slaves if they happen to be virgins, treat the testimony and rights of inheritance of women as subordinate to those of men, and prescribe vicious punishments up to and including death for apostasy (a victimless crime if ever there was one, and a thought crime for that matter!). Saudi Arabia did not allow women to drive until incredibly recently, and they behead people for witchcraft, which is a completely imaginary crime since witches, you know, don’t exist. These are not the policies of radicals. These are the proclamations of the Saudi government, that is, the Royal Family, who incidentally consider themselves the guardians of Islam and allies of the West. Polls taken across the Muslim world, encompassing a wide cross-section of those societies, including Muslims living in the West, demonstrate that the vast, vast majority of Muslims condemn homosexuality and consider death the appropriate punishment for renouncing Islam. If an entire society is “radicalized” then the word has no meaning. If individual Muslims reject the majority opinions of their co-religionists, then it is just as probably due to the influence of Western, humanist values.

I will say it again: the West is no longer to blame for the barbarities, iniquities, and outrages against basic human rights within the Muslim world. It is a civil war within Islam, which occasionally spills over into our sphere. The world is a much more complex place than you seem to realise. It is not a simple matter of blaming the West for the inability (or unwillingness) of Middle Eastern and African societies to clean up their own messes. We can help, but they have to take the lead.

Killing young women for not keeping their hair covered? That is 100% on them, not us.

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