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Feminism: Sex & gender discussions

Which religion treats women the worst?

121 replies

AsMenDclaredWomenTheirInferior · 10/12/2017 18:01

Untenable
is the idea
you can support a male supremacist ideology
whilst saying you still believe in equality for women and girls.

OP posts:
StigOfThePlump · 10/12/2017 18:37

I think this is similar thinking to the "women right's vs Islam" question in the Islam thread.

Islam as a religious concept offers more 'rights' than Christianity but Islamic societies tend to offer less was I think the consensus.

AsMenDclaredWomenTheirInferior · 10/12/2017 19:00

No it isn't it is totally different
"Which religion treats women the worst?"
There are far more than two religions and the Quran was plagiarised from the Bible and it's why virtually everything you find in the Quran is also in the Bible.

In some sects of Hinduism they believe that wives should place themselves on their dead husbands funeral pyres and if they do they will then be rewarded by being reincarnated as a male in a new after life and if they refuse to be burnt alive on their dead husbands funeral pyres they will be severely punished after they die by being reincarnated back into a female
I mean what could be worse than being reincarnated into a female in an anti female world?
Well crikey, nothing could be worse to a man than being reincarnated into female that is for sure in all these cultures that is for sure.

OP posts:
StigOfThePlump · 10/12/2017 19:04

Ok, I see.

Are we talking about which religion theoretically treats women the worst of which one actually does?

I read about lots of witch burnings in Africa and places like Papua New Guineau.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 10/12/2017 19:05

Transgenderism?

Crumbs1 · 10/12/2017 19:09

And whose opinion of worse is valid? Some women with a deep faith believe they are treated very well. They are provided Afro and feel respected. Their role is their community is very clear. I’m thinking Amish and Brethren amongst others. Your average feminist might think they are treated appallingly with little determination over their own lives but the women themselves might well view it entirely differently. Is the view of those women living that life less valid?

tiptopteepe · 10/12/2017 19:14

Religions treat women badly because they are reflective of the societies in which they were created. If a religion changes and adapts to changes in society like some of them seem to be trying to do then it gets a bit better but the worst ones are probably the ones which have remained very rigid. Or even the faiths or sects of certain religions that have remained very close to the orginal expression of that religion if you see what i mean.

AsMenDclaredWomenTheirInferior · 10/12/2017 19:16

Well, we need to compare religions to find out which one treats women the absolute worst don't we?

OP posts:
MrGHardy · 10/12/2017 19:22

It hardly matters, all are forms of social control stemming from a very misogynistic time.

pisacake · 10/12/2017 19:34

I don't know how you compare religions exactly, they are not like washing machines where it's all technical statistics.

whoputthecatout · 10/12/2017 19:44

When I think about women's roles I can't get beyond who decides what women's roles are. Then I can't get beyond the fact that it is generally men who decide i.e. the sex that has no right to do that.

Sarahjconnor · 10/12/2017 19:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AsMenDclaredWomenTheirInferior · 10/12/2017 20:12

@whoputthecatout
That is exactly it.
If men declared women their inferior using all of their religions to promote that one idea, how is one religion then better than any other or worse than any other in the way they regard and treat women and girls?
Because of that one idea men held that the female was inferior to the male, it changed the course of history and men slaughtered millions of females just because they weren't born male and those females men did not murder they caged and cornered in to marginalize them and to keep them from interfering in what men saw as men's world.
Men's oyster the world and men limited women's & girls world to a coffin stifling and suffocating them both physically and intellectually.

OP posts:
powershowerforanhour · 10/12/2017 20:23

I dunno about the worst but Baha'i is probably the best. Check out their anti-victim blaming stance: a beautiful woman wearing expensive jewels should be able to travel unveiled and alone through all the countries of the world without being robbed or molested.

AsMenDclaredWomenTheirInferior · 11/12/2017 01:52

LOL
"a beautiful woman wearing expensive jewels should be able to travel unveiled and alone through all the countries of the world without being robbed or molested."

Hey remember women, you are in serious trouble if you ain't beautiful and not adorned with expensive jewels

OP posts:
Mustang27 · 11/12/2017 02:35

Aren't women in general second class citizens in all religion?

AsMenDclaredWomenTheirInferior · 11/12/2017 03:29

@Mustang
It not that women are seen as second class citizens but that they have been sent by the devil to lead men astray!
So women are not part of men's culture, but interlopers who have to be marginalised to keep them from being involved in it,
To stop them from having any influence in a male utopia
Women are alien to men's cultures, outsiders, not one of the bro's!

OP posts:
CaoNiMa · 11/12/2017 07:23

Strict Orthodox Judaism is pretty low down on the list, but on the flip side Reform Judaism is probably one of the best places within religion to be a woman (and/or gay) - to the extent of altering the liturgy to 'worship' the matriarchs as well as the patriarchs, removing certain misogynistic lines (e.g. "thank you G-d for not making me a woman...")

AsMenDclaredWomenTheirInferior · 11/12/2017 11:04

@CaoNiMa
To worship any idol, any icon is to worship elitism.
It is not Equality, it is the exact opposite.

OP posts:
hackmum · 11/12/2017 13:07

Complicated question, because most religions have different branches, e.g. Quakerism is a very different beast from evangelical Christianity.

And some states are theocracies, so dodgy attitudes towards women are enshrined into law, e.g. in countries where the state is intertwined with the Catholic Church tend to have very repressive laws on abortion and contraception.

Obviously in Saudi Arabia the wahhabi strain of Islam is dominant, hence the incredibly restrictive rules on women having to be chaperoned by men in certain circumstances, not being allowed out unless fully veiled etc. But in some nominally Muslim countries, women have the freedom to wear normal clothes and do the same jobs as men. In Britain there are plenty of liberal-minded Muslim women whose lives aren't that different from non-Muslims.

Twofishfingers · 11/12/2017 13:19

I think it's people using religion as an excuse that treat women the worst, not religion per say. There will be people who will use Christianity to justify treating women really badly, yet many people who are Christians are also feminists and treat women equally. Same with l-g-b-t . Some people use Christianity to justify their feelings of anti-lgbt, yet many Christian churches are very welcoming and respectful of people of any sexual orientations.

AsMenDclaredWomenTheirInferior · 11/12/2017 13:42

Yeah, but still, not one word of the original text in any of those religions have altered in over 2000 years or in the case of Islam, 1300 years and which ever way you choose to interpret those texts, they are all anti female.
Muslim females are expected to wait on men hand and foot and Muslim daughters are taught from birth their role is to wait on their brothers and it is very similar to what is expected of Christian women and any females across the world.

They exist to clean up after men and are expected do all their washing and cleaning and keep men's home nice & tidy for them and men expect women to take on the majority of child care for them, so men can focus on their own careers whilst women are expected to let their flounder for men.
Men are the protected sex and their careers and they will never have to choose between either being a parent or having a career.

OP posts:
shorty6768 · 11/12/2017 13:45

OP it is okay for people to pick and choose the aspects of their religion to follow. It’s how religions become modernised. As far as which is the worst (in regards to what is written on the scriptures and still widely followed) in the West I’d say Islam for the simple fact that women aren’t allowed to deny their husbands sex without the angels cursing them until the morning, and when women are on their period they are impure. However, you’d have to be pretty well versed in all of the holy scriptures if you were going to make an accurate comparison.

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Adviceplease360 · 11/12/2017 15:01

Genuine question, have any of you ever spoke to women of these religions who you feel are oppressing them? By that, I mean the Christian/Jew/Muslim/Hindu woman on the school run?

Nuffaluff · 11/12/2017 15:03

There's a lot more to the way religious people live their lives than their holy books though.
I seriously doubt that the Muslim women who I know stick to that thing about the angel curses and the sex.
Maybe I'll ask my work mate tomorrow. On second thoughts I don't think I will!

Nuffaluff · 11/12/2017 15:10

My friend, who's a Hindu, is not oppressed, or doesn't appear to be. She talks about her religion with me and she's told me about all the goddesses they have and how she appreciates them more because she's a woman.
Having grown up in a multicultural area, with Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jewish friends I really haven't found them to be more oppressed than non-religious people on the whole. But then I don't know everything about their lives.

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