Feminists storm 'Should Wife-beating be Allowed?' debate in France and get attacked!

[Sunsoo]

And the response is sickening:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/16/femens-topless-condescension-towards-muslim-women-only-helps-sexism

I cannot believe people think that these women are just as bad as the men whom attacked them!

Also, why the fudge was this debate even allowed to happen? Violence is illegal in France. End of discussion!

I actually might stop reading the Gruan since they've published this article.

I can see thefitfatty's point. Yes, the law of the land says you can't beat your wife so anyone doing so should face charges and be punished. But, if they are discussing interpretations of the Koran on the subject, shouldn't they be discussing and debating these issues? It's probably the only way they can progress by debating it. How did we get to non beating and non raping (not that long ago) of wives in the UK? Did it just stop overnight, was thinking on it or laws changed without debate on it?

Janetblyton - is it against the law to smack or hit your children? Is it only ethnic monorities that do this? More likely? Probably.

I'm confused as to why the need to bare breasts? If I was at, for instance, a teaching conference discussing something, and a group of angry men crashed it and started waving their willies around, I would be very perplexed and not very happy.

Well said, Skipton Lass
Peaceful protest should be allowed in nearly all circumstances, with a few exceptions, e.g. not actually inside mosques / churches, or at funerals or hospitals / clinics.
Racism is unacceptable. So is sexism. Violence associated with either should never be excused.

Atenco There is a fundamental difference between discussing domestic violence when starting from the position is is totally unacceptable - i.e. just discussing how to stop it - and debating whether it is allowed or even advocated in Muslim teaching.

It is a real issue that the Koran is supposed to be the direct word of god and can't be changed.
In contrast, the more offensive bits of the bible can just be openly ditched by most branches of Christianity, e.g. parts of Leviticus, or explained away as parables, or misinterpretation of god by the writer.

Bam, they could discuss things which are lawful abroad, yes of course. Just as you could discuss those countries and indeed the Roman Catholic code of canon law which ias age 14 as age of consent (and actually personally I am not against age 14 as age of consent to sex).

I just think Femen do good work and we need to be aware of those in our midst who want to rid us of Western liberal values and the triumph of Islam. It's a huge problem.

The head of MI5 was on Radio 4 this morning - first time such a head anywhere has given a live interview by the way - talking about the dangers in our midst and the balance between law and freedom.

Baring breasts is important - it is like the suffragettes direct action. Sometimes people want to do direct action to get attention and it works.

Yes, mostly smacking children is illegal thankfully and I have never done it and nor did my parents. If it hurts or leaves a mark it's illegal and yes statistics show you are more likely to be beaten with a stick or hard hand by an immigrant parent or mullah than your average English/atheist, Christian person. It is because it is more prevalent abroad as they are backward. A recent family court decision looked at this and the silly lady judge said as it was normal in that family's culture to beat the hell out of the children or whatever the father could still have contact. I don't object to the contact order but I do object to her words that there should be more latitude to immigrants because of cultural difference.

Below about the Koran but the bible has a good few similar passages and also in the UK it was perfectly lawful to beat your life until some time in about the 1800s.

"Question:

Does Islam permit a man to hit his wife?

Summary Answer:

Yes, but only if she doesn't do as he asks. The beating must cease if the woman complies with her husband's demands. Beating is also intended to be the last resort of coercing submission, behind verbal abuse and abandonment.

According her testimony in the Hadith, Muhammad, physically struck his favorite wife for leaving the house without his permission. It is not known how he treated his less-favored wives.

The Qur'an:

Qur'an (4:34) - "Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great." Contemporary translations sometimes water down this word, but it is the same one used in verse 8:12 and clearly means 'to strike'.

Qur'an (38:44) - "And take in your hand a green branch and beat her with it, and do not break your oath..." Allah telling Job to beat his wife (Tafsir).

From the Hadith:

Bukhari (72:715) - A woman came to Muhammad and begged her to stop her husband from beating her. Her skin was bruised so badly that she it is described as being "greener" than the green veil she was wearing. Muhammad did not admonish her husband, but instead ordered her to return to him and submit to his sexual desires.

Bukhari (72:715) - "Aisha said, 'I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women'" This is Muhammad's own wife complaining of the abuse that the women of her religions suffer relative to other women.

Muslim (4:2127) - Muhammad struck his favorite wife, Aisha, in the chest one evening when she left the house without his permission. Aisha narrates, "He struck me on the chest which caused me pain."

Muslim (9:3506) - Muhammad's father-in-laws (Abu Bakr and Umar) amused him by slapping his wives (Aisha and Hafsa) for annoying him. According to the Hadith, the prophet of Islam laughed upon hearing this.

Abu Dawud (2141) - "Iyas bin ‘Abd Allah bin Abi Dhubab reported the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) as saying: Do not beat Allah’s handmaidens, but when ‘Umar came to the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) and said: Women have become emboldened towards their husbands, he (the Prophet) gave permission to beat them." At first, Muhammad forbade men from beating their wives, but he rescinded this once it was reported that women were becoming emboldened toward their husbands. Beatings are sometimes necessary to keep women in their place.

Abu Dawud (2142) - "The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife."

Abu Dawud (2126) - "A man from the Ansar called Basrah said: 'I married a virgin woman in her veil. When I entered upon her, I found her pregnant. (I mentioned this to the Prophet).' The Prophet (peacebeupon_him) said: 'She will get the dower, for you made her vagina lawful for you. The child will be your slave. When she has begotten (a child), flog her'" A Muslim man thinks his is getting a virgin, then finds out she is pregnant. Muhammad tells him to treat the woman as a sex slave and then flog her after she has delivered the child.

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 969 - Requires that a married woman be "put in a separate room and beaten lightly" if she "act in a sexual manner toward others." According to the Hadith, this can be for an offense as petty as merely being alone with a man to whom she is not related.

Kash-shaf (the revealer) of al-Zamkhshari (Vol. 1, p. 525) - [Muhammad said] "Hang up your scourge where your wife can see it"

Bambambini: "It's probably the only way they can progress by debating it."

My understanding is that when you go to another country, you follow the laws of that country. For example, if you went to Saudi Arabia you would be expected to wear a veil if you went out in public. If instead you had a meeting to discuss whether you should have to veil or not, you would get pretty short shrift from the authorities.

And it's odd, isn't it, how this particular group of Muslims find it hard to progress on issues such as wife-beating when Muslim countries have adapted so rapidly to other examples of Western progress, such as cars, planes, computers and smartphones? They seem to have taken to those without any difficulty at all. Yet the concept that women shouldn't be subjected to violence seems to be uniquely hard to grasp.

I was going by the Report in the Independent which shows how at least one protestor was deliberately kicked afterwards.

It's the old issue of should feminists avoid hurting male feelings and just make polite comments - which never get reported. Or make a protest which actually gets noticed.
Twitter like Charlotte Proudman, or make a private rebuke.

Men always want to shut women up as the Proudman thing shows and women now will not be shut up so men are just going to have to lump it. It's amazing 1m+ want to come to the West given our laws actually. How will their precious little feelings cope with women who might be their boss at work and whom they are not allowed to beat?

Bloody hell, Janet Those are horrendous passages. I refuse to show respect to teachings like those

Oh for fuck's sake, here we go again with the whole 'Islam is an inherently violent anti-women religion' bullshit.

A religion is what those who interpret and practice it make it. Just like any other ideology. End of.

I've watched the video, and there was one man who clearly chased them to give them a good kicking - he wasn't, like the security people, trying to remove them from the stage, he was in there to cause bodily harm to her - he chased across the stage to continue.

That man needs to be arrested. No matter what was being discussed, no matter what the Femen people did, it is very, very wrong. He had no fear for his life, he was just out to punish the women.

And to the people quoting the Hadiths - a lot of those are not taken as 'law' by many Muslims. They're not like the Bible or the Quran, which are taken as the definitive word of God/the Prophet. There is a lot of disagreement within the Muslim religion about which Hadiths are genuine, should be followed etc.

I bloody hate it when people Googlequote without really understanding what they are quoting and how it has been interpreted.

Anyway, I'm checking out of this thread. It will go exactly the same way as all the others of its ilk.

I didn't think you had to wear the veil in Saudi.

Hackmum - yes the law on beating anyone should be followed in an ideal world. But the reality is to win hearts and minds, really get people thinking about it - maybe we also need to debate it, talk about it.

I'm not necessarily against these Femen protesters, just wonder if a strong debate could have had a better outcome in putting the point across about how domestic violence is wrong and unacceptable to the people the debate is aimed at (now curious if some strong Muslim women would have had a voice in the debate).

Though I see that at least the fallout and media coverage has got people talking anyway about wife beating in Islam and has made it a hot topic (though possibly amongst people who it doesn't really affect and already had set views against it - like us.)

It was a discussion about wife-beating. And the conference about the "good" Muslim woman... Except please look at all the debate leaders and speakers. An overwhelming amount of women, right? After all, we are just speaking about their place in society...
I just love also the nice mob-kicking of a woman when she is on the floor, the death-threats, the "whore" shouted through the room...

Also, nice to completely forget or lie about the fact that it is white feminism (as if it makes it more trivial...): both women are originally from Maghreb, so I think it actually make people saying that quite racist, as it negates somebody's race for their own agenda.

I am normally not crazy about Femen, But now I would help pay for whatever costs they will need to defend themselves about this and to prosecute the women beaters.

Come on lush, we don't need some 10 years of Islamic scholarship to "understand" the passages above. We not too stupid to be allowed to comment on the hadiths above which are used in countless Muslim homes to justify wife beating. Also I do quote from the Koran above which is hardly condemning of wife beating, and I also to be fair said some Christians are also into this.

That video is horrendous. It's like watching the brown shirts in action.

I'm guessing that people like Emily Davison and the Pankhursts were told they should show some respect too. I don't understand why people say debating it makes the discussion okay, it doesn't. It doesn't need debating, the answer is no, it's never acceptable.

And the fact that immediately proceeding the protest wife beating wasn't being discussed doesn't mean the protest was wrong. For a start if they did have a section on wife beating (which people had protested about before the meeting) security was probably too tight for them to disrupt that section. Secondly, if a conference has one abhorrent speaker then all of that conference is a legitimate target for protest.

Can anyone link to the transcript?

Janet, the passages above are abundantly clear - I am not insulting your intelligence. What I am telling you is that the use of certain Hadiths is by far from universal among Muslims. Many Hadiths are rejected completely. Even the Quran is open to interpretation (although accepted as the word of the Prophet).

Equally, there are a lot of things in the Bible which, if used, are abhorrent for women. But like the Hadiths quoted above, they are also rejected by right-thinking Christian men.

I just do not accept that Islam is any more inherently violent and women-hating than any other religion.

My husband is Muslim, he doesn't beat me. I live in the Middle East and know and work with a lot of women with Muslim husbands who, as far as I know, don't beat them. Like I said in my other post, an ideology is what those who practice it make it, not what armchair theologians deem it to be.

I think a lot of wife beating does go on being closed doors though. My dh is north African. Women can't even have a coffee outside in his country.
These women come from these cultures and know how overwhelmingly sexist they are.

osolea Shit like this is why I distance myself as much as possible from feminists. I have no sympathy for the women, and feel sorry for the people that were minding their own business when they intruded

Seriously? That is what you took out of the incident? You feel sorry for a bunch of men discussing "the role of women" in a religion which discriminates illegally against them in the country in which it took place, and in a way which is a breach of EU law? You didn't notice the fact that the protesters were not removed peacefully but were assaulted, gratuitously, or that no women were present during the discussion, despite it being about women?

You sound unhappily deluded. Excluding women and treating them badly is a problem for the whole of society, because it seeks to prevent 50% of the talent in society reaching the heights it should do. And it isn't very good for the male half either.

Probably you would have thought the same about suffragettes though.

Bambambini- women in Saudi are supposed to wear an abaya and cover their hair when out. However covering the hair isn't really enforced anywhere but Jeddah, Mecca and Medina.

Bambambini I can see thefitfatty's point. Yes, the law of the land says you can't beat your wife so anyone doing so should face charges and be punished. But, if they are discussing interpretations of the Koran on the subject, shouldn't they be discussing and debating these issues? It's probably the only way they can progress by debating it. How did we get to non beating and non raping (not that long ago) of wives in the UK? Did it just stop overnight, was thinking on it or laws changed without debate on it?

The fact that its illegal in the country in which the "discussion" was taking place I don't think shows what you somewhat optimistically label a debate, but an inability to respect the law of the country in which they are present.

In answer to your question, its long been illegal to assault people, including the beating of wives, in most European countries. Originally laws are based on moral codes which assume the force of law. So its a problem for a legal system which bases its laws on religious practices which do not prohibit it from a moral perspective (laws generally should reflect morals).

The other problem with Sharia-based legal systems is that they are rather archaic and don't encompass change well. Passing legislation in most Sharia countries is problematic even when necessary from a commercial perspective in the more business-oriented countries such as Quatar - it can take years even when there are no issues to be resolved. The other problem is that Sharia-based legal systems tend to be partially enforced at least by non-legally qualified religious clerics, who do not have a standard legal education and whose skills and competence may vary, as may their individual interpretation of the religion.

Western legal systems are based on either Roman law or the English common law, which for several thousands of years have had no difficulty in recognising and putting into legal norms both moral codes and really quite complex commercial rules.

Its indicative of a vast problem with religious based legal Sharia legal codes that they are still in the year 2015 at the stage of "discussing" such very basic concepts and cannot recognise even the very basic moral imperative that assaulting people is wrong or that women are equal in status to males. Until that is resolved, it will not progress, but Sharia legal codes cannot cope well with modernisation and change. So its a circular argument. The solution is of course to adopt "foreign" legal systems, but since the "discussion" took place in France, that is a moot point.

Fitfatty - I thought so. I just think it's important when discussing how oppressive Islam is - is to get facts right. I think it's too hot a topic for folk to just tenor out what they think are the facts. Seems the majority of women in Saudi do wear the veil, but it's not law.