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.

sorry does she have to answer to you and your demands

she came on giving her opinion on this thread and her experience that lead to her opinions

Quite and the poor woman is probably busy with her commute!

EnthusiasmDisturbed and there are other posters who are no just married to a muslim but were born and brought up in a muslim family who are disagreeing with lush.

Surely their POV & knowledge is equally as valid if not more than hers ?

'We' in this instance does include some muslims/ex-muslims. I believe the Femen activists in this particular case were also of muslim background so its certainly not just 'ignorant' Western women imposing their views.

sorry does she have to answer to you and your demands

No, of course she doesn't. She is entirely entitled to claim that she is a UK and Quatari admitted barrister and to refuse to debate legal points on relevant issues of Quatari law which contribute to its inability to recognise stronger women's rights (and Quatar is possibly the best example of modernisation in the ME).

I don't think the giving of a false impression is particularly ethical.

she came on giving her opinion on this thread and her experience that lead to her opinions

As any lawyer will know, the giving of opinions and personal experience is pretty worthless in debate. I am not saying that she should not give them, just that I would have expected them to be interspersed with some proper legal knowledge and evidence to back them up.

I have not said other peoples opinions are less valid

Enthusiasm what lush actually tried to do was to belittle me and other posters, ask for us to be barred from the thread, and to suggest that we couldn't know what we were talking about and that our comments were invalid because we are non-Muslim women/not married to Muslims/living in the west.

I find that highly objectionable. From an ethical perspective.

Where was that said? slaggy

OP here, I never mentioned Islam in my OP. I was angry that the women were violently attacked and have since been arrested. My anger has nothing to do with the religion of the attackers.

This has become a thread where some posters seem to think gaslighting is an acceptable form of debate.

And where is the op?

Oh, x post again. What a coincidence mumsnet.

Cheezy read the posts carefully between 14.18 and 14.29.

Getting back to the original OP: it's not just about Islam.
It's an attitude against feminists protesting. To hammer us back down, into a very small, quiet space.

The btl comments on the Graun are disgusting whenever an article touches on feminism. As bad as the Fail, just better educated. So they commision columnists to pander to them. All those clicks sell ads.

Whenever feminists make a stand, they are likely to face a torrent of abuse, whether it be Charlotte Proudman on Twitter, or protesting against a rapist footballer sneaking back to play, or defending a poster campaign aimed at stopping male violence, or defending the right to an abortion.

Basically, many men - and women - think feminists should just keep quiet, don't embarass the men.
Of course all human rights to date were achieved by keeping quiet and not embarassing anyone

Much of this thread has been very interesting. If the original commentators have not disappeared, could I ask you Thefitfatty to expand on this:

"Living in the Middle East I can say that the countries with the most amount of ties and support with Western countries are the ones changing most rapidly. Especially in terms of hearts and minds of the people."

What kind of ties and support with Western countries do you mean? Just commerce, or significant immigrant populations from these countries in the West, or something else? And which countries would these be? Genuinely curious.

Well, ok. Big deal.

What I think is getting personal is wife beating. Being raped. That kind of thing. Do you not think so? Only you seem to be doing a lot of defending of the peripheries without actually saying something along the lines of I THINK IT IS WRONG TO HIT YOUR WIFE. I THINK IT IS WRONG TO RAPE. Is that so hard to say?

My comments were to slaggy island.

Have been away from this thread for most of the day - probably just as well - but I just want to say that I find the term "tit-swinging feminazis" deeply unpleasant. It seems absolutely extraordinary to me that an educated woman who has benefited from all the advances of feminism (right to vote, right to work, right to equal pay, right to own property etc) would describe feminist campaigners in those terms. I wonder what lush would have said about the suffragettes.

People have been talking a lot on this in terms of progress and changing "culture". That's misguided, in my view. In Afghanistan in the 1970s, for example, women had far more rights than they subsequently did under the Taliban. Women living in Iran under the Shah had more rights than they did when Ayatollah Khomeini took over. This isn't an issue about slowly changing culture or gradual progress or convincing people to think the same we do - it's about power. It's about the power that men exert over women. Whatever gains women make can easily be taken away again. Men do not relinquish power easily. Men who think it's OK to beat their wives aren't going to start thinking it's wrong because they have been persuaded by rational argument.

Yay, hacksmum, highfives

^^Also agree fantastic post Hackmum.

It is about the power men exert over women some people cannot see it or hear it, but there it is.

Incidentally, this afternoon that 'Comment is Free' article this afternoon had a selection of pinned comments which basically accused the protestors of Islamophobia and saying the conference was some kind of love in for the male feminist arm of Islam.

As the afternoon has progressed, it's become clear that not only were the protesters Muslim, the conference speakers were extremists, one of whom had been banned from Canada because of his views.

CiF has taken down it's selected comments, but when people are pointing this out, they're deleting the entire comment.

There wouldn't be a need for 'tit swinging femi-Nazis' if muslim women and non-muslim apologists stopped making excuses such as 'out of context & wrongly interpreted' for all the bullshit contained within the Quran.

Rather than embracing reason and equality, many younger muslims are endorsing the misogony by their behaviour, thought & dress.

The fact that many view their religion through lush's rose tinted specs is the biggest obstacle to progress and in fact is why rights are being further eroded and societies are regressing. Why would men change the laws when the vast majority of women defend Islam, from which these laws are derived, so vociferously.

If the conference had been about banning the hijab, guaranteed there would have been hordes of covered women here, there & around the globe protesting and attempting to hijack it. However, rape & beat your wife as one of the speakers, Nader About Anas advocates, and its silence from the vast majority of them.

Explain, please.

MistressMia, sorry did not meanto be abrubt

Sorry Mistressmia but where do you see Muslim women making excuses for misogny on masse.
Maybe it's this sort of superior you're doing feminism wrong attitude that sees Muslim women as these poor downtrodden victims that need saving by western women, stops of lot of Muslim women from reaching out to other women. Because let's face it no one likes to be patronised.

peregrene I mean significant western financial and military, as well as, expat ties. Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Oman. Not only are there a lot of financial ties but there are a lot of expats and we are changing things. Just not as fast as some would like.

I'll ignore crass comments about maids and such.
As for pre-Taliban Afghanistan that was the result of the Russian occupation. Women outside of the main cities were not allowed to dress that way or be educated.

Sorry you all need to read history books before jumping on bandwagons.