ISIS and women

[Spacemen3]

This may be a bit of a dumb-ass start to a thread..but I was reading about the Yazidi women and girls who escaped from ISIS...and also recently I watched a documentary about the Islamic girls schools that are being expanded in Afghanistan...

Are most of ISIS objectives for their new caliphate about owning/controlling/abusing women? What else is in their manifesto specifically?...i know everyone one will be an observant Muslim/pray/grow beards/not drink blah de blah..

Am I being stupid, or is that pretty much the crux of it???

^This thread won't really go anywhere because we are supposed to be afraid of objecting to "deeply held beliefs" in religion.
When the world becomes secular, governed by reason and science, women will finally be free.^

Ah yes, Dawkins that well known feminist would agree.

OP I'm not really sure what the fuck ISIS are on about but I don't think I've seen woman hating in such a way in a long time. I don't know how they are able to square indiscriminate raping with their religion for one.

What is the end-game between feminism and religion? Religions tend to be dogmatic, prescriptive and unchanging. They are matters of faith rather than logical, flexible positions and beliefs. Islam is particularly brutal, but they all have massive issues with equality. Look at the hoo-hah over the C of E ordinating a woman bishop - in 2015!

In a feminist Utopia, how could they exist?

You posted a one line comment which was irrelevant to the topic of the thread. That was not constructive.

Your response uses a lot of words without saying much nor actually addressing the question the OP asked; nor does it give any examples of how anything in science or secularism seeks to promote anything remotely comparable to IS.

Just repeating "reason and science can be just as oppressive" doesn't add weight to your case.

ISIS are literally the ultimate pure expression of toxic masculinity. Unsublimated will to power expressed via collective dogmatism. Enslaving women is part and parcel of that psychology - that everything and everyone else must be shackled so that desire might be unfettered.

I believe the western media focus on the misogyny as a way of inspiring loyalty towards our societie values from the women within, while ISIS is happy for them to do so as it inspires loyalty for their desired demographic in turn.

"I believe the western media focus on the misogyny as a way of inspiring loyalty towards our societie values from the women within"

very possibly. it certainly allows some western men to say "see, we're not that bad, you should count yourselves grateful that we don't oppress you that much" while excusing themselves of some pretty unpleasant behaviour. and it's true - i'm grateful that through pure accident of birth i was born somewhere where i have more rights than most women throughout the world. but it puts the focus on the religious aspect far more than on the fact that these are men who want control of women, to the extent that as the OP says they want them to be their slaves and they are quite open about that

I believe the western media focus on the misogyny as a way of inspiring loyalty towards our societie values from the women within

What would you have western media do then? Present it differently? If so, how?

PetulaGordino

I agree that the brutalities of other cultures have often been used to dismiss 'lesser' examples of sexism in western society and will almost certainly be used to do so in this case.

I know this following plea will be dismissed with mockery, but please try not to regard men as collectively responsible for the actions of these deviants. I regard them as less than men because they treat women as cattle. They regard me as less than a man because I do not. Please do not normalise their behaviour within our society - no matter how small you regard the distinction to be, to us it is very very real.

Yops

I would do nothing differently. If anything I would exaggerate it even further. The actions of Kurdish women in defence of themselves and their menfolk have smashed flat any claims that women are less capable or willing (as a class) to meet such obligations. The fact that the UAE airforce deployed a female strike pilot, even as a publicity stunt, has forced them to draw a sharp distinction between themselves and ISIS along the lines of gender rights.

Above all else I want it hammered home to the sexists in our own society that sexism leads to ISIS as racism led to the gas chambers. You stop it before it starts to whisper in peoples heads, before it sneaks into literature, before it slithers into the media because where it ends is misery, horror and the loss of crucial human potential.

Your response uses a lot of words without saying much nor actually addressing the question the OP asked; nor does it give any examples of how anything in science or secularism seeks to promote anything remotely comparable to IS.

It wouldn't take you long to research the ways in which women have been experimented on or abused by the medical profession or even the way science has in the past been used to prove women are emotionally unstable or unfit for society. It's not actually Buffy's job to make a "case" when discussing common knowledge.

Even if it were true , what a pointless comment.

Buffy's comment was not "pointless" as it was in response to a comment stating that a secular world would not be oppressive to women. You aren't following the thread very well.

By being more honest about it Yops. It makes no sense to wring hands about mass rapes when 85000 women are raped in the UK every year and practically none of the perpetrators are brought to justice.

While ISIS is extreme and it's worth reporting on, it is extremely disingenuous of the media to act as though western women live in the land of milk and honey.

To use an apt religious quote - "first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

it all reminds me so horribly of the 'handmaids tale'

"please try not to regard men as collectively responsible for the actions of these deviants"

where did i do that?

I regard them as less than men because they treat women as cattle.

You can regard them as you like but they are men. Normal human men and unfortunately many normal human men do abuse women. I really hate the whole "real men don't do that" thing

It wouldn't take you long to research the ways in which women have been experimented on or abused by the medical profession or even the way science has in the past been used to prove women are emotionally unstable or unfit for society

But we're not talking about the past or measures meted out against a defined group or individuals. IS basically want to apply their warped way of thinking to all women or for that matter men.

What example of secular or scientific theory is comparable?

Eugenics?

Phaedra have you ever read any psychodynamic theory? Or, in fact, any early psychology? It basically characterised anything "female" as pathological and in need of treatment. And yes, it was to apply to all women. Women were subjected to very cruel treatment and imprisonment for "conditions" such as hysteria, conditions that simply pathologised being female.

Equally, in medicine, women have in the past been subject to very cruel medical practices such as the delivery of babies using "twilight sleep" (only google if you have a strong stomach), symphysiotomy (again only google if not squeamish), the taking away and incinerating of stillborn babies on the understanding that women didn't need to see or hold their own children etc etc. These were practices developed and advocated by men, with no regard to the effect they would have on women.

The world we live in allows men to oppress women, whether they use religion or science to justify that... it kind of doesn't matter. A perfectly secular world would still be a sexist one.

Lots of derailment going on here rather than discussing the point raised by the OP.

I believe the western media focus on the misogyny as a way of inspiring loyalty towards our societies' values from the women within

The western media has reported the insane activities of IS. IS hate every one who isn't like them, men and women. They aren't however raping men or forcing men into marriage.

Would you prefer western media didn't report it?

Lots of derailment going on here rather than discussing the point raised by the OP.

ReallyAngryBeavers

I appreciate your point, especially as the 'real man' concept is one that has been used aggressively against me in the past, but it is still a cultural artefact of significant ongoing potency. I feel that it can be rehabilitated temporarily to reinforce a mental distinction between appropriate and inappropriate behaviours, certainly for the duration of such an extremely deviant phenomena as ISIS.

PetulaGordino

It was my reading of your post that you believed the ISIS treatment of women was as a result of the behaviours of the dominant gender rather than dominant culture. If I was wrong, then I apologise. I wasn't intending to be hostile or argumentative, but I feel strongly that claiming this behaviour as somehow inherent to the male gender regardless of socialisation provides a defence for rapists in our own society who are convinced 'this is just what (biological) men do'.