Muslim charity run

[Thomasina79]

Has banned women and girls over the age of 12 from participating. Thoughts?

You know if anyone cared about Muslim women and access to sport, they'd campaign to ensure the hijab is allowed in all competitive sport instead of protesting against it.

This is awful. Thin end of the wedge Taliban lite.

Does religion get a free pass on equality?

The issue of women's rights and islam is a frequent issue.
It seems to be a minefield to even talk about this.

Of course all religions that I know of are male dominated and abusive/ controlling to women on varying degrees but it is more noticeable and extreme in islam, or at least interpretations of it.
(I am not a religious scholar. I can only draw conclusions from what I see.)

Things like this open discrimination, which should surely be unlawful, is a gift to racists who actually don’t give a shit about women’s rights.
Hence Daily Wail covering it.

On the other hand, The Guardian wouldn’t dream of publishing such an inconvenient truth.

Women’s rights are secondary to each sides agenda.

You can have single sex races if you have a legitimate reason or aim.

Thus you could have a single sex male event if you say, well we prefer to keep it separate (you'd then have to do a women's race) or because your legitimate aim was to target Muslim men for health reasons to increase participation in sport. But youd have to demonstrate a specific needs for it.

And again you might also need to demonstrate efforts to increase the health of Muslim women or it might be discrimination anyway.

Either way a men's race is actually less problematic than one that excludes at age 13 for girls as that's clearly sex discrimination justified on the grounds of religion.

You can legal separate but you can't discriminate if that makes sense.

Oddly women are quite capable of seeing the daily mail of being a shit stirring anti Muslim rag while also recognising it's not ok to exclude women and some girls from something just because of the religious element

And fwiw, for anyone who needs to hear this, I would be as outraged if this was an Orthodox Jewish event, or fundamentalist Christian event, or just some random nutters. Islamophobia exists but that doesn't mean that this is not wrong and shouldn't be opposed.

ETA: cross-posted with theeyeballsinthesky

No you don't though. Look how many posts this thread has compared to British soldiers exploiting women in Kenya?

People do not call out sexism and inequality as vehemently in their own communities as they do in those of Others.

Hmm, maybe, but when I lived in Leicester the harassment I used to get from certain groups of British Asian men while running was far more intense than what I get from Daily Mail types now I live in a less diverse rural area. It’s not only white DM types that are responsible for making jogging unpleasant.

Absolutely disgraceful. 12/13 is when many girls start dropping out of sport so they need to be encouraged at every opportunity to keep active.

“family friendly event” nope. This is MISOGYNY in plain sight.

Interesting that you don’t think that it’s racist to say our British men when many/most? of the Muslim men running will also be British. Or do you not count them as British because they are Muslim?

But the outrage about this from the Mail and from a lot of posters here seems to be motivated by a powerful desire to present Islam as problematic, and to further the US-promoted narrative that Britain is becoming more and more subject to Sharia law.

Do you not find the likely illegal misogynistic apartheid ‘problematic’?

Equally, we have dozens of Sharia courts in the UK. Would you not say that proves we are becoming ‘subject to Sharia law’?

If not; what would justify those concerns to you?

It has a charity number at the end (with addresses etc) so could report to the charity commission for investigation.

Well there are lots of issues in both those communities that are as exclusionary to women. I've heard that orthodox Jewish women aren't allowed to drive in their UK communities.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-32935767.amp

We also have Jeiwsh courts.

It’s pretty racist to give misogyny a free pass because the people carrying it out are brown, or a particular religion.

White men do lots of heinous things too. None of it should have a blind eye turned to it. I’m nit giving this a free pass because other strands of misogyny aren’t yet conquered.

It doesn’t need Muslim women to be visibly protesting about this for anyone else to step up. Some may not be in a position to do so. There’s no hierarchy where racism is worse than misogyny. It needs to be called out no matter who does it. Any oppression is unacceptable.

Not at all. It is men. But ask any joggers who speak about female sexual harassment and they aren't saying that it is all immigrant men by any means.

Bear in mind that race for life started as women only (very breast cancer focused IIRC) approx 25yrs ago then quite rightly opened up to men too.

Hopefully there'll be some female runners in the area who happen to go out for runs that way in the next hour. It would be great to see this dragged through the courts if the organisers try it again next year.

Well maybe they are ok with it. Why would you protest if they agree with having it in place? Are you going to make them run?

Don’t I? Sexism in all its guises is regularly discussed on MN. As for me personally I have volunteered with Women’s Aid and volunteered with an advocacy agency that focused on helping women in my area.

Exactly how many posts do we have to make about white men before we’re allowed to discuss the very real problems and discrimination caused by sexism in Islam?

I would close those too. No extrajudicial courts in Britain in 2025, please.

You're right. I fucked up there. I mean Muslim men vs non-Muslim men.

Okay so why not talk about closing all religious courts. Why do you think you focus on Muslim courts when actually the Beth Din is probably more established and has more power.

Are the Muslim men in this race, in London, not British?

Right. So if a local church did a community fun run for charity and invited everyone to join in, but not anyone female over the age of 12, would that be ok?.

But there are some Muslim women who definitely aren't happy about it as has been pointed out

Why are you talking about ‘immigrant men’ when lots of British Muslims were born here and are as British as you or I?