Has anyone left their spouse over GC views / pro-Islam stance

[PinkTreeFrog]

Husband and I could never find common ground on gender critical views and his blindness to the harms of Islam to women. He has an inability to take in information that contradicts his world view. Has anyone left a spouse over this?

But we're all sometimes directly and indirectly impacted by people 'practising' their religion in the UK.

It may sometimes be positive as well as negative, or course. But this is just like the Trans Woman's complaint "We only want to pee!". No. There are sometimes negative consequences to wider society as a result of your choices. And these WILL be discussed and debated. We have freedom of speech in the UK.

If we look at the UK averages for household income, educational achievements, likelihood of imprisonment, welfare/social housing needs and average family sizes for the UK, there are some stark differences when comparing different ethnicities.

Obviously there are many factors at play, but it is noticeable that British people with Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage, so predominantly Muslim, perform significantly worse on average than those of Indian heritage.

This doesn't mean of course that British people with Indian heritage, so predominantly Hindus and Sikhs, do not experience racial discrimination. They do. But somehow they succeed despite this.

So with regards to Islam, we need to talk about what potential issues might be contributing to these challenges: repeated cousin marriage, rates of serious disabilities for children, forced marriages, lower levels of women in employment, face coverings, focus on religious over conventional education, and religious marriages happening outside of UK law. Religion and community norms are so closely interwoven here they cannot be sensibly separated.

These issues all have potentially very large direct negative impacts on British Muslim women and girls. They also come with potentially large costs to British taxpayers.

We can't just close our eyes to what is happening. It is a betrayal of British women and girls. And we can't afford it.

News flash. God is not real. So no need to fear him. Religion is just a man made way of oppressing people. Who exactly benefits from religion?

As I said, I think the meaning of the thing does stay the same. It's origin and meaning is in classing women as promiscuous breeders unless they're corralled and hidden.

If women want to wear veils/hijabs/whatever for reasons of their own, that's entirely up to them.

All these customs are a matter of usage. If enough women for enough time transmogrify the meaning to I don't know this is how I do my hair conditioning routine, it'll change. We're about a light year short of that yet, though. Right now it's still a pledge of allegiance to a system that sees women as breeders. Which, again, it's up to women if they want to do that or want to avoid cultural aggro that way.

Obviously, this applies to any fundamentalism that treats women like that. You'll notice that Reform and other more progressive strands in religions tend not to have edicts about women making themselves more or less invisible. Usage does change.

There are many highly educated, high anchieving and professional Muslim women, even when they are wearing a hijab or headscarf. So being Muslim in itself need not be a hindrance to women.

But when we look at UK averages it does seem as if being Muslim, rather than Sikh or Hindu, does present additional challenges to creating an independent, rewarding and successful life.

Of course, a significant number of Muslim women manage to achieve notable educational and career success. That is to their great credit. But it would seem many others are being held back.

Why else are the averages so much lower?

One worry, was that young British Muslim women (and men) were being bullied into arranged marriages with cousins back in Pakistan/Bangladesh. These weren't love matches. The spouse usually had limited spoken/written English, and struggled to find work once in the UK. So their children were raised on a low income, and with one parent who didn't speak English well. It was commonly referred to as the 'first generation, every generation' immigration issue.

This was one of the primary drivers for the much stricter UK income rules brought in for anyone wanting to bring a non-British spouse to the UK.

So these behaviours can and do impact others very negatively.

I think you need to work out if he's really a misogynist or misguided/brainwashed.

No it really isn’t because women who choose to wear religious head scarves still wear them while pursuing professions traditionally reserved for men. They are also no more likely to have children than women of the same religion who chose not to wear religious head scarves,

Your speculation that it is a “pledge of allegiance to a system that sees women as breeders” is parroted propaganda.

Language is a huge barrier as is the fact the UK refuses to recognise equivalency of qualifications from foreign universities. This is true of all immigrants- my Ukrainian friend is a Doctor who specialised in pediatrics. She still had to apply to train as a nurse in the UK and now is a home visitor for new mothers. She wasn’t seen as a consultant doctor with 20yrs experience in the field, she was seen as un uneducated immigrant who needed to get fluent in English (she was already fairly good in English) and had to go through the same training as any recent graduate with a BSc in nursing.

What a waste, though lucky for those who get her nursing services.

There was a story line years ago based on a brilliant doctor acting as a nurse, in Holby City. The character was a wonderful Ukrainian goth.

Haven’t rtft but if someone doesn’t mind indulging me, what do you see as problematic in pro-Palestine views?