Mariam highlighted a very disturbing report (in Arabic) published on al-Arabiya’s website that says over 80% of Jordanian women support wife-beating! I’m not sure if this has even a smidgen of truth to it but the figures, released by Jordan’s National Family Council, are quite alarming and disturbing.
According to the report:
- 83% of Jordanian women approve of wife beating if the woman cheats on her husband
- 60% approve of wife beating in cases where the wife burns a meal she’s cooking
- 52% approve of wife beating in case where she’s refused to follow the husband’s orders
I’m quite skeptical, as the figures are very alarming! If this proves true, then a major awareness campaign should take place among Jordanian women as soon as possible! Oh my, the world is going down the drain!
As for half the inheritance, its because the man is the one supposed to take care of his family financially not the woman, her money remains for her only and she doesn’t have to help in anything unless she wants to. where is the inferiority?
I don’t understand why someone would bother with something he doesn’t like. you don’t like Islam, fine, stay away from it.
That’s an irrelevant comment, there is just so much in a given concept and religion is no exception. If anything, I would say Islam has mastered redundancy with its steadfastness about the oneness of god and legitimacy of Muhammad as his last prophet. Can’t y’all come up with something else? Do you see the fault of your charade?
I already have Nas, subordination to men, half the testimony, half the inheritance, half the blood money, minimal divorce rights, male polygamy, imposed social roles, etc.
Lol at “common knowledge”, give me a piece of evidence that proves the “inferiority” of women in islam as u claim. I already know which ones u’ll mention because Islam bashers have become increasingly intellectually redundant…but indulge me for entertainment sake…i can use a laugh these days
Proof for what? It’s common knowledge that the Qu’ran assigns gender-based roles based on sex, gives women half the share of inheritence, values their testimony half of men, subordinates them, etc. I’m not sure what you’re asking for, quoted passages?
Arash, when u stop spraying ignorant remarks and provide us with some proof of a woman’s inferiority (based on what u said: inheritance etc) then maybe we can have a logical discussion, although two things have become apparent…u know very little of Islam; and what little u do know u use as the grounds for launching an attack. It is apparent to at least the muslims how flawed and hollow ure arguements have indeed become, any one else might buy it.
Jeff, I got your point. I’m sure if the purpose of this survey is to get external funding, they would have to show whoever that allocates money the details of their study. They would have to submit the numbers for each region separately. Now maybe that’s what they did, and someone got the numbers and averaged them over the whole country for publication in the media. On the other hand, if they just want the publicity, for whatever reason, they can just cook up the numbers. In anycase, I suggest people don’t get worked up over the specifics of the case and focus on the bigger picture.
The concept of Equal Rights has nothing to do with “sameness”. Equality is about providing everyone with equal opportunities, so one can develop his/her qualities according to his/her abilities.
That’s just an invalid generalization. Every individual is unique, not every woman is more emotional than every man and not every woman is physically weaker than every man. That’s exactly why the society should refrain from making discrimination based on sex, because such an approach would only impose false gender-based roles on those who are not compatible with the expected view of a society.
Half the inheritance? Half the testimony? Subordination? Imposed husbandry roles? Which Qu’ran you’ve been reading? An individual should be evaluated based on his/her merits. If a female shows mastership of the laws and has passed the necessary requirement, there is simply no reason to bar her from becoming a judge based on her sex. On the other hand, a man may show signs in his previous career as a lawyer that disqualifies him from becoming a judge. People should be appraised initially and not based on stereotypical perceptions. You can’t just devaluate a women’s expertise in law by claiming that all women are emotional. Surely, one should not be worried about “emotional women” becoming judges; this isn’t a lottery where everyone could gain such a position. There is a complicated vetting process that would weed out “emotional” candidates, male or female. Same with a women’s testimony, a court of law should decide if a particular testimony is shady based on circumstances specific to the case. Not the arcane view that “every man knows a woman is much more emotional than he is” and thus somehow every woman will always give a faulty account of the facts in a court of law.
Same arguments go to invalidate unequal inheritance and other institutional discriminations in Islam.
Kinzi, firstly im not saying nor did i say u were ridiculing islam, on the contrary i am lauding u for offering me a constructive arguement. Second the misinformation i refered to is that of religion and not society. Third, wife beating was as common in Arabia as burying babies. Which proves that it is cultural. and also the prophet pbuh repeatedly talked about it on more than one occassion and told people not to do it. as for women in islam. they are not made inferorior in any way but theres a confusion amongst the modern westerner between equality and justice. Equality is to put two people in the same room and say they are one and the same and therefore are entitled to the same rights, this is something the west is very found of because of its assimilative ways. But those two people are NOT the same. They have different qualities and are inidivduals, they are not just a number. Same with gender, I must acknowledge that this is a female and this is a male. Once I do that I can then serve each gender with what is just. I am physically stronger than my older sister but she is much more emotional than I am, this is just the way we are wired and if people can’t acknowledge these simple things then i am at a loss. Every man knows a woman is much more emotional than he is and every woman knows her male counter part is much more physically stronger than she is. Our thought processes differ and our biological functions differ. Islam did not make this up. It is a statement of the obvious. So where is the inferiority? where is devaluation? If it’s there in the quran please point it out. If it is there in the hadith then please present it and we can solve this piece of misinformation very quickley.
thanks
Arash you miss the point of my comment entirely. You say “That wouldn’t be accurate. To avoid skewed results, they’d need to pick numbers that are relative to the population of a particular region.” But that’s not really true, is it?
There are a myriad of polling methods. Those that decide to poll chose the method that best suits their target audience and their agenda. You suggest here a form of weighting that would be relative to population. But that’s because you think that’s the most fair (or your direct word “accurate), right?. My point was that they may have polled differently: “Perhaps if it included the capital, it included 25 women from there and 25 women from each of 20 other towns and municipalities in the country, thus discounting the attitudes of Ammanite women.”
A poll like I’m suggesting “discounts” the views of Ammanite women because each comment is the same as the other, no area is weighted to population because that is not their particular agenda, even though it looks skewed to others. And they may very well have conducted the poll in this manner. I’ve seen it before. Before suggesting that it’s not accurate or fair, please consider the point I’m making here. Such an opinion is yours, maybe mine and many others. But perhaps it is not that of those conducting the poll.
If we follow your comment out, it suggests that you are interested in a poll that is fair by your own criteria. I’m basing that on the idea that you don’t think such results are accurate. Well, they are though aren’t they, just from a different perspective. You could perform a poll just as I describe and it would be accurate if your agenda was a random sampling of the country’s women that was un-weighted. Now I may not like that criteria and you might not either, but that’s because we’ve seen the end result and found it differing with the reality we know or assume.
But those responsible for the polling may take a random sampling and not weight it precisely because it suits their agenda and their target audience. It gets them what they want, it shows their target what they want them to see.
Polling is a very tricky “science” precisely because it can be controlled, manipulated and interpreted in thousands of ways.
What I was commenting on here was that we don’t know what the agenda or type of poll was that they conducted. I was suggesting from past experience that it could have been done in this manner. But since I, like so many others, find the results skewed as well, I was suggesting that in the future they might alter their criteria and polling style to better reflect the reality in the kingdom, titling their polls specifically and orienting them to region. You can be certain, however, that whatever methodology they choose it will still be geared to audience and agenda, sometimes despite protestations from those outside their purview.