Sixty five percent of Iranian university students are female.

yes Andrew, and do you want to know the reason? In this moment of history, the Iranian males are busy with their careers of suicide bombing and terrorist activities. You don't need a whack of education for that.

Sixty fiver percent, eh? Of that number, how many have had their clitoris's circumcised? How many have been beaten with a stick that day? How many live in fear that they could be the victim of an honor killing? How many are living in marriages that they were forced into to? Once again, an idiot tries to justify the deranged sexism and misogyny that is so inherent with Islam.

"how many have had their clitoris's circumcised? "

About zero, that's not part of Iranian culture but rather an african thing, though you've clearly been brainwashed to believe otherwise.

"How many live in fear that they could be the victim of an honor killing? "

Fewer than men who have been screwed over by affirmative action and divorce courts and fake harrassment claims.

"How many are living in marriages that they were forced into to?"

Fewer than men who have been screwed over by affirmative action and divorce courts and fake harrassment claims.

Stick your feminist agenda up your expletive. GO CONSERVATIVES!

Looks like a corral of mourning widows in black raiments. It's as archaic as it gets.

The males are of course dressed in modern Western clothing in keeping with the world of the 21st century.
Wonder if any of the males get the urge to dress in drag, enshroud in a black tent, go around incognito?

Allah Akbar Andrew?

"How many live in fear that they could be the victim of an honor killing? "

Fewer than men who have been screwed over by affirmative action and divorce courts and fake harrassment claims.

"How many are living in marriages that they were forced into to?"

Fewer than men who have been screwed over by affirmative action and divorce courts and fake harrassment claims.

Andrew, if your going to chide kingstonlad for bringing up events from other lands, you shouldn't turn around and do the same thing.

Feminists fear to tread EVERYWHERE, except officially designated spaces where they're coddled and cocooned against the reality.

Islam and its endemic abuse of women's freedom and dignity is way too real a situation for feminists to know how to even begin to negotiate it--so they revert to hide-our-heads-in-the-sand type (you notice that feminists eschew the burqa to hide behind) and ignore it.

The negative reality for Muslim women, burqa-ed and barricaded, is a topic the scaredy-cat, living-in-La-La-Land feminist sisterhood won't touch with a ten-foot pole--though they will diss North American women who've made a decision to care for their own children rather than choose to put them in "universal," publicly funded daycare.

This is the Rabbit Hole of North American feminism. They've really advanced our civilization, haven't they?

Segregated...yet 'equal'

"...they are seated separately because of "religious etiquette"..."

thestar.com/News/article/259330

Just remember. Take away women's right to vote and we would never have another Liberal government.

kingstonlad. i don't think we can say enough about the evil that is islam. your comments are valid.

I wonder how many times they go home with the wrong one?

"kingstonlad. i don't think we can say enough about the evil that is islam. your comments are valid."

Old white men do not capitalize nor punctuate in this manner; try again, ambiguously gendered not white not old socialist entity.

Doesn't matter. Bush hatred trumps all. The most evil force in the world isn't islamism; it's conservatism. Haven't you heard? :)

Way to go Kate. Always standing strong for the rule of law, free speech and democracy in general.

Looks like Andrew has capitulated, he's merely concerned with capitals and punctuation.

Allah Akbar Andrew?

Erica Jong Liz J?

Why not build a feminist nuke with your own feminist tax dollars and feminist scientists and pay for your own damned feminist jihad? Are you trying to distract readers from your war on men, closet Liberal Liz J?

see what a hardball socialist has to say

http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/

Andrew,

I suspect I'm old enough to be your mother but I'm perfectly capable of ripping off your head and p*ssing down the hole you twerp. Feminism may be a lost Marxist cause in the west but that doesn't mean that a photo like this doesn't produce a hot, visceral rage in many western women. To paraphrase a famous quote..."I'll wear a burka on my cold, dead body". Stand in the way of my standing up for my freedom (and the freedom of women worldwide) and you'll be wearing the imprint of my heels.

so now andrew can tell the race, age and sex of commenters just by their lack of capitalization and sentence structure??? pray tell andy, just which university course is that?

frikkin' twerp, at times you are as bad as alby38, just throwing crap out to raise a stink. sorry alby ;-)

On the bright side, no one would be confronted with Judy Rebick's 'stache.

Okay, ladies, who here wants to get in line to date Andrew? What a catch?

Ah, I shouldn't be too hard on him. Obviously, I'm just a brown-skinned, feminist female socialist and atheist*. I probably stole five jobs from him today in between filing 30 sexual harrassment suits against him, all because I find him irresistable.

* I'm not actually any of those things, for the record.

I want 6-7 wives. So, I can see where these guys are coming from. I have a hard enough time keeping one in line.

jokes.

I'd suggest that, given time, things are changing in the ME. And in Iran.

The fact that over 60% of university students are women is in itself a significant change in a society where literacy rates are still below 80% and where the old ideologies are still embedded. Remember, that these women may graduate but the job markets still haven't opened for them.

I may be an ancient old crone but I went to pre-university school where the boys and girls were segregated in the classroom just like in the picture - boys on one side, girls on the other. We walked to our classes 'en masse', in lines - boys and girls separated. Yet, in this same lifetime period, most of these young girls went on to university and professional careers. It can and will happen in the ME.

What is distressing, however, is the silence of the western feminists on supporting and promoting progress in these issues in the ME, and helping the Iranian women to move out of a 19th c patriarchal society.

Andrew: YA, RIGHT, WHATEVER...........
But me a closet Liberal? That's blasphemy!

Recent PBS Frontline story entitled "Showdown With Iran" available for viewing online here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/showdown/

Andrew, do you always smoke your doobie first thing in the morning?

"I may be an ancient old crone but...blahblahblah....It can and will happen in the ME."

Take a bow, ET, that was the finest thing you've written round these parts.

Sixty five percent of new automobiles sold in America last year were sold to women.

Why do Muslim women claim equality with men when 96% of all Islamic doctrine says they must submit to men?

According to Shari'a law in Iran:

A woman must only leave her house if she has a real need to do so. Her husband or guardian must authorize her leaving the house. When she is out, she must be completely covered, including her face. When she is out, she must not look left or right but keep her head bowed down as she walks. She must not wear perfume in public. She must never shake a man's hand.
Even if she is visiting a female friend and is inside her friend's house, she must not uncover herself in case a man is hiding somewhere in the house.

I think criminals under house arrest in the west have more freedom than this.

Under Islamic law, a woman is forbidden to be a head of state or a judge. She can only inherit half of what a man can inherit. In court, her testimony is only worth half of a man's. She is not allowed to choose where she will live or who she will marry. She is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim or divorce her husband.

Her husband, however, can divorce her with a wave of his hand. And according to Shari'a, he can and should beat her if she disobeys him.

Khomeini reintroduced Iran's law for marriage, putting the age of consent for a female at nine years of age. He justified this by saying that if it was good enough for the prophet (Mo started having sex with Aisha, called 'thighing,' when she was six years old and consummated his marriage by raping her when she was nine) then it is good enough for Iran. The age was later raised to ten.

But this wasn't good enough for Khomeini. Iran's saint slept with a 4-year-old girl.

An excerpt from 'Hal Ataaka Hadeeth ur-Raafidah?' by the late Sheikh Abu Mus'abaz-Zarqaawi

“The author of the book 'For Allah, Then For History' [1] mentions to us an event that took place before his very eyes, when al-Khomeini [2] was living in Iraq, and was visiting an Iranian individual by the name of Sayyid Sahib.

He says: 'Sayyid Sahib was joyous with our visit, and we arrived at his house around the time of Dhuhr. So, he prepared for us a lavish dinner, and called some of his relatives, who came to see us, and the house became crowded in celebration of our presence.

Sayyid Sahib then requested that wespend that night at his home, to which the Imam agreed. When it was night time, we were given our supper, and the guests would take the Imam's hand and kiss it, and they would ask him questions, with him answering their questions.

When it was time to sleep, the guests had all left, except for the inhabitants of the house. Al-Khomeini laid his eyes on a young girl who, despite being only four or five years of age, was very beautiful.

So, the Imam requested from her father, Sayyid Sahib, that he spend the night with her in order to enjoy her. Her father happily agreed, and Imam al-Khomeini spent the night with the girl in his arms, and we could hear her crying and screaming.'”

A quote from a fatwa by the late and unlamented Ayatollah Khomeini:

"A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual acts such as foreplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed. A man having intercourse with a girl younger than nine years of age has not committed a crime, but only an infraction, if the girl is not permanently damaged. If the girl, however, is permanently damaged, the man must provide for her all her life. But this girl will not count as one of the man's four permanent wives. He also is not permitted to marry the girl's sister."

This is how Islam treats women in Iran. The fact is that it's too horrible for people in the west to comtemplate. So they treat it like the Star did, as JM pointed out:

"...they are seated separately because of "religious etiquette"..."

Andrew is either intentionally obfuscating, or he's just plain ignorant. Either way nobody should listen to him, because his rosy picture is not the truth.

At least the muslims are honest. Women are subject to what they call "special" treatment much like Afro-Americans got in buses and cafeterias in the southern US. Feminists accept this special treatment as a cultural norm. They then fly off to Status of Women conferances drink their mocha latee and talk about real issues like um, ah, well you know, the bad stuff that happens to women in Canada, like.

The female/feminist privilege checklist:
1. Do you experience other people paying for your dates, or occasionally even picking up the tab in non-romantic settings? Or paying for vacations when the relationship moves along?
2. Do you occasionally experience subservient gestures by the opposite sex(opening doors, giving up a seat in the bus, standing up when you come in the room)?
3. Are you able to simply pursue what you are interested in at university without much societal pressure on “breadwinning” - although you could also take that route if it interests you?
4.a. Have you had to register for selective service? Would you be ripped out of your life and forced to defend your country in time of attack or national emergency? Can you demand strength and full participation in society, but then get out of this obligation by pretending to be weak with no influence over society (only when it suits you)?
4.b. Can you come up with any and every excuse to get out of this without being laughed at (”No one should be drafted” - when you would be the first to cower in the corner and demand that someone do something if China & Russia combined and attacked full force - and “If men start wars …” when women are the majority of voters and the expression is more likely “Men are SENT in wars …” - exactly what you’re trying to get out of - and sometimes sent by M. Thatcher, G. Meir, I. Gandhi, B. Bhutto and others)
5. Will you statistically get a much lighter sentence for exactly the same offense if you commit a crime?
6. Are you able to take on a job or choose a career route that is only capable of supporting yourself, with no thought to preparing yourself to also support a spouse/children, although you are also free to choose a more difficult career that will bring you more money? Do you not have much pressure on you with regard to this?
7. If you are in a committed relationship, do you have much greater flexibility to choose whether you want to work or simply stay at home (even without kids)?
8. Will you be called an unemployed loser if you decide to be a homemaker?
9. If you have a flat tire on the road, if someone is harassing you in a public place, if an animal attacks you, or if you are lost, will someone be much, much more likely to help you?
10. Are people generally much nicer to you in public? Are you sometimes given privileged treatment?
11. Are you much more capable of “marrying up” - enjoying the money and status that comes with this?
12. Are you statistically much more likely to be given money in a divorce - sometimes huge amounts - even if your behavior caused the divorce (e.g. affair) and even if you didn’t work for the money?
13. If you slap a person - or even knock someone’s tooth out throwing your Aunt Selma’s Christmas mug at that person - is it much more likely to just be viewed as cute, understandable or not a problem?
14. Do you statistically live much longer - possibly due to less stress on you with regard to breadwinning, providing protection, being responsible, not having society viewing you as “expendable” or viewing your problems as not being important?
15. Do you have much more money spent on your health concerns in reality (e.g. 5 times as much on breast cancer as on prostate cancer - although they have roughly the same death rates) while you simultaneously claim that more has to be done for you?
16. Are you much less likely to be homeless? Is more offered to you by society when you are in this position?
17. Is there far less scorn and pressure on you by society when you are an irresponsible doofus? Are your default rates for payment of child support roughly twice those of the other gender, while you simultaneously complain about the other gender not paying?
18. Has whining about and hating the other gender actually been made into a course of studies in college (women’s studies) - as opposed to the true, neutral, unbiased study of this topic - which is simply anthropology?
19. Do you have full opportunity to do anything you want in life - become a doctor, a lawyer, start a business - while simultaneously using the fact that many of your gender don’t CHOOSE themselves to do these things as an argument to try to gain even more advantages? Do you get affirmative action because many of your gender don’t choose to do these things, and thus the numbers don’t “come out right”?
20. Can you manipulate the other gender with sex in some cases to get what you want? Can you pretend like you don’t even know what anyone is talking about on this topic?
21. Can you manipulate using old notions of men protecting and deferring to women when it comes in handy?
22. Can you effectively manipulate by playing the victim? Do tears work sometimes?
23. Can you get sympathy if you don’t work and don’t have children by listing all the household work (hmm … Oprah really does get high ratings, though) while simultaneously being able to bear the cognitive dissonance of calling your sister’s husband who stays home a worthless bum that she ought to leave?
24. Can you “mix and match” traditional and progressive roles - finding just the right mix to get what you want? Can you be a “traditional wife” - enjoying the positive features of that (like not having to work) - while simultaneously being a progressive feminist when THAT gets you advantages? Or having a career while simultaneously using traditional chivalry and male deference to your advantage?
25. Can you constantly say “that’s just typical” and “it doesn’t surprise me a bit” and make a lemon face if you are a parent-in-law? Is near-universal contempt by both genders for your behavior hidden to a much greater extent?
26. Can almost any remark by your partner be construed as verbal abuse if you want sympathy, but the meanest, nastiest, most humiliating things that you can say simply involve “speaking your mind” and “some people just don’t want to hear the truth”?
27. Can you use the fact that gender roles were differentiated long ago - with different advantages/disadvantages for both genders - to try to induce guilt today in people who had absolutely no connection with any of that? Can you say that you have been discriminated against for thousands of years - when you’re only 20 years old - with a straight face? Can you even make things up about history and no one will really check or dare call you on it?
28. Can you propagate myths and outright lies (”Superbowl/domestic violence hoax”, “rule of thumb”, 1/4 rape statistic, intentional misconstrual of pay figures, and many more) and be given a “pass” - without more rigor being demanded?
29. Can you rationalize your own failures using the concept of the “patriarchy”, and blame the other gender for nearly everything that goes wrong in your life - even with quite contorted explanations that no one would otherwise buy - while failures of the other gender are just … failures?
30. Do you want to be treated like a child when it suits you but as an adult when you get an advantage from that? Do you “look the other way” when someone doesn’t require responsibility from you that they certainly would from the other gender?
31. Can you focus heavily on perceived earnings in the workforce - the statistics of which are influenced by people’s choices in reality - while utterly ignoring the inter-family transfer of wealth? Can you completely ignore the fact that one gender picks tougher jobs (garbage collector), works more hours and takes on more responsibility because of more pressure to earn - but the other gender has the same lifestyle and statistically more assets (and not just because of inheritance/earlier age of male at death…). Can you deliberately claim that earnings figures are based on equal pay for equal work? (when you probably full well know that they simply involve all people working more than 35 hours - and don’t take type of job, hours worked over 35/week, danger, responsibility, years in the work force etc. into consideration at all).
32. Is what used to simply be an irritation for grown-ups many years ago - the self-centered rantings and foot stompings of spoiled high-school and college brats - now not only embraced by your movement but almost the modern cornerstone of it?
33. And if you are irritated about generalizations and stereotypes - and utterly fail to see the hypocrisy in stereotyping and generalizing about one gender while simultaneously making a career (literally in some cases) whining about your own gender being stereotyped …
… you may have female/feminist privilege! Congratulations!

But don’t let on - because you can gain much more with a continual and manipulative victim status.

This looks like a good place to mention a recent read: The Siege of Mecca by Yaroslav Trofimov.

On November 20, 1979 worldwide attention was focused on Tehran, where the Iranian hostage crisis was entering its third week. The same morning – the first of a new Muslim century – hundreds of gunmen stunned the world by seizing Islam’s holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Armed with rifles that they had smuggled inside coffins, these men came from more than a dozen countries, launching the first operation of global jihad in modern times. Led by a Saudi preacher named Juhayman al Utetbi, they believed that the Saudi royal family had become a craven servant of American infidels, and sought a return to the glory of uncompromising Islam. With nearly 100,000 worshippers trapped inside the holy compound, Mecca’s bloody siege lasted two weeks, inflaming Muslim rage against the United States causing hundreds of deaths.

Despite US assistance, the Saudi royal family proved haplessly incapable of dislodging the occupiers, whose ranks included American converts to Islam. In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini blamed the Great Satan – the United States – for defiling the shrine, prompting mobs to storm and torch American embassies in Pakistan and Libya. The desperate Saudis finally enlisted the help of French commandos led by tough-as-nails Captain Paul Barril, who prepared the final assault and supplied poison gas that knocked out the insurgents. Though most captured gunmen were quickly beheaded, the Saudi royal family responded to this unprecedented challenge by compromising with the rebels’ supporters among the kingdom’s most senior clerics, helping them nurture and export Juhayman’s violent brand of Islam around the world.

Written with the pacing, detail and suspense of a real-life thriller, The Siege of Mecca reveals how Saudi reaction to the uprising in Mecca set free the forces that produced the attack of 9/11 and the harrowing circumstances that surround us today.

Also discussed in The Looming Tower, another excellent book.

Agreed, The Looming Tower is an excellent analysis, and shows how Islamic fascism is a product of a society moved by chance into Western industrialism but still operating in an ideology (Islam) that is functional only in a tribal political and economic system.

And, Wright, its author, locates this not only in Saudi Arabia, but in Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq.

Andrew,

Do you wonder why you're a pathetic, single man living in your mother's basement? Do you wonder why women won't go near you never mind date you?

Please for the love of god never call yourself a conservative again. You are no such thing.

You're as whiney as a liberal and just as stupid. Please go away.

Andrew,

I'll bet they even have the audacity to wear shoes, especially when they aren't pregnant.

Does that cave you are living in have any neat drawings on the wall. Just askin'.

Looking a little closer to the picture I am puzzled by a couple of points...

If this Ayatollah is the shining example of the "religion of peace" then why the need for the bodyguards? Surely the faithful won't jump up the 10' to the stage to bother the old gent now would they? And if having an image of Muhammed is so bad, why is it okay to have the Ayatollah Youbangi's picture all over the place?
Just wondering...

ET: I don't have it at hand, but a little while back I read that the Saudi women university students were severely restricted vis a vis programmes of study. If memory serves, prohibited from Engineering and the sciences, etc.

The key thing I got from Seige of Mecca was that Saudi Arabia had been undergoing a period of moderation which was suddenly reversed by the siege. It scared the Saudi government out of its wits: they concluded that had they attacked government offices or royal palaces, the regime may have collapsed. They came to realize that they were lucky he attacked the mosque. Gave them world wide sympathy as the defenders of Islam and of course triggered a wave of delusional yankee conspiracy hatred which is always handy!

Andrew does realize I presume that women can't drive in SA. Can't go out alone unaccompanied by a male who is not a relative. Must be covered, etc. So, to me the 60% of students are women is a utterly meaningless, diversionary factoid. A distraction. Agitprop!

me no dhimmi - I think that Saudi Arabia is the worst of the ME Islamic countries with its restrictions on women. And thought. I don't know what it will take to shatter this country out of this dysfunctional infrastructure.

Iranians have had the experience of freedom; they aren't going to give it up that easily, but, it's a fight against a theocracy.

As for Andrew, he's best ignored; he lives in an isolate world of his own.

Feminists fear to tread EVERYWHERE, except officially designated spaces where they're coddled and cocooned against the reality. -- Been Around The Block

My writing partner told me once that Feminism is a luxury only a society of idle rich can afford. When the big reality check comes and everything becomes a matter of survival, the society can no longer afford it. If they keep the Femmies, they die.

Attn Andrew: A comment thread on one of Slacktivist's blogs put it this way: "Nature does not select for feminism. Nature (through reproductive success) favors traditional societies where a woman's only function is to make as many babies as possible."

And a Muslim man in an Islamic Republic can be sure of a virgin bride who WILL stay faithful. When's the last time any of us here in the West could say the same?

From LGF, relevant to this topic.

Here's what happens if you dare publicly, and fairly successfully, fight Islam's march to world dominance by arguing against the construction a mosque that would totally dominate the surroundings and become the largest in Europe and which a quarter of a million Englishmen and Englishwomen signed a petition against.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=27822_Islamic_Threat_Posted_at_YouTube_YouTube_Takes_No_Action&only

A video made "in memory" of you, with pictures of you and your family, is made and put on Youtube.

Youtube, however, does not delete it, presumably because it's too busy deleting Marilyn Manson and Ozzy Ozbourne videos, along with pirated Japanese anime.

"Stand in the way of my standing up for my freedom (and the freedom of women worldwide) and you'll be wearing the imprint of my heels."

Don't make me laugh! Yap Yap Yap!

Tell me the last time a feminist stood up for anything that didn't involve finger pointing, or asking for money.

If "western feminism" had any kahoonas collectivly, they would stand up for something other than rapper bashing, but if this was the case it wouldn't be feminism would it?

"a virgin bride who WILL stay faithful"

I suggest you and andrew get together and build a tree fort, hang out a "no girls allowed" sign on it. Maybe you can even figure out a way to do without women completely - something tells me you might as well prepare for that future.
Only a fool, or an adolescent boy, would think that a virgin bride is a guarantee of fidelity.

The picture kind of reminds me of a Mennonite Church I used to attend. All the men on one side and all the women on the other. I also remember the boys entrance and girls entrance going to school. I also remember being reprimanded for putting my hat on before I left the school building. The girls could wear their hats in the building but for the boys it was a punishable offence.

However I think that there the similarity to this picture ends. Due to our Christian heritage girls were equal even though they were weaker. Since they were weaker they deserved special attention like giving them a seat, opening a door, helping them change a tire on a car etc.

In Christianity each person in viewed as being their own source for sin and so the object of the exercise is to control oneself. In Islam sin is brought upon by something other therefore that something other must be controlled. Thus women are viewed as a source of sin and as such are strictly controlled.

In Islam a man would say that the woman caused him to sin therefore she must be covered. In Christianity the woman would say I must not cause the man to be tempted therefore I must cover myself.

So what do we have here, virgins all around or what? Since the men can't see the faces of the women, I wonder if they can at least smell them? There has got to be some joy.

Since when was this thread about what Andrew thinks? What a waste of Kate's bandwidth.

Starve a fire of oxygen and it goes out.

Bye-bye, Andrew, and bye-bye radical, dysfunctional, only-a-luxury (agreed, Ken), North American, coddled, moonbat feminism.

Joe, I think there's a lot of churches and religions out there where the women sit separate from the men and wear funny hats or whatever. Most of them, come to think of it.

Where they differ from Islam (the unreconstructed, virulent strain anyway)is the beheadings, stonings, honor killings and various other obscene nightmares Muslim women have visited upon them.

Which, y'know, kinda puts a different context on that picture from what you see in a Sikh temple, ferinstance. Sikh chicks have nicer heargear too.

BTW, I'd like Andrew to please stop pretending to be on my side.

Agreed Phantom you won't find me defending the Islamic faith or its practices. Personally though I think that the little red dot the Hindu girls wear is kind of cute. Knowing what it stands for I wouldn't want my wife to wear one.

After thinking over Andrew's anti-feminist complaints a bit, I wondered how many of them are effectively paraphrases of complaints some men have made about women almost from time immemorial, and how many of them are specific to the feminist age. The thrust of his list is that women "are" pushy and opportunistic.

I know very little about traditional misogyny, so I can't answer this question myself. The only baseline I have is the result of stumbling over the term "Momism" and the word matriarchy, both in common currency about 1960 or so in the college circuit.

Can anyone find Andrew a REAL dominatrix? His mother must be getting exhausted.

Looks like I smoked out a few closet feminists here.

It's no secret that SDA is a pro-feminist pro-illegal immigration, pro-open immigration, pro-affirmative action website, and the majority of the commenters here are left-liberal war junkies. This has been proven time and time again in threads.

The readers of SDA support radical feminism and affirmative action and open immigration in each and every thread it has been discussed.

Small Dead Animals is a left wing website with a left wing agenda. Angry feminists attack, attack, attack heterosexual men who post heterosexual comments.

Nobody hates you for being wrong. They hate you for being right. Let the record show that I dominated yet another feminist thread at SDA with superior data and made the monkeys very, very angry.

The post - as other posts dedicated to this subject - is meant to illicit a heated response but not as much as it could because I don't see any supporters of Islam commenting.

I think the meaning of 'feminist' has changed or at least I hope it has because I consider myself one. My meaning of feminism is the kind that believes women do wrong and are responsible for their actions and must take responsibility for them. I believe that women are born with feminine traits but some are encouraged by nurture. I'm not a one way or another believer like many classic feminists.

Traditional feminists tend to excuse women for their mistakes because they believe women are naturally oppressed victims and suffer from a lack of confidence, which appears to me, to undermine women's confidence in themselves. Classic feminists are constantly excusing women for bad behavior but will, in a contradictory fashion, assault, harangue by manipulating means, other women for asserting themselves of their legal rights while ignoring men who use violent methods of communication to get their points across. I've seen this in the work environment time and time again and is most common in areas where there are union strongholds, like Windsor.

That being said, I've been fired for standing up for myself for being harassed by men at work. If the evidence is there, many of those claims are valid and the employer should usually put a stop to it. Many sexually harassing experiences I've encountered I didn't bother with and many women choose this route. Over time it gets tiring and some of us who aren't unionized try our hand at standing up for our rights - most times it doesn't work.

The last 'experience' I had was at the University of Windsor when a student of Engineering (and an old boyfriend) started harassing me at work - classic phone calling, showing up unexpectedly and repeatedly, attempting to forcing me to give him my phone number, not letting me pass by him to get back to work - even though I asked him to stop it - repeatedly. I complained and I got fired. Not by a male but the female administrative officer at the department of Engineering at the University.

Yet, this guy is known to the RCMP for fundraising for the Hezbollah (it was legal in Canada prior to 2003) and having been jailed for driving under suspension for a dangerous driving charge after colliding with an SUV full of RCMP officers. I never believed him to be dangerous but it shows difficulties with making decisions and the way the University handled it gives an example of the inequities that still exist.

I find that there is nothing different from right leaning conservative non-Muslim men who rage against feminists to many men who are practicing Islam. I've heard it all, been there and done that - see the post about veiled voting on my blog.

Someone throw a coconut at Andrew--and next time he tries to rile the clan, ignore him. Better yet, distract him with a banana: Infants love bananas.

Well, Marlene, you've come up against the classic feminist in Canada. She's the one who's risen to an administrative position in a large bureacracy, with all of the perks and privileges of the position, and who, from this position of financial security for her and her family, doesn't want to dirty her hands with something as controversial and messy as a harrassment claim.

They're all talk...equality...yada, yada,yada...safety in the workplace, yada, yada, yada, and no walk. In my professional life, I've found the women in positions of so-called authority are the worst administrators, too often arbitrary in their judgments, always talking the justice and equality talk but very seldom coming through with the goods.

They're more often than not smug, 70's produced feminists, who feel that just because they're females, they're better than men and certainly far superior to any woman who prefers domestic pursuits, like marriage, having children and deciding to take responsibility for their child(ren)'s care, nurture, and education.

Sorry to hear about your experience, which seems legion these days. Female supremacy, which is what Canadian feminism has morphed into, from the days when women activists loved their kids and husbands but, rightly, felt that woman should be regarded as human beings with political rights, has hijacked a legitimate women's movement--making many of us very uncomfortable with the label of "feminist."

We've come a long way, baby, but where have we ended up? Not necessarily in a better place for women--or for anyone else.

"That being said, I've been fired for standing up for myself for being harassed by men at work."

Sure you have, internet hero. That's believable in the year 2007, LIAR.

"The last 'experience' I had was at the University of Windsor when a student of Engineering (and an old boyfriend) started harassing me at work...blahblahblah...I complained and I got fired."

Right, because Canadian universities are clearly hotbeds of male chauvinism in the year 2007. That's believable.

Send me $1000 for having to listen to your pathetic lies.

Actually Andrew I'm not a liar. The University of Windsor is in a class of it's own - I didn't say Canadian Universities are hotbeds of male chauvinism - you did.

You've obviously haven't the experience of complaining against a woman for sexual harassment or harassment in general otherwise you wouldn't be trying so hard to fabricate a point. If you were in location you should check out the fact that this same administrator has a number of grievances with the University's union for harassment towards her female employees.

Actually Andrew, I'm not a liar. I didn't say Universities were hotbeds of male chauvinism - you did. So I guess that makes you the liar.

Fabricating an argument where none exists is just a way to deflect from the real issue and that's the existence of sexual harassment and harassment in the work force - I said Windsor was a great place for this because the union setting is paternalistic.

Besides, there are a number of grievances with the University's union - the C.A.W (who else?)against this female administrator for harassment. Who made the claims? Women.

I don't go out of my way to say things I can't back up and if I make a mistake - it might be tough on the ego, but I like to take responsibility for it.

Actually Andrew, I'm not a liar. I didn't say Universities were hotbeds of male chauvinism - you did. So I guess that makes you the liar.

Fabricating an argument where none exists is just a way to deflect from the real issue and that's the existence of sexual harassment and harassment in the work force - I said Windsor was a great place for this because the union setting is paternalistic.

Besides, there are a number of grievances with the University's union - the C.A.W (who else?)against this female administrator for harassment. Who made the claims? Women.

I don't go out of my way to say things I can't back up and if I make a mistake - it might be tough on the ego, but I like to take responsibility for it.

Yikes! I guess my browser wasn't working - sorry for that

Marlene, that's a great internet story, but I have a few questions:

Can you make things up and no one will really check or dare call you on it?

Can you pretend like you don’t even know what anyone is talking about on this topic?

Has whining about and hating the other gender actually been made into a course of studies in college (women’s studies) - as opposed to the true, neutral, unbiased study of this topic - which is simply anthropology?

Can you propagate myths and outright lies and be given a “pass” - without more rigor being demanded?

Do you want to be treated like a child when it suits you but as an adult when you get an advantage from that?

Can you rationalize your own failures using the concept of the “patriarchy”, and blame the other gender for nearly everything that goes wrong in your life - even with quite contorted explanations that no one would otherwise buy - while failures of the other gender are just … failures?

Can almost any remark by a man be construed as verbal abuse if you want sympathy, but the meanest, nastiest, most humiliating things that you can say simply involve “speaking your mind” and “some people just don’t want to hear the truth”?

Can you manipulate using old notions of men protecting and deferring to women when it comes in handy?

Can you effectively manipulate by playing the victim?

Do tears work sometimes?

Your prompt response appreciated,
Andrew

Re:Marlene's experience with her 'Hezbollah-inclined' former paramour. Gee, would it be racist for me to point out how many times I've heard of this before?
Ladies, those dusky lads may be charming at first...just keep in mind there's a price to be paid!

Almost makes you wish all the women would stand up and flash the men, just to show how quickly that barrier could be torn down.

Longtime lurker here.
Just felt the overwhelming need to point out that Andrew is obviously an extreme feminist trying to play like an aggrieved ant-feminist male to distract from the fact feminists are giving islam a pass, much like they gave Bill Clinton.

She is doing her best to get you to hate her, so that through her play acting you, too, will learn that men are all jackbooted thugs.

Sad, really.
No real man, confident in his sexuality and of a modern bent, can excuse the oppression of women under islam. Only women who think that not being allowed in a golf club exclusive to rich males is 'real oppresion' and what women go through under islam is 'cultural difference'.

Yes, we're quite used to seeing a series of "brand new posters" show up in threads such as this.

It generally ends up with me arguing with 7 or 8 "brand new posters", all of whom have heart wrenching stories and none of whom ever show up in subsequent threads. From a mathematical point of view it is farcical to take any of these "brand new posters" seriously. Try again.

Andrew, I've been reading this thread and I still don't see what your malfunction is here. Are you saying Muslim women are NOT oppressed, or that all women SHOULD BE oppressed like the Muslim broads are, or WTF is your damage?

Because it looks to me like you're just gassing off to see yourself in print. Learn to talk, eh?

At the end of the day, Phantom, I'm arguing with feminists, and you're arguing with a conservative, again. When given the choice of attacking feminists telling statistically implausible lies or attacking a conservative, you chose to attack a conservative. Because that's what you do, attack conservatives.

Actually you're not "arguing" with anyone dude. You're spewing like a Lefty. Lots of sound and fury but not much significant content, know what I mean?

So, back to the subject at hand:

A)Muslim women are not oppressed.
B)Muslim women are oppressed but who cares?
C)No women anywhere are ever oppressed but should be 'cause they are a bunch of lying sluts and I hate them!!!!
D)All women everywhere should be oppressed like the Muslim ones are because I hate them!!!
E)All of the above, with bells on.

Chose one or make up a sentence that actually says what you mean. There's a good boy.

I've posted significant data in this thread, you're just blurting insults and wanking with your opinions. Keep trying, closet Liberal feminist who attacks conservatives.

i have to agree with andrew. its pretty obvious this is a left wing blog overrun by left wing trolls and sockpuppets who attack anyone who opposes feminism or affirmative action or open immigration.

andrew makes good points about how anoymous trolls magically and conveniently appear in these threads and people like phantom who repeatedly harrasses him are obviously closet liberals. lol i especially like the angry feminist lady who thinks she is strong enough to rip a man's head off and p*ss down his neck. what a silly little feminist!

boor

bore

snore

ignore

You've all heard this before,

"Men want sex,
women want money"

Well take a look at at what battle feminists have chosen to fight, and most of them are about money,

money for free contraceptives, money for free abortions, money for day care, money from divorce, money from law suits, money for feminist programs at universities, money for feminists studies and so on and so forth...

There is no money - or very little - in fighting for Islamic women so feminists are not interested.

Ok feminists are also about gaining more power to better tyranize men, but they are mostly about money.

oh, one last thing,
I am a man and I definitely want sex.

I don't necessarily disagree with you Andrew, I don't understand your point. Sure you've posted a lot of "data" in this thread, I'm just not sure any of it is true.

Kate's post says the Feminazis remain 100% silent on the very real oppression many Muslim women face in this country. Instead, Feminazis bend all their efforts to making the easy-target White Males like myself miserable.

So, Kate thinks the Femmies are full of poo poo. I agree with that. A lot.

Therefore I am a closet liberal?

So you can see the reason for my confusion. That's the kind of thinking I expect to see posted by ok4ua. Are you sure you're not him in drag?

It's understandable that you are confused, Phantom, given what you have to work with. I have a few questions for you:

Do you sometimes pretend like you don’t even know what anyone is talking when your support of feminism is questioned?

Do you sometimes attack anti-feminist men to score points with feminists, knowing full well that your actions actually harm the welfare of men?

Do you spend more time arguing with feminists than antifeminists, and wonder why people think you are a closet liberal?