Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
I'm a feminist, and I converted to Islam
Well, lookee-here, you suspicious Western infidels. Islam is not only the religion of peace, it's the religion of feminism too!
Subject is the title of an op-ed article at CNN by Theresa Corbin, who lives in Louisiana. At age 21 and 2 months after 9/11, she converted to Islam.
I still wasn't convinced and replied, "Yeah, but women are like second class citizens in your faith?"
The very patient Muslim lady explained that, during a time when the Western world treated women like property, Islam taught that men and women were equal in the eyes of God...
She listed right after right that women in Islam held nearly 1,250 years before women's lib was ever thought of in the West. Surprisingly, Islam turned out to be the religion that appealed to my feminist ideals...
The very patient Muslim lady explained that, during a time when the Western world treated women like property, Islam taught that men and women were equal in the eyes of God...
She listed right after right that women in Islam held nearly 1,250 years before women's lib was ever thought of in the West. Surprisingly, Islam turned out to be the religion that appealed to my feminist ideals...
So strictly in my Grumpy Old Atheist White Guy opinion - Corbin absorbed all the positive propaganda about Islam and ignored all the negatives.
BTW, women in ancient Egypt had all the rights mentioned above, plus others like the right to start divorce proceedings on their own initiative. No God or Allah required.
In my journey to Islam, I came to learn that Muslims come in all shapes, sizes, attitudes, ethnicities, cultures and nationalities. I came to know that Islam teaches disagreement and that shouldn't lead to disrespect, as most Muslims want peace.
Most of all, I have faith that my fellow Americans can rise above fear and hatred and come to learn the same.
Most of all, I have faith that my fellow Americans can rise above fear and hatred and come to learn the same.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/14/opinion/muslim-convert-irpt/index.html
Sound of violins swelling, and the children's choir singing "Kum-ba-ya..." Surprisingly, (sarcasm) no mention of murderous Islamic fundamentalists rising above their "fear and hatred."
Hey Ms. Corbin - how about you go to Saudi Arabia and sit down alone in a café. Some of your Brothers In Islamic Feminism will be along in no time. They are called "matowa," a/k/a Religious Police.
If you're lucky, they'll just order you to move to "the women and families section" of the place. If you're unlucky you'll be jailed. And if you care to continue the debate at length, you could end up being publicly whipped. Or worse.
If I tried to describe all the routine awful treatment of women I saw in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, I'd be writing non-stop for the next 3 days. That applies to foreign women too - just Google "women tourists Egypt harassment" for an eyeful.
Daily sexual harassment is so common in Egypt, a movie got made about it: Cairo 678. Based on real events - the first sexual harassment lawsuit ever allowed into Egyptian courts.
ImdB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764141/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Here's a woman reviewing the movie at ImdB and putting it more eloquently than I can:
Yes, Cairo 678 is a film about 'women's plight' in Egypt but also an important commentary on the class structure inherent in most societies but particularly stark in Cairo where gleaming BMWs travel alongside over-heated, bursting buses where sexual harassment is inevitably common place, as depicted in the film.
Feyza is a working-class mother struggling to pay her children's school fees and to fend off her husband's sexual advances. It soon becomes apparent that her tardiness to work is simply a result of her desperate attempts to avoid the over-crowded buses where she is routinely molested by over-eager male passengers. She soon befriends Seba, a wealthy self-defence teacher whom we learn was raped a year earlier, as well as a middle class student (Nelly) whose life-threatening assault results in a historic first legal case for sexual harassment in Egypt.
What binds these women together is a frustration at the unashamed impunity to these men's actions and society's pretend ignorance about their daily struggle to walk down Cairo's streets without harassment.
Feyza is a working-class mother struggling to pay her children's school fees and to fend off her husband's sexual advances. It soon becomes apparent that her tardiness to work is simply a result of her desperate attempts to avoid the over-crowded buses where she is routinely molested by over-eager male passengers. She soon befriends Seba, a wealthy self-defence teacher whom we learn was raped a year earlier, as well as a middle class student (Nelly) whose life-threatening assault results in a historic first legal case for sexual harassment in Egypt.
What binds these women together is a frustration at the unashamed impunity to these men's actions and society's pretend ignorance about their daily struggle to walk down Cairo's streets without harassment.
15 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
The same thing 
To be up that close to that would of freaked me out.
Some hero her brother was 
To kill a girl for marrying the wrong boy and yet they don't see the hypocrisy luring their own daughter to her death. Sick human beings.
