You must have seen the Muslim Brotherhood statement against a UN Commission declaration against violence against women?
The Brotherhood outlines a very, very long list of objections, including what it says is the granting of “girls their complete sexual freedom, as well as the freedom to choose their sex and the freedom to choose their sex partners.. with rising the age of marriage”; “equality between illegitimate… and legitimate sons in all rights”; “granting homosexuals all their rights”; granting “wives all the right to sue their husbands with charges of rape or harassment”; “equality in inheritance”; replacing “guardianship with partnership, and fully share the roles within the family between men and women”: “equal access to the marriage legislations such as: Stop polygamy, Iddah, mandate, and the dowry…”; withdrawing “the authority of divorce from husbands and authorize judiciary and share property after divorce”; and cancelling “the obligatory authorization of the husband in travel, work or going out or use contraception”…
Not surprisingly, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Russia and the Vatican concurred.
The Muslim Brotherhood adds that all these very basic rights “collide with the principles of Islam and its basic… elements of Quran and Sunnah”.
Well I could have told you that (and have).
The MB says that these will also lead to the “dismantling” of society. In reality, any gain for women’s rights is a loss for them and will lead to the dismantling of their rule. And that is all they are really concerned about…
Of course women’s rights campaigners and organisations have given their unequivocal response. One such response says:
* Stop using justifications based on religion, culture, tradition or nationality to block the progress of laws at all levels, including in the sphere of international law… These justifications must be challenged. The violence they cause is unacceptable and cannot ever be condoned or tolerated.
* End the harmful use of religion, tradition, and culture to safeguard practices that perpetuate violence against women and girls.
You can read the full statement here. Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran is a signatory to it.
There is nothing to which men cling more tenaciously than the privileges of class.
~ Leonard Sidney Woolf 1880-11-25 1969-08-14
This is not so much about the rights of women as maintaining the superior status of males.
If memory serves there is another major religious organization which opposes this treaty as well, the Catholic Church.
I remember reading that list and thinking “…but all of these are good things!” I can’t help but feel pity for those closed minds who are scared of e.g. a “rising age of marriage”.
The UN commission should be supported by all member countries. Violence against women, especially within marriage, is at par with slavery. It should be in the same category as crime against humanity.
The great thing about The Muslim Brotherhood’s insane response, is that they declared it for all the world to see. Out of their nasty little closet, they may have just shot themselves in both feet.
We have not made any progress since the institution of Monotheism at the same time as Paternalistic societies..We are partly guilty! In order to stop the process, we must end the glamourization of marriage and start having a dialogue of what it really is.
Marriage as an Institution, I hate institutions, is a fairly new thing in our human history!
It should be a partnership, but it very rarely is.
No progress?
Really?
Let’s consider North America and much of Europe.
Ninety years ago women couldn’t vote.
Two hundred years ago a married woman had no legal identity outside that of her husband.
A bit earlier a woman had no right to object to her father’s choice of husband.
So on. So forth. History does not support you.
And marriage is absolutely not a recent invention. Marriage of some sort is nearly universal and has been as far back as we have records and in every culture from Animistic Siberia to Hieratic Sumeria, traditional Australia, the Inuit, polytheistic Vedic India, the San and the Sami.
Strictly monogamous lifetime sexually exclusive marriage is not the only form.