Why non muslims always say that muslim women are suppressed/oppressed/have no rights/uneducated?

Question

Any proofs on that?muslims women work, are educated and some are lawyers/doctors/engineers and they live their daily life just like anyone .

Answer 1

If you took a set of people, say people with red hair, and passed laws limiting/changing their rights so that they couldn't dress how they wanted, had harsher punishments thatn others for transgressions, had a poorer education they would be oppressed and uneducated.

Now, say we take a few readheads and give them the same rights as everyone else. Does that stop redheads from being oppressed and uneducated? It stops you saying that ALL redheads are oppressed and uneducated. But so long as you say "most redheads are oppressed and uneducated" then the statment remains true.

Now, say we go further and decide that in most countries redhead discrimination will end but in three countries it will remain. "Most" drops out of the equation now - but the qualified statment "many redheads are oppressed and uneducated" remains true.

As you have qualified the statement any counter statment giving examples either of redheads in countries other than the three or the one or two allowed rights denied to their fellow redheads has no effect.

The "proof" that MANY muslim women are suppressed/oppressed/have no rights/uneducated is very easy to find (others have supplied links). And with that qualifier in place your counterexamples do not disprove it. That a women is condemned to 90 lashes for being raped is not nullified by a women becoming an engineer.

You counter examples do work to disprove the statement "ALL muslim women are suppressed/oppressed/have no rights/uneducated". If this is what you meant in your question then you are plainly wrong. I am a non muslims and I do not ALWAYS say that ALL muslim women are suppressed/oppressed/have no rights/uneducated. Some are. Some are not.

Answer 2

Unfortunately they misunderstand, if something happens to a handfull of Muslim women they assume that's how all Muslim women are treated. They also assume it is a part of Islam, they do not realise it is a particular culture that is allowing this.

I am not Muslim but my husband is and we visit his family regularly in the Western Sahara. I have never met such strong, opinionated, hard-working, beautifull, kind women in my life! They are more than respected by their husbands/brothers/fathers, they are treated like queens.

No-one is denying that some Muslim women are treated very badly, some are beaten, have no rights etc...It is disgusting and it should be stopped.
But when are people going to realise it is NOT Islam that allows this to happen? Christian woman suffer the same and do we go around saying Christianity allows this?

We can only hope that all this stereotyping/prejudice/racism etc. will stop one day.

God Bless x

Answer 3

Can i just reply to what sternchen said? Firstly, because the Quran is written in arabic it is not clearly translated into English so only people who can read the arabic can get the meaning correct. Secondly, you only seem to show the parts about the men, leaving out the parts about when women have the same rights, and showing the equality of women to men. If you know all of these quotes from the Quran, you should surely no the ones about women's rights. So it is quite obvious that you wrote those ones specifically on purpose.

Answer 4

I'm Muslim woman wearing hijab studied cinema and i graduated to be an editor and i cant feel any of the above i agree with you by the way Islam respect the women since 1400 years ago not only now a day
visit that link
http://www.iad.org/books/S-women.html

Answer 5

People spend too much time watching TV and trying to make judgments from there..Don't they realize that the media only shows a small percentage of what really goes on in this world and it is usually always negative... one day ..maybe we can hope people will actually take the time to really learn about others...
By the way..i drive my car..i sit in front seat..i picked my own spouse........

Answer 6

Since the height of the feminist movement in the late 70's there has been a magnifying glass placed over the status of Muslim women. Unfortunately, the magnifying glass that has been used is an unusual one. Unusual in the sense that it is very selective about which items it will magnify; other items it will distort to such a degree that they will no longer look familiar. I remember once reading in an "in depth" article about the lives of Muslim women. This article "explained" that at any time a man can divorce his wife by simply stating "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you". This article can lead anyone ignorant of the Islamic ruling regarding divorce to believe that in less than five seconds the woman is left with no husband and is left to care for herself (and possibly children) by any means necessary. The question that immediately popped up in my mind was, "Did the author innocently write that out of sincere ignorance or was it another of the many attempts to degrade the religion of Islam and its followers (muslims)?" It may be my own paranoia, but I tend to believe it was the latter of the two.




The truth of the matter is that Islam has the most humane and most just system of divorce that exists. Firstly, many options are taken and tried before coming to the decision of the divorce. If the man and woman decide that they can no longer live together successfully as a husband and wife, the husband (in most cases, not always) pronounces the divorce by saying "I divorce you". At this point the waiting period begins. The waiting period lasts for three menstrual cycles to assure the woman is not pregnant. This period allows the couple time to think about what they are doing and if this is what they really want to do. There are no lawyers involved to antagonize an already delicate situation.

In the case that it is realized, that the woman is pregnant, the waiting period lasts the entire time she is pregnant. During the waiting period (whether the woman is pregnant or not) the man is obligated to provide food, clothing and shelter to the woman as he did before the divorce pronouncement. If the couple carries the divorce through to the birth of the child and the woman suckles the baby, the man is obligated to feed and clothe both his ex-wife for the time the woman suckles (the maximum being two years). After this weaning, the child will be provided for by the father until he/she is no longer in need of support.

It is quite ironic that in such an "advanced society" as America, there are divorce cases in which women are being forced to pay alimony to their ex-husbands. Can this and many other things we know about the American system of divorce compare to the Islamic system of divorce?

I have also read stories wherein it is stated that women are forced to marry men without their consent. This in no way resembles the marriage system in Islam. In Islaam the woman marries the man of her choice. She may even marry someone that her mother and/or father objects to. The point is that it is the woman who makes the final decision as to whom she will marry. Once the man and the woman decide that they are interested in one another for marriage, a dowry is decided upon. A dowry is not a brides’ price but, it is a gift from the groom to the bride. They agree upon a gift that is affordable by the groom. In the time of the Prophet (sas), often things such as livestock and money were given. This is a wise decision in the event that a woman becomes divorced or widowed, she has some financial security to fall back on even if it is for a limited amount of time. Once the man and woman are married, the man is required to clothe, feed, shelter and educate her (or allow her to be educated) in the same manner as he does himself.

The last distorted image that I will cover is that of the Muslim women's dress. The western influenced media portrays our dress to be outdated and oppressive. Needless to say however, I differ with these adjectives. Our dress code does not hinder us from doing anything productive in our lives. Muslim women maintain a variety of jobs, none of which are devalued nor hampered due to their dress code. And as for the timing of Muslim women's dress during these contemporary times, it seems most appropriate due to decreasing morals in the world today.

For those who say that Islamic dress is outdated, they speak from great ignorance. The decreasing morality and trials of this time makes Hijaab even more in need. More than ever before sex crimes are rampant. Although this society tells women they can wear what they want to wear, anytime a rape occurs the woman is the one put on trial an one of the first questions is, "What were you wearing?" This concept seems as though it is a set up directed against the so called contemporary woman. Also there is a direct correlation between the respect a man has for a woman and the amount of her body her body she displays flauntingly.

In conclusion, I hope this article helped to clear up some distorted/misunderstood aspects of Islam and women. Women in Islam are respected and held in high regard. We will never find success and/or solutions to our problems until we realise that Allah knows best and that this disbelieving society will ruin itself.

- Article by Sister Naasira bint Ellison, a former non-Muslim

Taken from Hudaa magazine, Jamaica, New York.

Answer 7

Unfortunately most form an impression of Islam based on gossip or on individual acts of a few muslims or as projected by the media, rather then carrying out a bit of research. Unlike it's impression in the West, Islam is the most wonderful religion. I would request you to please check out :
http://www.ahya.org/amm/modules.php?name=Lectures&d_op=viewdownload2&cid=2

Answer 8

Perhaps that is not true of muslim women in the United States or the UK, but over there in the Middle East, I bet it is true more times than not.

Answer 9

I am Muslim and i don't care if people's opinion coz i feel so happy that i am Muslim and Islam obligate men to respect us coz Islam gives us the right to educate, work, and to stay at home if we want and if i decide to stay at home men( husband, father and brothers) are obligated to make us happy and satisfied.
nobody can tell me to go out and look for job coz Islam protects Muslim's women and obligates men to make us happy.

peace

Answer 10

Either they are ignorant or deprived from seeing naked Muslim women.

Peace-