Why don't college courses (Gender Studies) teach about Women & Islam?

Question

From what I have seen, gender studies spends a lot of time bashing white males & basically liberal cultures of Europe & the US, while totally ignoring the plight of women in Saudia Arabia, Iran & countries under Sharia Law in general. I've yet to see a course that addresses the way women are stoned, beaten, raped & basically abused in the Mid East or even in the US by followers of Islam. Why not point out what happens to a woman if she decides to convert to another religion? I've noticed women's studies bashes about any religion, except Islam, for being male dominated?

Baba, Bull Crap! The Islamic studies department covers some of the "limited" rights women have & attempts to paint Islam as sensitive to women's rights. They never mention "gay rights" under Sharia law or the number of homosexuals executed in Islamic countries, but you'll hear of the murder of the gay student here in the US!

Samy... Several videos of women being stoned to death exist on the net... some in Iran, Iraq & Saudia Arabia... take your pick... but they are hard to watch. Some are stoned to death if they were raped... it takes 2 women to counter the word of one man.

Because I worked in the Oil Industry, I did spend some time in the ME & never liked the way they treated women & Dhimmi. Of course, they don't have homosexuals there, chuckle.

Samy: Just one more word... I resent being called ignorant by someone of your limited mental abilities.

Dedire: I have a number of daughters & granddaughters & have always championed women's rights & religious rights, even though I am an atheist.

Universities are afraid they will be attacked if they say anything like "Islam is violent." I suspect they have been intimidated to the point they gloss over the human rights violations there.

Jim... a good link, thanks. We do need to be more informative to some of these people from differing cultures. We have had several honor killings & female circumcisions here in the US. I understand some even think it is acceptable in the West.

Proffesso.. I shared an office with an anthropologist (small school) with precisely that outlook. "Don't make waves."

Coop 366... No doubt that the Quran, when written, provided more rights to women than any religion in the known World. Certainly early Christianity as practiced in Europe was more restrictive than Islam. However, even without the harsh cultural interpretation of Islam as practiced in the Mid East it is ultra restrictive to women in today's World.

UseAnoth... I agree that culture has more influence than religion. However the culture is totally supported by religion in the Mid East.

Laela... That isn't the Saudia I knew. Still the elite (Airport Muslims) do get away with far more than the commoner.
The Wahabbie form of Sunni Islam was by far the worst on women when I was in the ME. Then they had Shiite fanatics followed by just plain Sunni which tended to be more moderate. I've forgotten the sect from Egypt, but they were very like the Wahabbi Sunni in Saudi.

TROLL... None of the other women responding got that in their gender studies... but then you are special, aren't you?

Irre... I always check out links & appreciate good ones. However, TROLL was condesending & just plain rude & crude.

Having traveled extensively due to the oil industry, I have different perspectives on cultures than those that visit countries as a tourist. I sponsered a young shia' boy from Beruit before the place was torn apart...His father (a fine man) & brother were killed in the 80s violence, but he is now a fine American engineer with a grad degree in electrical engineering. However, monitoring my granddaughter's college courses I've concluded they are giving her a watered down & politically correct version of Islam & the Mid East in general.

I do not ask a question when my opinion is cast in concrete & do appreciate a well thought out & contrasting opinion... chuckle, I seldom pick one that agrees with my assesment as best answer.

Answer 1

I am a Hindu. Hindus have no wish to enroll anybody under Hinduism. That’s why I am not particular about Christians converting to Hinduism or Hindus converting to other religions.

That being said, I think Christianity, in its pure form, treats women as bad as Islam and regard women lower than men. Most western societies do not follow Christianity in this form. They have evolved a culture beyond Christianity.

Let’s talk about the culture and ways of life and not religions when we are dealing with social conditions that have to be changed across the religions and countries.

Answer 2

Well, I used to take those kinds of classes because I thought I would meet some hot chicks with brains, which are the kind I liked then (and still do, of course). Sometimes I did. I didn't worry about looking like a feminized nerd. I had already been in combat by then and was a wrestling champ.

Answer 3

No one wants to believe all the stories that are in the news, even when it stares you in the eye. But the truth is there for all to see! The problem is that man runs everything and most men can not treat a woman as an equal. In every religion women are second to men!! I am a Christian but in my religion a woman is not to teach man which I find wrong. To me the person to teach is the one who has the knowledge. The true path of Islam has been polluted by the leaders interpretation of the word. A strange fact in my dictionary the Bible and the Koran are capitalize but the Torah which is the bases for them all isn't!!!!

Answer 4

I'm pretty sure the Religious Studies department at my school covers that one. Women's Studies reduces religion to one unit in some classes, or reserves one class for religion as a whole. Also, the other university in my city has a Middle Eastern Studies department.

Answer 5

I've taken a couple women studies classes, and in them they did at least briefly cover Women & Islam. The only time we got into a deep discussion of it was in the "Women and Violence" course I took, where they discussed the women being beaten, stoned, or even burnt to death with fire or acid (or at least irreversibly scarred from it). Many times a man will set his wife on fire because of an unhappy marraige, and he will try to make it look like a suicide or accident. It also went into more details about "honor killing." (killing a female family member for disgracing the family, typically by engaging in premarital sex [often times rape], unapproved dating, or suspision of affairs).

I believe we did have a class that was called women and Islam, but I did not take it.

Answer 6

In the ME here is the rule of thumb. You behave you don't get spanked. Now having said that around here in Saudia they cheat on each other like wildfire. Yeah, in fact not just long ago I had a friend tell me that her husband and she were at the sea having tea and this Saudi woman comes up with her driver and the next thing you know that car is rocking like mad. I doubt she got stoned to death. And the way that these girls wear their eye make-up, talking about the ones that only wear the half veil is astounding and you can be sure that they are not doing it just to get caught. To top that off the way they apply that perfume of theirs is enough to knock a person off their feet. The women over here are far from innocent. They have their ways of getting back at the men and trust you me they do. If it works for them to use this propaganda of look at me I'm getting stoned they'll use it.

Answer 7

I disagree with your characterization of women/gender studies departments. In the 3 colleges/universities I've been a student at, there have at least one "Women and Islam" class. In my undergrad school, there were at least 3 or 4 classes that dealt explicitly with questions of gender in the Middle East. I'm also pretty sure there were classes that dealt with women/gender in most major religious traditions. I know I took at least 2 classes on women/feminism and Judaism.

In fact, in my undergraduate women's studies department there was a requirement for students to take at least 2 classes dealing with some international/cross cultural/global element of gender/women. I actually think in some ways, women's studies curriculums fetishize other religions/regions/practices. I mean look at the disproportionate focus on female genital cutting versus economic or more explicitly political elements of world women's lives.

Answer 8

I don't know. The prof in the office next door does not, even though she is a woman's rights activist, cover the abuses in her classes. We had a 'discussion' about the treatment and she says we need to real Islam as a peaceful religion- I said not when those peaceful people let the ignorant persecute women, etc. Neither of us changed our stance.

I refuse to support my own church since it does not consider me an equal.

Answer 9

There are courses being taught with regards to women and Islam. I took a course about ten years ago that incorporated Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each religion was examined on the basis of inequality and how feminist are attempting to redefine the place of women in each.

Answer 10

If they did, they would focus on the limited "rights" that some insist women have within Islam, they would not talk about how poorly they are treated. Attacking the evil straight white guy is not only PC but seems to be the only legal and socially acceptable group to attack regardless of the lack of merit of the argument.