annexi wrote:rustled wrote:The first sentence is true.
The second sentence is a construct of those who are too firmly focused on the third. Look at the problem with the taxi companies in Halifax. As surely as prejudice can lead people to paint everyone with the same brush (which is clearly wrong), prejudice can also blind people to root causes that should be addressed (which is also wrong).
GB keeps mentioning Rotheram. If we refuse to even acknowledge the factors that allowed this to happen in the UK, what's to stop it from happening elsewhere?
I'm not a fan of organized religion. It seems, to me, to discourage people from thinking for themselves, from doing what is right because it is right. So yes, I have a bias. Still, when I think about a religion that segregates men from women and further segregates women who are menstruating, it's difficult for me to blindly accept that there is where the segregation ends.
I do not feel it's helpful to demonize a religion, or a people, or a culture as some persist in doing. However, I also do not feel it is helpful to turn a blind eye to the implications inherent in their teachings. This goes for any religion.
dirtrider: you have provided examples of Muslim leaders speaking out against the violence. What they are not speaking out about, to my mind, is the inherent underlying sexism that seems readily apparent in their religious practices. Are you able to show examples of their religious leadership insisting, men and women be treated as equals in their mosques and in their homes, unsegregated for prayer, and being broadly accepted and supporting for taking this stance?
We do know there are countries where women are not allowed to drive or go places unaccompanied by men, and we do know young women are too often denied even an education.
Some people emigrate from these countries to provide opportunities for their daughters and sisters and mothers. But are refugees, fleeing war and famine, approaching Canada (or any other country of refuge) as a place where women and men can live a Western lifestyle? I think it's naive to believe that's the case.
rustled, if I get you right it seems you're making a case that something about Islam makes Muslim men more inclined to commit sexual assault. I'm not sure I agree when I see how many Canadian women/children are sexually assaulted/molested by men in Canada. 1/4 roughly? It's not a problem specific to Islam.
Bear in mind what constitutes sexual assault in Canada: "A term used to refer to all incidents of unwanted sexual activity, including sexual attacks and sexual touching." By this definition, I've experienced several sexual assaults myself. The first two times, there was no man involved. I think we need to be careful about our biases and preconceptions here, as always.
While sexual assault is certainly not a problem specific to Islam, there is a component of that religion that puts me in mind of attitudes which were far more prevalent in Western culture a couple of generations back than they are today, before we said "that's enough of that". Not because we believed if those attitudes went unchecked,
every man would figure if it's ok to treat women and children however they liked. No, we blew the whistle on that kind of attitude because we recognized the negative implications of that kind of sexist cultural conditioning for all of us: men, women and children.
When I think about the young men arriving here as refugees, I think in terms of where they're coming from, the culture in which they've been raised. In terms of Islam, I don't see any evidence of their religious and community leaders taking a serious stance against culturally conditioned sexism here in Canada. It's difficult for me to believe that although their place of worship requires women be separated from men, their religion somehow still supports, promotes, encourages (or even, come to think of it,
allows) equality.
It's difficult for me to believe their leaders are taking a serious stand against the attitudes that are associated with seeing women as less than equal, when those attitudes are apparent in their places of worship. I'm open to the possibility a call for equality, their appeals and directives against sexism, are being drowned out, as dirtrider said. Yet while he/she was able to provide plenty of examples of what I had been aware of (their leaders speaking up about terrorism and extremism), he/she did not provide examples of these same leaders expecting their flock to put sexism behind them and embrace genuine equality of the sexes. I'd like to be proven wrong.
Still, my concern about refugees isn't specific to Islam or Muslims.
When you think about men arriving here as refugees from countries where women are not allowed to be seen in public without a male chaperone (or without "proper" attire), where women are not allowed to drive a car, where girls are not allowed to get an education, where women are not seen as autonomous equals: how do you think the culture they've been raised in contributes to their attitudes toward women and children once they're here?
How do you think that kind of cultural conditioning contributes to the attitudes of the women themselves, toward their daughters and each other, toward their sons and their husbands?
How do we expect this to play out? Should we believe cultural conditioning had absolutely no bearing on what happened to the children in Rotheram? That it had absolutely no bearing on what happened to the intoxicated woman in a taxi in Halifax? That it had absolutely no bearing on what happened on public streets in Europe where people gathered to celebrate New Year's Eve?
What should we learn when the leader of a Western government responds to the gang-style sexual assaults at public celebrations on New Years' Eve with "women need to be more careful"?
What should we learn from what happened in Rotheram? Are we to believe it would have gone that far if the UK hadn't created its own brave new culture, one of putting political correctness before common decency and common law?