The lack of security in Iraq continues to astound as does the subsequent rise of woman hate that has been inspired due to the upsurge of Shiite vigilantes. You know, using Islam as a cover up for generic woman hate.
Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday.Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups that he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. They dispatch patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows to accost women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, he added.
"The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior," Khalaf told The Associated Press. He said men with Western clothes or haircuts are also attacked in Basra, an oil-rich city some 30 miles from the Iranian border and 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.
Our fight against the war in Iraq is a feminist issue, you already know that, but this is why. It is an especially disgusting form of woman hate that unleashes itself under dire circumstances, oppressive conditions and in war torn regions of the world.
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This makes me so angry. I cannot understand how some cultures can use religion, which should be something good and loving, as a method of suppression and hate. It makes me sick.
I think I read somewhere that this kind of gender attacks, where there is a lot of hatred directed at women tends to happen in societies where other groups feel powerless.
So the supression (and killing) of women is because in Basra it feels like the world is spinning out of control and the one thing that can be controlled is women.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm simply trying to understand why there is such vicious gender hatred, although considering the sectarian violence as well is it any better to be killed for being female than to be Sunni or Shiite?
I don't really buy it, NewsCat. For one thing, who are women supposed to kill when we feel powerless?
I think NewsCat has a valid point, but I'm not sure where you are getting @EG.
I think power and domination as a lot to do with it. I think women are seen more as property than human beings in this culture.
Centuries of being oppressed would generally mean most women over there are too fucking scared to fight back. So powerless they remain until there are enough of them to give the majority courage for change.
"I think I read somewhere that this kind of gender attacks, where there is a lot of hatred directed at women tends to happen in societies where other groups feel powerless.
"So the supression (and killing) of women is because in Basra it feels like the world is spinning out of control and the one thing that can be controlled is women."
Either that or the attackers still get male privilege even while they don't get First World privilege, or some attacks due to each.
"I don't really buy it, NewsCat. For one thing, who are women supposed to kill when we feel powerless?"
I've heard some people say spanking children is OK not because it's supposedly good discipline but because mothers get stressed out sometimes.
Meanwhile, I've heard of the trend NewsCat describes even outside war zones. For example:
- boss yells at middle manager
- middle manager bullies male lower-income worker
- male lower-income worker goes home and hits his wife
- his wife hits their kid
- their kid kicks their dog
"I don't really buy it, NewsCat. For one thing, who are women supposed to kill when we feel powerless?"
I can see oenophile now... *sigh* You inadvertantly bumped into the fetus light, and her signal is high in the sky.
I agree with Mina and Newscat, though, on the central point.
the supression (and killing) of women is because in Basra it feels like the world is spinning out of control and the one thing that can be controlled is women.
That's one way of looking at it, another is that the people pulling this kind of stuff are the gangs and militias that have real power in the city and get away with it because people are terrified of speaking against them.
I find it interesting that I always hear much harsher criticism on Arab or Muslim blogs about these kind of issues than I do on mainstream liberal ones. Though perhaps it's not terribly surprising, but yes, unfortunately things like this have been happening around Basra for a while. I don't think this is purely a matter of male privelege, because I think this is a radical ideology being forcibly imposed that's beyond the comfort levels of most Iraqi men.
On Monday a teenager, Asqa Parvez, was bludgeoned to death by her father for wearig un-Islamic attire...in Mississauga, Ontario (a suburb of Toronto).
Mississauga ain't spinning out of control. I don't think a chaotic city is what causes women-killing. After all, women are living in Iraq too, feeling Basra's chaos.
Hatred of women prompts men- even fathers- to kill women.
Ontario already imprisoned Parvez's murderer and charged him with murder. Will the women-killers in Basra be brought to such swift justice?
On Monday a teenager, Asqa Parvez, was bludgeoned to death by her father for wearig un-Islamic attire...in Mississauga, Ontario (a suburb of Toronto).
Mississauga ain't spinning out of control. I don't think a chaotic city is what causes women-killing. After all, women are living in Iraq too, feeling Basra's chaos.
Hatred of women prompts men- even fathers- to kill women.
Ontario already imprisoned Parvez's murderer and charged him with murder. Will the women-killers in Basra be brought to such swift justice?
On Monday a teenager, Asqa Parvez, was strangled to death by her father for wearig un-Islamic attire...in Mississauga, Ontario (a suburb of Toronto).
Mississauga ain't spinning out of control. I don't think a chaotic city is what causes women-killing. After all, women are living in Iraq too, feeling Basra's chaos.
Hatred of women prompts men- even fathers- to kill women.
Ontario already imprisoned Parvez's murderer and charged him with murder. Will the women-killers in Basra be brought to such swift justice?
Hmm...40 women killed in Basra? Wow, that's like what? 1/10th the amount of women killed in same city by the the armed forces of the United Settler Aryans...oops the "white male patriarchy" aka...ur fathers/brothers/sons/husbands and boyfriends (when you gals arent busy doing it urselves a la PFC England). It's funny how you all will scream to high heaven when talking about some esoteric evil u unleashed (wasnt any rash of honor killings in Basra or Iraq for that matter before the blonde brigade descended upon the country and killed a million +) but wont say a damn thing about the rape and murders you people visit on the very same demographic. I know, I know, you and your people are in Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia et al because you want to liberate the women by showing them the joys of underage prostitution (which is now the biggest job for girls, oops non white girls around military bases from Iraq to Grenada, the Philippines etc....)...u hypocrites make me sick.