Religions against women, everywhere April 4, 2009
Posted by dorigo in news, politics, religion.Tags: fundamentalism, israel, religion, women
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Maybe you might get the impression that I am discovering hot water with this post, and in that case I apologize. But I cannot help logging in this site that I insist in being constantly amazed at the virulence, the shamelessness, and the violence which religious activists use on a daily basis against women, everywhere on this poor planet.
We are all used to the ferocious laws against women in islamic countries, the beating to death of mothers and daughters for futile reasons, the lack of civil rights of women there. We all breathed a sigh of relief when the Talibans were eradicated from power in Afghanistan -only to wake up later and find out that nothing much has changed. In general, when we discuss the rights of women, the situation in arab countries is the obvious issue to deal with.
Things, however, are not qualitatively very different in more “civilized” countries. Take Italy as a very clear example. A western country, a democracy, a secular power which should be able to legislate free from religious ingerence. But it is not so: through lobbying, declarations of archbishops, preaches by Pope Ratzinger, and sermons in the churches, the Vatican managed to convince the italian government to pass a law that for all practical purposes prevents in vitro fertilization. Women who want to get pregnant with medical aid have to travel to Spain or Ukraine, if they can afford it. Worse still, the health of women who accept the italian rules on assisted procreation is put to risk by insane rules whose denominator is the belief that “the embryo is sacred and has to be defended” -even at the risk of the owner of the womb. Every sperm is sacred: one cannot help hearing the old song by Monty Python sung in the background every time Cardinal Bagnasco or one of his accolites is seen on national television.
There would be other things to discuss -Ratzinger’s fight against condoms in Africa, for instance, is directed first and foremost against women. Or the idiotic laws against stem cell research. But I want to mention something else here today.
What prompts me to write about religion and women today is the news about a picture of the new Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu, which contains -the horror, the horror- two women: Limor Livnat, minister of Culture and Sport, and Sofa Landver, minister of Immigration. These two women were amidst 28 men in a picture taken yesterday, and shown on most israeli newspapers. The devil is in the details: see the two versions, and decide for yourself which one is the original and which one appeared on ultra-orthodox newspapers, Sha’a Tovah and Yated Ne’eman.
No violence was moved, nobody was hurt. But to me, the photoshopped picture is if possible even more disturbing than an “ordinary” violent act against a woman. Because it comes from a supposedly respectable institution, in a “civilized” country.
If I were Netanyahu, I would force the newspapers editors to publish the original pictures and present their excuses to the ministers, to the people of Israel, and to us all. Otherwise, some of the reasons why we root for Israel against arab fundamentalists are lost, and Israel itself becomes weaker in its struggle for survival.
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A Quantum Diaries Survivor 
You should get castrated and try to be a woman in politics.
In Czechia, the social democratic party has quotas for women in the leadership written down in their own rules. Yet, they were unable to elect a woman a week ago.
There are many reasons why this thing happened. The universal one is that statistically speaking, women are simply not that interested (and good) in being leaders. But in this social democratic case, the main reason is that almost no women want to spend their time with the fat and disgusting socialist jerks like Mr Paroubek. 😉
Lubos, I am not in favor of such “quotas”. I think that is not the way to ensure a more balanced government. In Italy we have a reasonable fraction of women in politics, and I see no reason to force the fraction one way or the other. What I am discussing in the post, however, is totally a different issue.
Cheers,
T.
Hello,
I’m doing research on terrorism, and I’ve put together a pre-survey questionnaire that I’m circulating in order to get feedback on what a non-biased (non-western, non-white) survey might look like. The final survey will go out later this year.
The survey can be accessed at johnmaszka.com/SURVEY.html
Would you post it, and possibly circulate it? I’m very interested in incorporating the views of women, non-whites, and people living outside of America and Western Europe.
I’d appreciate it.
Thanks!
Take care,
John Maszka
Since when is in vitro fertilization a fundamental human right?
I’m with D. IVF is a luxury, which few can afford.
There is a lot in the news these days about violence against women, and infringements on the rights of women. Yesterday President Obama made a statement about drawing a line between respect for cultural differences and insisting on basic principles all nations should uphold. (His comment was made in response to the news that legal courts in Afghanistan decided to uphold a law allowing marital rape.)
The antics of these ultra-orthodox publications are just silly. Such publications are full of nonsense, at least when I’ve looked at them before.
Did you notice other changes to the line-up in the picture above? Inspect carefully the two faces on the extreme left. Two of the men have had their heads replaced!
Too bad you don’t speak Czech. This interview
of Mr Jan Kraus with the #2 person in the Czech Green Party – Ms Katerina Jacques – is just hillarious. He tells her that the planet is above his abilities, but she is convincing him to switch to an environmentally friendly heating system.
He impresses her by knowing that one can get subsidies for carbon credits, and plans to use biomass. So she asks her what biomass is and where he can get it. She has no idea. So she tells him to grow biocarrots. Eventually, she says that he should pour carrots into his stove. Then she’s a bit unsure.
He can play for 5 minutes with this theme and this multi-side viewpoint on her stupidity is still very funny – and yet friendly. The discussion is very cool and characteristic because she wants to control the planet while the guy has a very good idea about all kinds of material he can use in his stove – and their price. It’s a contrast between competence on one side and the thirst for power on the other side.
In this sense, she has a male kind of self-confidence but otherwise she’s a typical female cunt.
More women in politics than physics. Must be all that religion.
Genetic differences in competitiveness and mathematical ability is way too sciencey an explanation.
And believing embryos are sacred? Don’t they know that birth canals magically provide souls to the inert matter that passes through them?
***
Railing against the invisible sky-gods of yesteryear shouldn’t make you assume that your own beliefs are any more sensible. The opposite, really.
@Tommaso: “In Italy we have a reasonable fraction of women in politics,”
Maybe we live in different Italies, Tommaso. Or maybe we have different views on the word reasonable. Otherwise, I agree with what you say, except I think quotas deserve a rather longer discussion. Elsewhere.
@D, Kea: “IVF is not a right”.
Health care is a right, and to health belongs being able to reproduce and to have healthy kids. It should be available as no cost like all other reproductive healthcare (in Italy at least it’s free for everyone).
I can’t go into details in a comment (thanks Tommaso for addressing this issue!) but the italian law is horrible.
Women seeking IVF have to undergo repeated (distressing and unhealthy) cycles of hormonal stimulation and egg retrieval since no embryos can be frozen, and you can attempt creating at most three embryos at a time.
There’s a mandatory triple pregnancy if all three eggs get fertilized.
No egg/sperm donation is allowed.
You can abort your severely sick fetus, but you can’t discard your severely sick embryo. You first implant it and then abort it.
@Thras: “Genetic differences in competitiveness and mathematical ability is way too sciencey an explanation.”
How about differences in education and social pressure? I don’t think I’ll believe in biological gender differences (except the obvious reproductive ones) until I see them measured in a gender-neutral society.
Mr Gasparovic just defended his Slovak presidency
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jx0a3iaMLDhowcv0LB7QzA2KsGpg
defeating a female challenger, 56:44. It wasn’t quite a “guaranteed” win for him.
It’s more complicated than that.
The two women (Limor Livnat, on the right, and Sofa Landver, on the left) were replaced, respectively, by Ariel Atias (2nd from right, in the front row) and Moshe Kachlon (2nd from the left, in the front row).
Kachlon’s head (and the fellow standing behind him) were replaced by the head of the fellow standing to his left (and the fellow standing behind him). The four rightmost people in the picture (including the original Atias) were cropped.
A remarkable amount of extra effort, when they could just have photoshopped Rebbe Schneerson into the picture (in place of the women) and called it a miracle.
Honestly, I don’t see why everyone is so worked up about this. Why hold Yated Ne’emat to higher journalistic standards than Fox News?
We have religions because religious societies have been historically successful. When Greeks and later Romans stopped to believe in their religion (no more religions against women) their societies crashed. Christians still believed in their religion, and their society replaced the Roman one.
Now women conquered abortion and divorce, even in your country. Tommaso, I hope you will never discover the real rights of woman: suppose that your wife has a lover, and wants to go to live with him in another town, of course bringing your children. The judges of your country would tell that this is legal and that you must have to pay her about half of your salary. The priest would tell that this is immoral, but you hate religion and its violence against women.
It will be interesting to see if muslims will replace us.
Benedictus, yours is a hilarious statement: “the priest would tell that this is immoral”. What is “this” ? The money I would have to pay ? The dislocation ? You craftily confuse issues. The priest would have nothing to say about that, because fortunately, catholics have a power in italy, but they do not have published their own books of civil code yet.
Divorce is a fundamental right. The aftermath is always distressing for everybody, and I know a thing or two about it. So I do not really understand your concern.
Cheers,
T.
Civilization is built by societies where religion enforces a common moral. Once people get civilized enough and stop to believe and start to think that “divorce is a fundamental right”, the society declines in feminism and corruption.
So far, this is the experimental evidence from history. It will be interesting to see if technology and mass education will give a different outcome in the next few centuries.
Hi Tommaso,
Perhaps a reading of the book of ‘Ruth’ is in order for those of the Judeo-Christian persuasion?
Hi Benedictus XVII,
I wonder how you would explain that India is not collapsing.
“We have religions because religious societies have been historically successful. When Greeks and later Romans stopped to believe in their religion (no more religions against women) their societies crashed. Christians still believed in their religion, and their society replaced the Roman one.”
How would you explain that extreme religiosity _always_ (yes, absolutely ALWAYS without exceptions) ultimately results in ending of any cultural, social and technical progress?
India was colonized by puritan England. Today Indian divorce laws depend on one’s religion. Divorce is not a right: it is allowed only under specific conditions (adultery, cruelty, impotency, etc).
Anonymous, progress was made in societies where laws and habits were enforced by some amount of religion, and that’s why that amount of religion seems good.
It’s not only religions that are against women…consider comment #7, containing the phrase “… she’s a typical female c***.”
The commenter ought to be ashamed of himself for spewing such blanket hatred against women.
Does he have no mother? No grandmothers?
Smarten up, #7.
#9, estraven: sure, the absolute number of women in italian politics is small, but it has been growing in the last twenty years, and I do not really see real hurdles for women wanting to embark in a political career other than ones coming from the retrograde way the italian family is organized (thanks to the catholic church for that!). I do not really think that “pink quotas” are needed. Rather, a more modern way to conceive the family and the duties of parents, the access to full-time schooling for all, etcetera.
Cheers,
T.
Doug, what do you mean ? Sorry for my ignorance, but what is the book of Ruth ?
T.
“Anonymous, progress was made in societies where laws and habits were enforced by some amount of religion, and that’s why that amount of religion seems good.”
Wrong. There was a lot of progress in the USSR with very little religion. There’s a lot of cultural progress (like the highest ‘happiness index’ in the world) in Sweden where _most_ of population consist of atheists/agnostics.
You mistake correlation with causation. There were no non-religious societies until very recently. So naturally all progress till recently happened in religious societies.
However, there’s a clear casual relationship with high religiosity and stagnation. We see it over and over again. Currently, Muslim world is the prime example of this phenomenon.
Hello,
Would you agree that religious violence against women have a long history including those burned on stakes on false charges. Woman were also killed for simply reading the Bible. Times had changed some yet we can see that certain faiths clearly did not represent God whom they claimed to serve.
Nevertheless one of the current violations of false religions are the sex crimes against minors by priests, pastors and religious staff. So bad are these vile practices that New York state is reconsidering opening up cases of lawsuits from victims and their supporters.
I wrote about the current state of violence in my posting below. There is considerable content about violence against women represented in recent, horror films. I welcome your viewpoints on this serious, subject matter. Please feel incline to visit my blog site to read the posting entitled, Could The Sickness of Violence Be Stopped?
http://curtisonthenews.blogspot.com/2009/04/could-sickness-of-violence-be-stopped.html
You still haven’t answered my question: since when is IVF a human right? And who defines these things called rights anyway? You? The Pope? The European Parliament?
The term “rights” is so overused and abused, it doesn’t even have any meaning anymore.
Rights must be grounded in something fundamental (read: axiomatic, or, yes its a shocker, religious), or else they are just privileges afforded by whoever happens to be in power. You can’t just go along inventing them whenever it suits your fancy.
PS this is why physicists should stay out of philosophy, or at least enter its realm humbly: understanding quantum field theory gives the illusion of intelligence, but it doesn’t make one any more fit to answer the deep questions that confound humankind.
Anonymous, the lack of non-religious societies means that natural selection preferred religious societies. Concerning USSR its history is: forced industrialization (under Stalin) followed by stagnation until the final crash. Sweden was built as a religious country with a king, we will see its evolution.
Let me tell another politically non-correct experimental fact: the small population of Jews contributed to human progress more than women. Physics is a good example. The politically correct explanation is that women, men and Jews are equal, but women had been oppressed by men. While everybody loved Jews.
D, was that a question ?
The problem is exactly the one you bring up: it is not the Pope who decides what are human rights. Human rights, I am sorry to differ, do not depend on religious beliefs, but on much more meaningful roots: the ideas of freedom, equality, and fraternity between human beings.
For sure they are not dictated by a phone call from heaven.
Cheers,
T.
Benedictus, your share of political incorrectness is over for this thread, please keep that in mind if you reply. Your “theory” may be based on true facts for ancient times, but it does not hold much water in the modern times. The catholic church is hindering progress nowadays, and is cornering itself in undefensible positions of intransigence in the face of a quickly changing society.
Cheers,
T.
Hi Curtz, thank you for the link, I will give a look.
Cheers,
T.
Tommaso, sorry for having mentioned facts that do not conform to modern politically correct ideas. I understand that the problem must be in facts and I abjure. Eppur…
“Anonymous, the lack of non-religious societies means that natural selection preferred religious societies.”
Absolutely. Religion was evolutionary advantage and worked as a simple psychotherapy soothing people and giving courage to warriors.
But that was before the advent of science.
“Concerning USSR its history is: forced industrialization (under Stalin) followed by stagnation until the final crash. Sweden was built as a religious country with a king, we will see its evolution.”
Sweden _was_ a religious country. Now religion in Sweden is more of a tradition than a real thing (80% atheists and agnostics).
USSR quickly progressed from poor agrarian country to industrialized giant.
“Let me tell another politically non-correct experimental fact: the small population of Jews contributed to human progress more than women.”
Of course. Women simply were not allowed to receive a good education and advance in areas reserved for men only.
But if you look at the recent history of science then you’ll find quite a lot of women.
“Physics is a good example. The politically correct explanation is that women, men and Jews are equal, but women had been oppressed by men. While everybody loved Jews.”
Yes, close enough.
Was Russia that poor agrarian country? I don’t think so. Russia was one of the Great Powers of the world since the beginning of the XIX century. Russia was just not a great power between the world wars. Its fast growth shows that it already had the necessary intelectual capabilities for a long time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_powers
It is interesting that if you look the big picture, it seems things never change.
The second richest state of modern times, considering its peak performances, is the Qing Empire (China!), in relation to the world, in 1820:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_empires#Percentage_of_world_GDP
Note that it is almost the same USA in 1945, after the WWII.
“Was Russia that poor agrarian country? I don’t think so.”
Look it up, then. Russia was far behind industrialized countries (that’s why Stalin later had to resort to brutal actions to build up industrial capacity).
http://www.answers.com/topic/imperial-economic-growth :
‘Russia’s economic power was concentrated in agriculture. In 1861 Russia produced more grain than any other country and was surpassed only by the United States in 1913 (123,000 versus 146,000 metric tons). On a per capita basis, however, Russia ranked well behind major grain producers (the United States and Germany) and was close to the level of such countries as France and Austria – Hungary. Russia’s industrial base was even weaker. In 1861 the country was a minor producer of essential industrial commodities such as coal, iron, and steel, and still lagged behind the major industrial powers in 1913. Russia began its modern era with a per capita output that was 50 percent that of France and Germany and 15 percent that of England and the United States. On per capita basis, in 1913 Russia was a poor European country ranking well below Spain, Italy, and Austria – Hungary. ‘
“Russia was one of the Great Powers of the world since the beginning of the XIX century. Russia was just not a great power between the world wars. Its fast growth shows that it already had the necessary intelectual capabilities for a long time.”
Like China now. It’s piss-poor but its great population gives a great _total_ wealth.
yes, Russia was mostly an agricultural country. Communists got the power by exterminating kulaks and priests and promising their earth to peasants. Once the communist power was established, peasants were used as slaves to drain the resources needed for industrialization. Ukraine tried to resist and millions of peasants died. At this point Stalin started to kill communists not born in poor families.
Anonymous, if you like this progress you can still move to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
The embryo is sacred and has to be defended because the embryo is human. It is not fully developed, but it is still human, is it not? Is it not a growing human being?
And these are the same embryos used in embryonic stem cell research, hence the antagonism.
Also look at this:
http://cburrell.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/obama-and-embryonic-stem-cells/
Even sexist, name-calling, deluded scoundrels like Lubos are sacred.
I was about to agree ree, but now how can I ? 😀
ok, as a woman, that makes me furious. I’m blowing steam right now. The fact that they get away with it…
It reminded me when me and my brother together with his girlfriend when shopping. Turned out the sales assistent was some orthodox jew who ignored our existence and only spoke or looked at my brother. When we asked questions, he ignored us (so I asked lots of question, obviously, just to annoy him, and he was visible annoyed too after a while).
Or the fact that in morocco I was the only one speaking french out of a group of 5 friends (all men);. I was the only one the morrocans could communicate with yet they always kept addressing the men (so I kept stepping in between them and reiterated what I said or asked – again, they didn’t like it).
woman are victims, but mainly because they allow themselves to be victims. Why don’t those 2 in the photo speak up? How dare they let it fly by. Woman are too tolerant.
me:
Check out Lubos Motl’s blog, The Reference Frame. That’ll make you even more furious. In fact, Lubos’ views about women are so well known, that Lisa Randall even mentions them in the preface to her book “Warped Passages”. Also look at this:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/lubo-motl.html
He’s also known for calling the leaders of Harvard “sexist bitches”. He’s a very entertaining, one-of-a-kind character! Cheers to Lubos!
Oops. I meant “feminist bitches” in the last paragraph.
Dorigo (#38), very funny. 🙂
“Let me tell another politically non-correct experimental fact: the small population of Jews contributed to human progress more than women.”
i pity everyone who seriously believes that.
chris, here are 10 jews physicists of the past century: Einstein, Feynman, Gell-Mann, Landau, von Neumann, Pauli, Weinberg, Wigner, Bohr, Rabi.
If you list 10 women in the same category we can check if my observation is true. Maybe do you prefer to try another field, like literature, psychology, politics, informatics, biology…?
Benedict, I would pick politics and wonder where you’d put Golda Meyr.
T.
Benedictus XVII :
“yes, Russia was mostly an agricultural country. Communists got the power by exterminating kulaks and priests and promising their earth to peasants. Once the communist power was established, peasants were used as slaves to drain the resources needed for industrialization. Ukraine tried to resist and millions of peasants died. At this point Stalin started to kill communists not born in poor families.”
That’s beside the point. My point still stands: there was a lot of social, cultural and technical progress in godless society.
“Anonymous, if you like this progress you can still move to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”
I do not like Stalin at all.
“If you list 10 women in the same category we can check if my observation is true. Maybe do you prefer to try another field, like literature, psychology, politics, informatics, biology”
Physics: Marie Skłodowska Curie, Emmy Noether, Lise Meitner…
Biology: Rosalind Franklin (of course), Rita Levi-Montalcini, Esther Miriam Zimmer, Mary-Claire King, etc.
That’s only from memory. There are not that much woman scientists, because women were heavily discriminated until ~80 years ago.
Anonymous, the purpose of comparing women to jews is to falsify the feminist hypothesis that women gave a minor contribution to human progress because of male discrimination: jews obtained much better results despite much worse discriminations.
Concerning physics, the fact that Meitner (who was both female and jew) is in your top 3 female list but not in my top 10 jew list, confirms my point: jews contributed much much more than women.
I am not expert of biology, so here is a possible jew list: http://www.jinfo.org/Biomedical_Scientists.html. Again, your top-2 females are in the jew list.
benedictus,
so i really pitty you. not that i would like to diminish the contribution of anyone you named, but let me make a comparable statement…
a few blog postings down, you will come across the empirical fact , that the richest 500 people do have equal wealth than the 500 million poorest at the moment. so i guess by your logic i can derive that these 500 do contribute more to the world economy than those 500 million, correct?
if you still don’t grasp it i guess you are beyond hope.
chris, as you avoid the specific point, I understand that you cannot negate that jews contributed more than woman to human progress.
Next, let me explain why I believe that this difficult discussion is worthwhile. Women are now educated to believe that they are able to do whatever men can do, although no evidence supports this statement. Women that compete are then instructed to believe that their failures are due to male oppression, religion oppression, male violence and all the feminist hate ideology. This situation is dangerous, like communism that instructed poorer people to believe that they are poor because oppressed by richer people. Even worse, feminist and communist ideologies are masked by noble ideas that attract “useful idiots”, possibly allowing a little group of extremists to conquer political power.
PS: I am not insulting you, “useful idiots” are the words used by Lenin.
Benedictus is quite a fascist, bordering the nazism, in my humble opinion.
May I add that of lately, there is a new kind of pro-racial superity movement in which instead of using Jews as a scapegoat, they consider Jews as the ideal of the superman, as the ideal intelectual race. This is funny that such thing is not promoted by Jews, but by the general whites themselves. And even more ironic, it is that the psychological kind of such people, such as Benedictus, is the same of the people who used to oppress the Jews in old times.
benedictus,
one more try (which will be in vain i guess, but still):
since it is an empirical fact that no man has yet given birth to a baby i herewith declare that every single mother has done more towards the wellbeing of our species than all men that ever existed taken together.
has it ever in your wildest fantasies occured to you to check your reference frame against socio-cultural prejudice? can you please tell me the metric you are using to measure “the contribution to human progress”?
but if you rather like to play games, i invite you to give me the name of one woman who has contributed equally much towards human progress than any of the following men:
Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Saddam Hussein, Genghis Khan, Jean Kambanda
chris, I agree that worst leaders have been male. It is also true that best leaders have been male. The common reason is just that almost all leaders have been male.
I am not sure that feminists will appreciate your observation that women contribute to human progress making children. Due to your socio-cultural prejudices, you forget that children are generated by the combination of the DNA of a mother and of a father.
Daniel, ideologies that put racial differences above all the rest are wrong and made disasters. Due to this reason people now like to negate the existence of ethnic and gender difference. I just observe that this is again wrong and dangerous.
Benedictus,
“I just observe that this is again wrong and dangerous.” You are totaly paranoid, just like a blind nazist.
please notice that your insults confirm that peacefully questioning the politically correct ideologies can indeed be dangerous
You are not peacefully questioning anything, you are making propaganda for nazi-fascist ideologies. I am just telling what you are, because you are a coward to tell your solution of what to do with the uninteligent and grotesque races. Isolate them in ghetos so that they not spread their low inteligent genes? Select the smartest of them so that they can purify their own race? Do nothing to make their lives better because that would be counter productive?
Notice that the highly inteligent races will eventualy be greatly outnumbered, because the lowly races grow in numbers, since they are so stupid that they cannot grasp the concept of familiar planning. In the end, their politicaly correct thoughts will turn their envy into violence and “take over” the smart race. In the end, there will be the collapse of modern civilization, since there will be almost no one smart enough to make high level science and engineering. Just enough technology to keep billions of people barely alive.
and then your logic will be universally accepted. But for the moment most people can still understand that disagreeing with leftist ideologies and making propaganda for femi-nazi-catto-giudo-pluto-fascist ideologies are two different things
You wrote: “If I were Netanyahu, I would force the newspapers editors to publish the original pictures and present their excuses to the ministers, to the people of Israel, and to us all.” Israel is a democracy, with freedom of the press. The prime minister has no power to force a newspaper to publish anything.
Dear Saul,
the posting of a manipulated picture may, in some democracies (maybe not in all of them) constitute a sanctionable offense. In the present instance a case of wilful discredit of the government could be made, and I do believe a newspaper director would prefer to publish an excuse than have to withstand a judiciary action.
Cheers,
T.
Anyway, please note that this site has been transferred elsewhere.