Comments on: “There must be violence against women.”

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:07:07 +0000

Just your typical Islamic website

Wtf? It’s not an Islamic website- bright light. It’s a national newspaper. And Youtube? Honestly? Get a grip…

By: Medicine Man

Medicine Man — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:45:04 +0000

“Taken In Hand”… just sounds euphemistic and creepy to me.

By: Josh Jasper

Josh Jasper — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:57:44 +0000

Meghan, Gorean BDSM (yeah, a real movement based on the “blah blah blah of Gor” books by John Norman) is dominant men only. BDSM is not a cohesive community with rules that everyone agrees to. Some people are just as patriarchal as they can manage.

By: yoyo

yoyo — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:29:31 +0000

Yes , the man’s an evil f*k, I would like to know whether he’s a regular and paid commentator or just a letter writer. Either way, what’s the surprise in that some men bemoan the fact that women have the right to complaign about violence. lots of mens groups in aus say the same thing in slightly more restrained language. “poor me, the evil courts always believe those stinking whores.”

By: Morningstar

Morningstar — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:19:46 +0000

Just your typical Islamic website. Wife beating is condoned by all major Islamic scholars. Youtube is full of official clips of Media from the middle east of mullahs pontificating on the nuances of how and where exactly you can beat your women.

that’s a really ridiculous statement.

By: Meghan

Meghan — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:58:44 +0000

Sorry about screwing up the link.

By: Meghan

Meghan — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:58:23 +0000

One of the tenets of Taken in Hand is that "The man has the balance of power and control." I think that differs from BDSM pretty significantly since BDSM allows both men and women to be dominant.

By: PG

PG — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:55:36 +0000

Elizabeth, thanks for your comment — that does help a lot in explaining what seemed to be a contradiction in the article.

Dinesh D’Souza pretty much covered this in his book on how if America weren’t so full of feminists, homosexuals, atheists etc., Muslim extremists wouldn’t have a problem with us and there wouldn’t be a problem with terrorism. 9/11 is like an inkblot test for what one hates oneself: if you’re on the left and hate American imperialism, that’s the reason terrorists attacked us; if you’re on the right and hate America’s moral degeneracy, that’s the reason terrorists attacked us.

W. Kiernan, I do think this is a significant problem that many Americans haven’t quite grasped: the West has such a negative connotation in many Muslim countries that anything associated with it is deemed bad. Democracy and women’s rights are tinged with the negative feelings that many Muslims have toward the U.S. because of history, Israel, etc., and thus American feminists can’t show their assistance toward feminists in those countries, for fear that the local efforts will be discredited by the association.

By: Farhat

Farhat — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:20:18 +0000

Just your typical Islamic website. Wife beating is condoned by all major Islamic scholars. Youtube is full of official clips of Media from the middle east of mullahs pontificating on the nuances of how and where exactly you can beat your women.

By: Bitter Scribe

Bitter Scribe — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:47:32 +0000

My favorite quote from the article:

the husband yields to beating the wife slightly

Yields to? As in, “this hurts me more than it hurts you”?

Not to be a cultural snob, but that whole article reads like it was not very well translated from Arabic (or Farsi, Dari, whatever).