JW attitudes to women

by Frazzled UBM 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Heaven

  Misogyny/ subjugation of women/ patriarchy ... one of the key reasons I could never be a JW. I realized this as a teenage girl.

  According to Gerda Lerner who has studied the history of women, Patriarchy was a human invention, created in the Bronze Age in an attempt to deal with problems at that time. It was created well before the Bible. She authored a book called "The Creation of Patriarchy" which I am interested in reading. Has anyone here read it?

  An interview with Gerda on this subject: http://www.intuition.org/txt/lerner1.htm

  "I think it has outlived its usefulness by quite a few centuries already, and you want to remember about that, that it came out of a warfare society, OK? It was a system adapted to a society torn by constant war and destruction, in which stability was the most desired goal." - Gerda Lerner
• 

  keyser soze

  One of my final "wake-up" moments was when a bunch of us brothers got called to the back room and counselled for not doing enough to reach out for ministerial servant positions, because there was such a shortage. I remember the elder saying that it was a slap in the face to the sisters who were doing more, and could be ministerial servants if only they were men. And I remember thinking to myself, why should that prevent them, especially if they were meeting the qualifications, and there was such a demand for qualified servants. I was well into my fade at the time, and it just helped confirm to me that wasn't the 'truth'.
• 

  poopsiecakes

  Frazz, (may I call you Frazz?) you and I have had very little interaction, but I suspect that we see eye to eye on a whole lot of things. What I think I need to clarify is that I'm not a black and white thinker. When it comes to my current opinions about Islam, it was a hard and difficult road going from a live and let live mindset to acknowleding the fundamental issues with the religion that leads to the extremists doing the awful things they do. I will still stand up for the rights of Muslims to practice their religion, but not without pointing out serious flaws within that religion and hating what it does to people because it creates black and white thinking - even at the most westernized level. Which is why I've repeatedly compared it to JW's and other cults that force their adherents to turn away from rational thinking on pain of some horrific state where their deity hates them.

  Whether or not the Quran contains pretty passages is irrelevant because they will always be superceded by the violent ones in the minds and actions of the extremists and flipping from fundamentalist to extremist is a relatively easy road in high control groups. This is my problem with Islam.

  And let's not go down the fatwa road. Unless you want to compare all of the other fatwas out there, including this one:

  A Grand Ayatollah in Iran has determined that access to high-speed and 3G Internet is “against Sharia” and “against moral standards.” In answer to a question published on his website , Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, one of the country’s highest clerical authorities, issued a fatwa, stating “All third generation [3G] and high-speed internet services, prior to realization of the required conditions for the National Information Network [Iran’s government-controlled and censored Internet which is under development], is against Sharia [and] against moral and human standards.”

  http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2014/08/makarem-internet/
• 

  poopsiecakes

  If it's ok with you Frazz, I'll quote you back to you from your OP on this topic:

  The underlying premise is that men can't be blamed for failing to control their sexual impulses if women dress or act provocatively.

  That's Islam in a nutshell and what I can't understand is why it's ok because there are so many more Muslims than there are JW's. This only makes Islam that much WORSE because it's perpetuating this type of attitude towards women on a massive scale.
• 

  Frazzled UBM

  Poops, thanks for this. I see your concerns and acknowledge that tolerance is a difficult road to travel. The key distinction for me is the central control exercised by the WBTS and the absence of central control over Islam. There is no Islamic equivalent to the GB. There is no unity of doctrine or thought. So Islam does not dictate that women be treated in particular ways. Rather groups of Muslims interpret how women should be treated and do so in a way that reinforces partiarchical social structures. This creates a risk of abuse and an opportunity to adapt to modernity and recognise that society benefits when women are fully and freely able to apply their talents and abilities to the benefit of society and are able to self-actualize to the same extent as men. I know that most Muslim societies are a long way from this now and in some respects are outright abusive, but look at how far we have come in the West since the 50s. Egyptian society in the 60s and 70s was quite liberal in the role of women in politics, education etc. When I lived there in the 80s the majority of women did not wear hijabs (veils) - this is no longer the case. The Middle East has become more doctrinaire in terms of Islam in the past 30 years. Unfortunately liberal Muslims are in retreat and there is no sign that this will change in a hurry. Cheers Fraz
• 

  poopsiecakes

  Egyptian society in the 60s and 70s was quite liberal in the role of women in politics, education etc. When I lived there in the 80s the majority of women did not wear hijabs (veils) - this is no longer the case.

  A very good point and one that I've mentioned on the big giant thread and actually another reason I see the Islam religion as the problem because this is the result when a fundamentalist religion is allowed by its adherents to rule the day. Have US politics contributed to a rise in this fundamentalist/extremist mindset? Perhaps, but that's a different topic and doesn't change the fact that if there was nothing to base these extremist points of view on, they wouldn't exist.
• 

  talesin

  WTS epitomizes the patriarchy.

  I'm with Poopsie on the Islam issue, too. And don't forget that Persia (Iran) had a very liberal Muslim society before the Ayatollah Khomeini was put into power. I've never found Egyptians to be very respectful of women, but perhaps that disrespect is just for infidels. The Lebanese and Iranian people tend to be less fundamentalist, in my personal experience of living and working in a community with several generations of "new" Canadians who are also Muslim. Now, the Syrians, OY OY OY,,, I know Christian Syrians, and they fled their country because of the Secret Police and persecution of Christians, in the 80s. And that was under the benevolent ruler! Okay, sorry to go off-topic.

  tal
• 

  3rdgen

  I know what it is like to be a female born into a dictatorship. Our occasional family study started with Dad demandining that my mom and I get our books and "get over here to the table for the study." Mom would then roll her eyes, whereupon Dad would pound his fist on the table loudly declaring, "I'm the head of the house here. Do it NOW!" He was a JW overseer. The Watchtower and even the wedding talks frequently quoted the scripture. "You wives be in subjection to your husbands in EVERYTHING as THIS is pleasing to the Lord." Everything means EV RE THING as the speaker would say. "Unless he asks you to do something against Gods law, strict obdience is necessary to be a proper wife." Good ole' Apostle Paul, gotta love him, also said only men could be servants in the cong and that women are not permitted to teach. Don't get me started on the screaming and 2 witness rule found in the Hebrew Scriptures. You shoulda' heard the rhetoric from the platform in the 70's! Womens Lib was denounced weekly by everyone. This indoctrination is sometimes hard to overcome I know. I developed an eating disorder because food was literally the only thing in my life I could control.
• 

  Simon

  Well done FrazzledUBM - you chastise the WTS for the views on women that it promotes but leap to defend islam because you can't figure out who's in charge.

  Islam is 1,000,000 times worse that the WTS could ever hope to be. And yet still you excuse one while condemning the other.

  Both sets of opinions about women care from the Bible and the Quran respectively. There is your central authority - now can you condemn it?
• 

  talesin

  Paul was an uber-misogynist~! 3rdgen, I remember the denouncing of feminism in the 70s. It probably had a lot to do (well I know it did) with my embracing of feminism and equality even before I left the KH. Geez, I would whip up a talk EVERY Thursday night, downstairs after the meeting started, and fill in. I got perfect marks in everything, and at school, too. And what good was my mind to the Tower? NOTHING. Hey, I had an eating disorder, too. :)

  So glad we are out of that hell on earth.

  xx

  tal