35 percent of girls in US are sexually abuse



"O Humankind! We have created you male and female and have divided you
into nations and tribes that you recognize each other. The best of you
in the sight of God is the one most socially aware (taqwa- literally -
"extremely careful")." Koran 49:13


The Liberated Woman:


We see some common characteristics in modern secular society concerning

what is required of men and women: Open chest shirts for the female, a
necktie for the male. Belly exposed shirts for the female, tucked-in
shirts for the male. Men's dress patronizes opaque clothing where as
feminine clothes are transparent. Modern society labels a man as
improperly dressed when not in full suit but women are celebrated if
they keep their legs uncovered, even on a cold winter night.


The society that condemns the exhibition of male physical curves and
labels them as "perversion" provides artificial "aids" to under
developed areas of the female. Everyone has heard the term, 'single
mother' but you hardly ever hear about the 'single father'. The fashion

world usually controlled by males, aims to create instability in the
female mind. She is taught that "wearing the least" is something that
builds "status" and taking it all off is "liberation". (Omar, Kamel
1989)


She is taught to hate her own body. The form of her eyelashes and
brows, the style of her walking and speech, the color of her lips,
nails and cheek are all given an artificial look. She also hates the
natural trend of her hair. In such a society, "hair fashion designers"
and cosmetic manufacturers make big money.


Whereas men balance themselves on a three-inch base heel of the shoes,
the woman is expected to balance herself on a half a centimeter heel.
This creates an abnormality called Lordosis in medical terminology.
Males make big money, displaying female nakedness through their
respectible trades like cabarets, strip bars, fashion shows, and
especially commercial advertising (Do I want the Mustang or the sexy
blonde in the advertisement?), nude paintings, magazines and now
Internet web pages.


Modern urban culture does not only show the above but it also shows:
Alarming statistics with manifold percentage increase, compared to past

decades, of single parents, children with no fathers, broken families,
sex crimes, divorce, suicide and drug use among teens, asylums for
unclaimed children, homes for unwanted parents, clinics for delinquent
youth and neurotic adults.


Recent estimates suggest that up to 80% of US society displays some
form of psychological symptoms, and that up to 22% have psychological
problems serious enough to interfere with their day to day living which

are diagnosable (Chicago Tribune 12/1999).


Data in the United States also shows that 25 to 35 percent of girls are

sexually abused, usually by men well known to them (Kilbourne
1999:253). A high percentage of women so assaulted suffer from Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (the same disorder that a large number of
Vietnam veterans suffer from) which leads to addiction and substance
abuse and eventually to poverty and homelessness. Thus women in America

live in a "war zone" in their own homes. If they survive childhood,
their boyfriends or husbands eventually get them!


In such societies "liberation" of women has been reduced to a slogan to

sell products. Such sellers of "liberation", mostly men, offer women
"liberation" via smoking, alcohol, food and their natural longing for
stable relationships [which have dwindled in such a society]. This
commercial "liberation" comes at a great cost to women and serves to
isolate them through addiction. As addicts make great consumers, the
sellers of such "liberation" want to keep it that way (Kilbourne 1999).



When such sellers of "liberation" are faced with genuine demands for
gender equality, like the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment in the United
States], they reject them outright and a government funded and
controlled by them makes it fail [ERA failed to pass in 1982]. Such
powers that be in these societies not only attack any genuine efforts
towards liberation of women in their own society [as they are
commercially disadvantageous to them], but also attack all other ideas
presented as truly liberating to women, by other societies [to which
they export their commercial culture] by labeling them, "harsh,
barbaric, primitive". They do this through their control of the media,
which in most cases is not only owned by them but depends on them,
through their advertising dollars, for its very survival .


This paper is an attempt to reassess the History of Women's Rights,
taking note of things that have been widely ignored in popular
presentation of the subject. The paper also serves to clarify the
position of a book, the Koran that has been distorted and
misrepresented through the ages, by those having vested interests.


WOMEN IN WESTERN RELIGION:


Christianity, the major religion that shaped western thought, presents
women as subordinate to men. Men according to the Bible are the owners
of women, just like an animal is owned. Exodus 20:17 which states the
famous tenth commandment, lumps a wife together with his servants,
animals and house. A man could sell his daughter as a slave (Exodus
21:7-11) or give her in marriage to whomsoever he chose.


This subordination of women to men in the Bible, which shaped western
thought on the issue, is made clear in Leviticus 12:1-8: After the
birth of a male child, a woman is ritually impure for seven days,
however after the birth of a female child she is ritually impure for
fourteen days according to the law of the Bible.


1 Corinthians 14:34-35 of the New Testament of the Bible states:


"As in all Churches of the saints, the woman should be subordinate as
even the law says...for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church."



1 Timothy 2:11 states:


"Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no
woman to teach or have authority over men. She is to keep silent, for
Adam was formed first then Eve, and Adam was not deceived but the woman

was deceived and became a transgressor."
1 Corinthians 11:6 says:


" For if a woman will not veil herself then she should cut off her
hair, but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let
her wear a veil...for man was not created from woman but woman from
man. Neither was man created for woman but woman for man."
Jesus' track record, based on the New Testament isn't much better in
his treatment of women, even his own mother. According to the Gospel of

John, he is openly rude to his mother. Having become famous among the
people, according to John or whoever wrote the Gospel of John, he
addresses his mother in this rude manner:


"Woman! What have I to do with you. My time is not yet (John 2:4)."


Imagine, if you're a woman and your son or daughter said, "Woman! What
have I to do with you" [and to top it off, it was said in public and
not private], how you would feel? Considering a mother's sacrifice and
discomfort in bearing and delivering a child, such behavior is
unacceptable. Hardly an exemplary character that Christian evangelists
depict the "Prince of peace" had. The Koran states:


"Be careful of God and be careful of the wombs that bore you (Koran
4:1).


"We have enjoined on humankind, kindness to their parents. In
discomfort did his/her mother bear them and in discomfort did she give
them birth (Koran 46:15)"


The Koran disputes the authenticity of the Gospels as being a genuine
account of the words of Jesus, as does the Jesus Seminar, based on
modern findings. Contrary to what the Gospels present Jesus as saying
to his mother, the Koran quotes him as saying:


"And God has made me [Jesus] kind and dutiful towards my mother and not

arrogant or overbearing (Koran 19:32)."


Helen Ellerbe, in her book, The Dark Side of Christian History (1995)
elaborates on the Church's[both Catholic and Protestant] treatment of
women:


The second century St. Clement of Alexandria wrote: "Every woman should

be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman." The Church
father Tertullian explained why women deserve their status as despised
and inferior human beings:
You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of the tree: you are
the first deserter of the divine law. You destroyed so easily God's
image, man. On account of your desert-that is, death- even the Son of
God had to die [Joan Smith, Misogynies: Reflections on Myths and Malice

(N.Y Fawcett Columbine, 1989:66)].


Others expressed the view more bluntly. The sixth century Christian
philosopher, Boethius, wrote in The Consolation of Philosophy, "Woman
is a temple built upon a sewer." Bishops in the sixth century council
of Macon voted as to whether women had souls. In the tenth century, Odo

of Cluny declared, " To embrace a woman is to embrace a sack of
manure."The thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas suggested that God
had made a mistake in creating woman: "Nothing deficient [or defective]

should have been produced in the first establishment of things; so
women ought not to have been produced then." And Lutherans at
Wittenberg debated whether women were really human beings at all.
Orthodox Christians held women responsible for all sin. As the [Roman
Catholic] Bible Apocrypha states, "Of woman came the beginning of sin/
And thanks to her we all must die (Ecclesiasticus 25:13-26)." As 1
Corinthians 7:1 states, "It is a good thing for man to have nothing to
do with a woman."


The 1500s marked the beginning of "witchcraft persecutions." By the
1700s over 100,000 people, 80-90 percent of them women, had been put to

death in Europe usually by burning at the stake (Chicago Tribune Dec
29, 1999- A profile of women's history). This amounted to be a
self-fulfilling prophecy as the religious King James I estimated that
the ratio of women to men who "succumbed" to witchcraft was twenty to
one (Ellerby 1995:116).


Witch persecution has its roots in the Bible as well:


"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. ...

.

Relevant Pages
Loading