If Muslim women are oppressed and unhappy how come you don't see them complaining about it?

Question

Sometimes you even see them saying just the opposite but they never confirm what non-Muslims are saying about them being unhappy about lack of freedoms.

You even see white women becoming Muslims and they say it's not like that.

Answer 1

Because Al Queada will beat them with a stick and shoot them.

jk.  

Actually, not too many people say that ALL Muslim women are oppressed, but we (and by "we" I mean Westerners in general) do tend to see Muslim women in third-world, "Muslim" countries as oppressed.  And, we do this for a multitude of reasons.

Some of which are the way the news portrays Muslim extremists like the Taliban on media, the fact that third world countries tend to be "backwards" due to high poverty rate and a low education rate, and many of these Muslim nations tend to be ruled by controlling, intolerant governments.

I know that most people tend to use blanket statements to describe what might even be a minority of people as it's hard to actually prove that most Muslim women are indeed oppressed.  But, their reasons for thinking that way aren't completely unwarranted.  

I myself don't see Islam as an anti-woman religion, but it seems that people have used Islam to justify oppression of women and the Middle East doesn't seem to be so embracing of the concept of "equality".

Answer 2

Muslim women DO complain about it. However, they are silenced. In a culture that outwardly screams that men are superior to women, who would believe a woman who said she was being beaten, oppressed or raped by her husband?

Muslim women do tell their stories when it is safe. A filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (grandson of Vincent Van Gogh) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali joined together in making a video for the awareness of the oppression of Muslim women. They used stories from Muslim women who were brave enough to confide in them (although the video IS scripted).  Theo Van Gogh was murdered for the creation of this video. Some might say it was because the video made Muslims look bad because the information was true...or that it was all false, giving Muslims a bad name due to slander. I'm going to include the link.

If you so choose to be enlightened by this video, please do some searches on Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and their strong desire to help Muslim women before you think that Muslim women are never oppressed. Unfortunately, this video has received a lot of attention only because of the murder of Van Gogh. It is a great tragedy that he died for such a positive cause. It's a long video, but a great one that many have found to be touched by. The prayer at the beginning doesn't have English subtitles, unfortunately, but the rest is in English.

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/9287/wat...

**Here is the transcript for the video http://www.submission.eu.tt/

Answer 3

Maybe they dont complain because they know no other way or because like you said yourself...they are oppressed.

I had a part time with this girl who was Muslim and she told me her dad didn't like her working. And everytime she got paid and put it in her savings (which was under her dads name) he'd take the money. She told me he hits hes mom, and her and her sisters. She was so apathetic about it. It seemed like it was normal for her.

Answer 4

Who said they all felt oppressed and unhappy?

The same thing could be said about people who belong to any religion. . . it comes with a certain set of rules, code of conduct, what have you.  If you choose this religion knowing what it is going to require of you, then I don't think you're feeling oppressed and unhappy.  You probably believe that these rules are there for valid reasons and so don't mind them.  The odds are also that you're a fairly secular Muslim by the standards of those in other parts of the world, and so the rules really aren't all that difficult most of the time.

If you don't know what life is beyond Islam, you also may not actually feel oppressed and unhappy.  You have grown up with these rules, and so you don't really feel oppressed because you may not know of anything else.  Lack of knowledge is still oppression, though, because you're holding someone ignorant on purpose.  Given the option of relaxing some of the more strict rules, most women will take it *if* they are presented with the option.

Answer 5

Some do - the cost is high.  Read what humanitarian organisations like Human Rights Watch have to say on the matter.

Not all Muslim societies are the same.  There are Muslim societies in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Answer 6

It is not easy to complain in those places of the world that you can get stoned (executed by stoning), decapitated, flogged in public, raped in public, imprisoned and tortured, for the simplest things in the world, like looking in the eyes of a man that was not your relative. You must understand that the political, religious and social regimes in Muslim countries, allows no liberties to neither women or men.( Imagine that all the above can happen to a man that shaves off his beard.)

Answer 7

They're not allowed to speak out.

Answer 8

I agree so much with P S He is right on the money

Answer 9

Everyone has such a tainted idea of the religion of Islam. It despises me and i've answered so many questions like this i can't be bothered to put up my argument for it to get shot down by Americans who claim George Bush is oh so innocent. My *** he is, he is a spastic just like all of his followers.

Answer 10

What you don't understand is that these women have been raised in this culture from child birth on up. They know no other way of living or being, but that which has been ingrained in their minds through out their lives. There have been some women of the Muslim faith who've tried to break free of the mold that has been casted for them, only to be either face ridicule, torture, or death.

For example, while watching the news one day, I saw where a Muslim woman started believing the words of equality that we here in America seem to both agree with and have conflict with; and she decided to enter into a masque where men where praying. She felt why not, if we're all of the same faith, why would it be a problem for me to pray with the men. Needless to say her efforts where strongly rejected, and she was beat close to death after the incident.

It's amazing to me how some American men come in here and ask questions about the women of Islam and tries comparing them to the women here in the U.S. The reason's why we're not the same as they are is because we're not raised the same. We have a lot more liberties and freedoms then most of them do, so we're not going to have the same views on life, love, and career advancement as many of them would. Most of those women witness  honor killings on a daily, which is used as a tool to demonstrate the consequences of stepping outside the norm.

To answer your question, the reason why they don't complain is because they fear the consequences. To them family is tradition and tradition is family. And they should never stray, or else.

Answer 11

Maybe you're not watching and listening.

Or maybe you are just seeing and hearing what you want to.

Women in the Islamic world have strong voices, but they are often muffled.

Cheers :-)

Answer 12

Pah! Being a muslim in the West and one in the East is not the same thing. In the West there is somewhere you can run to, secular states and laws where your human rights are protected. In places like Pakistan the law shares the view of the religion, with only a few enlightened exceptions.

Answer 13

They have, but they often get silenced. A famous example is an Iraqi (or Iranian, I can't remember which) women's magazine, Zanan, that got shut down by the government.

Answer 14

Have you heard of indoctrination? It isn't so much that they can't speak out, as much as they are trained not to.

Freedom is more fundamental than simply being given the opportunity to choose an alternative from the status quo, it is about if all the alternatives are presented to begin with. Pretty difficult to do that when you are effectively herded towards a single ideal with no  apparent alternatives to begin with, that's the basis of oppression through indoctrination.

Sorry you have no case here buddy. They may be not be complaining in many cases but they are certainly oppressed.

Answer 15

It is very different in different parts of the world.  A woman speaker of one of my college classes stated many countries are not as strict as depicted on TV, but some are.  In those cases the women stay quiet in fear of death...or the deaths of their children.

Answer 16

back in the day, american women didn't complain either - until they awoke from their collective stupor and it hasn't been the same since.  But for the billionth time sweetie, it's about choice - if you like the life, go for it.  If you don't, you have choices - today you have choices and societies that support those choices.