I was reading about efforts to implement Sharia courts in, of all places, Irving, Texas.
Sharia is misogynistic. Women are not treated equally, or even, to a great extent, decently. Men can legally beat their wives. They can marry and rape 9 year old girls. They can rape any woman who is not a Muslim. This is legal. Not considered wrong. Neither is slavery.
And I got to thinking about the psychodynamic roots of all this. What is the psychological condition of Muslim women? They are kept apart from men, not allowed (in most traditional societies) to be educated, not allowed to live independently, not allowed opinions, by and large, although I assume Muslim women, like all women, find ways to have their say.
There is something traumatizing about all this. One can assume, I think, that most Muslim women know someone who has been beaten, and know it can happen to them too, and there will be nothing they can do about it. Even in America we have had quite a few honor killings.
How do such women deal with the latent anger and rage, and fear, and humiliation? Well, in part they likely internalize it, the same way that battered women refuse to put their batterers in jail, and stay with them, knowing it will happen again. They rationalize the Hijab and restrictions on their movement and education as someone appropriate.
But they have access to little boys, and little boys can be punished. They can be made to feel fear. They can be humiliated. They can be hurt. Yes, these are their own children, but surely most of these mothers must feel some ambivalence, looking in the eyes of their men in their children?
Obviously, there are many happy homes, and many good mothers. But I would argue that this outcome is made much, much less likely the more seriously the men take the fundamental contempt for women which pervades their holy text, and accounts of the deeds of its author.
Separate but equal, I think we can all agree, is not equal at all; and most Islamic apologists are being excessively generous even in granting equality in principle. Women are a step below, maybe two.