Posted by Illuminati on 7/18/2005, 10:39 am, in reply to "Re: Long but worth reading..." I certainly hope not. A culture designed for desert nomads and raiders in the 7th century has little application in the 21st century. From my perspective, one of the worst disadvantage of Muslim majority countries today is their inability to adjust to the realities of modern life. Now days in Western society women routinely serve with distinction in positions of power and authority as doctors, judges, businesswomen, legislatures and as supreme court judges. On the other hand it appears Muslim women are often told they can't do those things. Perhaps they really can't perform as well as their Christian, Jewish or Hindu sisters. It is clear that Islamic society often tries to instill a sense of mental inferiority in their women which could destroy their self confidence and make them perform poorly. "No it's not. I'll try and explain in a bit more detail with some scientific evidence. firstly you must remember that Muhammad (pbuh) was neither a physiologist, a psychiatrist and nor a surgeon. He was an illiterate and could neither read nor write. He passed on the revelation exactly as he received it. Allah with His infinite wisdom gave the directives best suited to humankind. He is the Creator, therefore, He knows man better than a man himself." Whether Muhammad was illiterate is questionable. I have seen passages which indicate he could indeed read but it would take me some time to relook them. That he didn't know modern science is easily seen when one reads the Koran. Whether God dictated the Koran is exactly what we are exploring here. You are jumping ahead to a conclusion that so far is not supported by the evidence. "As women, we are aware of the cyclical psychological strains that a woman has to encounter every month. The symptoms during early pregnancy, ante-natal and post-natal depressions, the phenomenon of menopause, the physiological and psychological problems due to infertility and last but not least the psychological problems faced after miscarriage." "It is under these situations that women can experience extraordinary psychological strains giving rise to depression, lack of concentration, slow-mindedness and SHORT TERM MEMORY LOSS. Let us examine these episodes in a bit more detail and with medical references from the scientific world. PMT is an umbrella term for more than 140 different symptoms and there is a lot of evidence that it causes a lot of unhappiness in many women, and consequently, to their families." Statistically women do have more depression than men although both sexes do suffer depression. Fortunately today we know how to treat depression. We don't tell depressed people they are inferior, we help them to overcome their sense of unworthiness and to achieve happiness and success. The "short term memory loss" of the premenstrual syndrome is not total amnesia or anything close to it. That women have premenstrual syndrome and post partum depression are medical facts which we now recognize and treat. That can be emotionally unstable at certain times of the month is also generally accepted, but this is only true relative to how they usually feel and behave. While women do suffer during these times and their performance may be slightly decreased, there is no evidence their abilities are in general less than those of men even during those periods. Indeed the opposite is the case. Men are actually more likely to kill themselves and are more likely to commit crimes throughout the month. Men are also often emotionally unstable and are more likely to explode in uncontrolled violence resulting in severe injury to their spouse or coworkers. Their behavior may be less cyclical but it certainly is not superior. Men not women are over represented in prisons. Women routinely test higher than men in verbal abilities on standardized tests. These tests are given at fixed times without allowance for women's menstrual cycles. At any time a significant percentage of women taking the test will be in the premenstrual portion of their cycle, yet they consistently outperform men in the verbal portion of the tests. Also, the same woman, when she takes the test repeatedly, will usually score about the same from year to year regardless of the time of the month the test happens to land on. The reason is that the menstrual cycle is only one of many factors which enter into mental performance and is clearly not the major factor for most people. For instance, more men suffer from attention deficit syndrome which impairs their performance. "Also the fact that women are known to be more sensitive and emotional than men must be overlooked. It is well known, for example, that under identical circumstances women suffer much greater anxiety than men." I believe you are restating a cultural bias against men, not a fact. Men are actually sensitive human beings and suffer just as much as women although they are often treated in society as if they don't have feelings and sensitivies. Scientifically, women generally seem to suffer less permanent damage from stress than do men. Because modern society has failed to recognize the emotional needs of men, more are dropping out of school and entering low paying jobs compared to women. Many educated women are finding it difficult to find men who are on their level to date and marry. ""Surveys have found different correlates of anxiety and neuroticism in the two sexes. Women and men don't become equally upset by the same things, and being upset does not have the same effect in men as in women. Ekehammer (1974; Ekehammer, Magnusson and Ricklander, 1974) using data 116 sixteen-year-olds, did a factor analysis on self-reported anxiety. Of the eighteen different responses indicating anxiety (sweating palms, faster heart rates, and so on) females reporting experiencing twelve of them significantly more often than males. Of the anxiety-producing situations studied, females reported experiencing significantly more anxiety than males reported in fourteen of them."" I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. You are quoting a test from 30 years ago and not telling us what was actually tested. It stands to reason that females would find some situations more stressful that their male counterparts and visa versa. What you haven't told us is exactly what they were testing and under what circumstances. Also you haven't shown how this applies to the topic under discussion. If your point is that Muslim society will often place women in such stressful situations that they can not perform simple tasks such as to recall what was said at the time of a contract between two people, I'll have to acknowledge you may be correct. If your point is that Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist women are so stressed out by the challenge of remembering the circumstances surrounding a verbal contract, I'll have to disagree. I work with women on a daily basis and my experience has shown beyond question that in Western society women perform very well indeed. "Allah, the Creator is-as always- Al-Knowing and man (or the disbeliever in Allah and the final, perfected, revealed way of life, Islam) is -as usual - either ignorant or arrogant." This is an interesting little outburst. Am I to understand that if you can't win on the evidence you can always dismiss your opponent by calling him names? Of course if I'm really as ignorant as you claim you should be able to easily refute what I'm saying with facts. Unfortunately the facts simply don't support your position. Modern women have completely disproven the stereotypes which probably seemed self evident to those living in the seventh century. You haven't yet addressed the many translation that women lack verbal memory yet. Have you looked into the word translated "remind?" Do you now accept that the Koran actually says women lack basic verbal memory skills when compared to their male counterparts?
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"The Quranic verses that deal with financial transactions are not directed at women in the seventh century only. They speak to women today and in the centuries to come too."
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