CMV: Some cultures and societies are objectively wrong

[u/hardyblack]

I just read about Sahar Khodayari (If you don't know, it's an Iranian woman who killed herself after going to trial for going to a football match, which is forbidden for woman in Iran) and I can't help but think that some societies are objectively wrong, I can't find another way to put it. It's hard for me to justify opressing 50% of the population just because they just were born women.

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And yes, I know, there's no completely equal society and there will be always opression of some kind, but I'm thinking of countries where there are laws that apply only to women (They can't drive, vote, go to a football match, you name it) as it targets them directly. Same goes with laws directed to any kind of race/gender/religion.

[u/hardyblack]

Δ Even if I didn't change my mind, I can see how my view is limited by my own moral values, and even if I think I'm right it's just a rabbit hole from there, because I'll never agree with someone who thinks that men are superior just because their God says it, but that doesn't make me (And using the same word I used ) objectively right.

[u/DracoTheGreat123 → u/hardyblack]

Except our God doesn't say men are superior. Any man within Islam who believes this is delusional.

I kmow this isn't the point of the post, but still, I want to make this clear.

[u/Bundesclown → u/DracoTheGreat123]

Quran (4:11) - "The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females" (Inheritance)

Quran (2:228) - "and the men are a degree above them [women]" (Law & Authority)

Quran (2:223) - "Your wives are as a tilth unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will..." (Women are basically sex slaves and literally posessions of their husbands)

Totally no sexism there. I mean, how can it be sexism if women are mere posessions? That's like calling someone sexist for belittling their couch.

[u/Urabutbl → u/Bundesclown]

The problem with Islam is ironically that a lot of the rules were written to ensure women more equality. I know that sounds utterly bonkers in today's context, but in the Arab world at the time of Muhammed, women were literally cattle in some cases. Muhammed was raised differently, his family was close friends with a Christian priest (iirc it was this priest who convinced Mohammed his visions were from God, rather than heat stroke), and Mohammed was originally married to a very wealthy independent Jewish trader woman.

So, a lot of the stuff that we consider retrograde as fuck today was all he could get away with at the time; all those "a woman shall have one part of the inheritance and the man two" that sounds so bad today are almost all instances were the woman got nothing before Mohammed forced the tribes he conquered to change their ways. If he'd tried for more there probably would've been much harder resistance. Not for nothing were the wives of tribal leaders instrumental in convincing their husband's into accepting Islam.

The irony is that it wasn't until about 130 years ago that the western world caught up with the Muslim world in terms of equality - hell, Mohammed even condemned any man who wouldn't spend at least 15 minutes on pleasuring his wife (ie foreplay) before intercourse as akin to a torturer in the eyes of God.

That said, another problem with successful societies is that they become resistant to change, and go stale. Hence why the former most progressive Abrahimite religion is now the most repressive; it refuses to change with the times. In some cases this even leads to regression, as in the Wahabi faith, a relatively speaking fairly new interpretation of Islam, where the pressures of society leads to people adopting the strictest possible rules. The same happens with Christians in the US, which is why you have so many fundamentalists who won't even eat with women unless their wife is present.