Islam for Women or is it?

[picoico]

@ravage

Your whole argument can be deflated by saying Im not interested in B, or assessing its truth value. If you want to include in your response a generalized principle that also covers B thats another matter.

Ravage, if you bothered to read the reminader of my stance you’d see that I’d already addressed your ‘deflation’ scenario.

She did point out other instances of bias. Now again you dont have to have bias in every instance for there to be bias.

Again, perhaps you missed my opening statement, whereby I said she had me thinking until…

You present a reductive picture of the argument. the ‘systemic unbalance’ was merely part of the chain of evidence offered.

See above. What’s the problem with a ‘reductive picture’? If the original argument can reduce Islam down to a few items presented in a negative light, with suggestions to look at matters holistically totally ignored, then why is it improper in dissecting a particular line of attack in the argument?

You call it gender roles they call it inequality. Language is political.

Neither here nor there. Clearly, there seems to be concern only when inequity involves gender roles, not with inequity in and of itself.

No reason offered for why thats the case.

No reason needed, as I was merely trying to assimilate a failed analogy, rather than make some profound point.

Male and female children vs sons and daughters… distinction without a difference… what is the difference between sons and daughters?

Distinction without a difference…no. Obviously not. Males are sons only with respect to their parents…i.e. being a son is a relationship not an attribute. Last question is a very good one. Br. Psyah has addressed this, and I concur with what he has written.

has no impact on the argument when the argument is that women are inferior to men. Not by themselves.

Women are inferior to men, if one is to suspend disbelief in the claim that economic worth and assignment of wealth is indicative of worth of one’s humanity. Major impact on the argument, as the generalization to all women and men is an epic failure.

this is just a variant of the bias could be worse argument. Yes, the laws dont prescribe that the rich girl’s inheritance be taken away and given to poorer men.

No, it refutes the original claim that this is done to demean or demote women, in general. The rules are much too inconsistent across familial arrangements to support this position. If that were truly a motivating principle behind the goal, it would materialize more uniformly. The negative stance is loosely, and sloppily, projected on inheritance laws, which were no doubt formulated for particular social circumstance, and from a utilitarian perspective given understood social obligations assigned to sons and daughters, respectively.

Yes Ravage, the relvancy of those original social circumstances, the origins/motivations of the responsibilities based on gender (which predate Islam, or seemingly so), and the immutability of the inheritance rules, are GREAT questions to explore at this point. But posing them would be bad form, right?

It isnt. Its an ‘all other things the same why is there disparity based on gender’. a pretty standard form of argument.

No it’s not. It’s an “there is a disparity, therefore the intent and effect is necessarily to demean, depower and abuse women” argument.

Note that what you presented is a question in the form of a statement, and it happens to be a damn good question, btw.

but that doesnt mean you come into every thread and start asking questions.

a) According to whom?
b) What other threads?

Your take that this is somehow defensive, and a deflection tactic…only if the questions weren’t relevant to the point.

If you think any of those questions are relevant, the decent thing to do is to provide them in the form of arguments.

No, not always.

You misread the argument. You said wages were indicative of skill, learning etc, I said they historically have meant more. Power, societal valuation of identity.

OT, but interesting anyway…yes, there is interplay and it’s not one way. Higher wages mean more power, but having power, say political, does not necessarily mean to have higher wages or a greater pool of assets. Weak correlation? Strong? I don’t know. Anyhow, I remain unconvinced that social valuation and identity is the same as ascribing worth to one’s humanity.

Worth as a human being foremost. Skillset/ability to perform tasks is more or less comparable these days anyway.

I think that requires elaboration, as I don’t see that as self evident. LOL, are you in HR?

Its impossible to prove intent.

Well, no. I mean, it would have been a simple exegesis/commandment to make that women are scum, therefore get only half share of their brothers. Intent would have been crystal clear.

Second, the very nature of the original argument presumes intent, and attempts to provide ‘evidence’ for it. If it is impossible to prove intent, would that mean the line of questioning is invalid?

The disparity in and of itself does count as evidence of diminished economic worth at the very least, unless you offer justifications for it as psyah attempted. It is simple really. If you have two children, you’re required to give one an economic advantage over the other based on their gender thats straightforward evidence of social devaluation based on gender.

It’s based on the obligations assigned to gender, not the gender alone. It’s not straight forward, and that’s the point. The presented argument is entirely simplistic.

Nor is the assignment necessarily a statement and enforcement of economic worth, but a recognition of financial burden ascribed to a gender role.

They arent? What of sadqa, jihad bil maal and so on? After all someone would more money would have more ability to perform those sawab worthy things no?

Great examples, and certainly good counter examples for the argument as written. But, given the context of the discussion, what I was looking for was an example that shows the division of people into distinct castes based on economic circumstance. In my mind, devaluing one’s worth as a human would necessarily mean assigning religious roles and rituals exclusively to a class of people because they are considered inherently superior.

The examples cited don’t fit the bill, as they are in fact exemptions because there is a concern for an individual’s humanity and welfare, and a stated distinction between human worth and economic worth. A forced separation at an ideological level.

The particular example doesn’t fit the overall context of the discussion because being poor is a transient condition. Gender is not.

Slavery was the closest example that came to mind right after posting, but even that is a potentially transient condition. Manumission is regarded as a good thing, indeed possibly a punishment for the more well off.

It isnt a question of wealth in itself, but the ‘systemic unbalance’ in access to it. Your argument is that the unbalance doesnt indicate worth. It is a much better argument if you actually say what it does indicate.

I’m sorry, but the correlation between wealth and (yet to be defined?!) intrinsic self worth has *not *been established.