As usual Irf you don't reply to anything that we write but just say a few lines completely unrelated to what we wrote, at least you didn't call us armchair nazis. Ho hum.

I've never read Hirsi's book, don't need to. I've worked with mossie women and had them as friends or managed to talk to some when their male rellys were out of earshot. I've talked with dozens of them.

They all agree on one thing, life as a mossie woman sucks.

Take care

CARNIFEX

Good to see the same Mosque-teers,

Boaz,

“none of which are that I'm just pig headed :)”

Maybe you should remove the first ‘n’
Glad you are enjoying the gym with Lebs, I would hire a food taster if I was them :)
I will read your One Nation philosophy and add a comment.

Coach,

I was worried about your long disappearance.
Good to have you back, add this link to your biblical reading.
"Mohammed in the Bible”

http://www.jamaat.net/muhinbible/muhinbible.html

PS: FGM pre dates Islam and if you visited the lovely Addis Ababa you will find it’s practiced by followers of your faith. Orthodox Christians in Egypt and Sudan still conduct FGM and MGM.

Ignorance and hypocrisy are two different stances but one is intentional.

Peace,

Back to the topic of Ayaan's book.

In the son-factory Hirsi Ali describes how in Somali Islam and perhaps arab as well, the role of women is to produce sons. Daughters don't count as children and a woman's sole value is her ability to produce sons.

In the caged virgin she describes how women and girls are protected from being taken by other men by being locked in the house, only being allowed out under cover and with a chaperon.

Female suffering is of course the first consequence of this virgin's cage. A second consequence is the retardation of such a society. Not only is it deprived of half its resources (the females), much of the efforts of the males is directed to keeping its females locked up. With so many of its resources deployed in such unproductive roles the society stagnates into a cesspool of oppression, unfullfillment and introversy.

Hirsi Ali's work is based much on her own life experiences rather than academic research. The books contain many anecdotes of her family life and her professional life as a student, interpreter, social worker and politician.

One example is the fate of a woman tried for social security fraud. Her husband orders her to sign a form. She does not know what it is for. She also doesn't know that her husband also has a job as she does not dare question his whereabouts in the daytime.Because she cosigned the form she is legally guilty of fraud.

Another anecdote occurs where Ayaan and her sister burst out laughing when told that God placed paradise underneath a woman's feet. They compare her farther feet in expensive Italian shoes to her mother's feet worn and tattered from wearing cheap thongs all her life. They get a clip around the ears as her mum has no time for blasphemy.

The book should be seen in its dutch context where many Muslim women are "importbrides" from Berber villages.

As will all books of this scope there are many generalizations and no doubt there will be many exceptions.

G'day Fellow Human

'FGM pre dates Islam and if you visited the lovely Addis Ababa you will find it’s practiced by followers of your faith. Orthodox Christians in Egypt and Sudan still conduct FGM and MGM.'

That it does. However who are the ones practising it over here in Oz?
The mid wives and healthcare professionals I've talked to say they've only seen it in the mossie population.

This is an article from the Minnesota Medical Association, Minnesota is home to up to 150,000 somalis...

http://www.mnmed.org/Protected/00MNMED/0012/Ohmans.html

who happen to be mossies.

Note how FGM is reffered to as 'genital cutting' and not the mutilation it is. Bend over Minnesota.

In addition, if you go to blogs run by Minnesotans you'll find accounts of somali gangs running around doing the things that lebs do over here.

"I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta."

Hear, hear.

Gusi,
No-one has responded to your posts, but I find them the most interesting here.
One thing we need to remember, whenever a prominent Muslim woman questions the treatment of women in Islam, they end up having to run for their lives. At the very least, we should acknowledge the courage and committment it must take for such women to speak out. How many others would like to, but dare not?
I hold no truck with any religion, they are all, at bottom, mysogynistic - far more interested in controlling female sexuality and women's lives and behaviours than mens. But arguing that your religion is being constantly misinterpreted, whether we're talking Christianity or Islam or Judaism or Calathumpianism, always reminds me of old fashioned Marxists who, when the excesses of Stalin's Russia, Mao's China or Pol Pot's Cambodia were pointed out, kept saying there had never been a true Marxist state, and these were all misinterpretations.
Maybe it just indicates that religions don't work very well in the hands of ordinary humans, just as communism didn't either.