During a conference held in the city of Montreal, Quebec dated July-1990, Dr. Nawal Saadawi, a famous Egyptian feminist, received furious reaction for her comments on women rights in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Dr. Nawal attacked the Patriarchal Doctrines of the three major religions and its restrictive elements against a woman. The barrage of criticism was extended aftermath in different media outlets. It reveals the colossal ignorance mentality and attitude in the western world toward Islam and women rights to be more specific. This mentality and attitude attributed to the strong tendency among many Western thinkers, Think Tanks and politicians to scapegoat Islam for tradition that it’s many parts of the West own heritage and culture. People in the West, in general, hold negative views about many aspects of Islam including woman subordination. The reason is deceptive media standing behind the wave of anti-Islamic sentiments through one-sided T.V programs, books, articles and so on. I oppose veil on security and rational grounds. The veil prevents the regular interaction between a woman and its surroundings, while headscarf became more of culture and tradition. The veil is questionable among Muslim jurists, On one side, Muslim women can reveal their face during prayers and pilgrimage. while on the other hand, some jurist declares it mandatory. Images of Mary, the mother of Jesus, portray her wearing a headscarf. Christian nuns appeared with their headscarf, and the Haredi which is an ultra-orthodox sect of Judaism force their women to follow a strict dress code including the veil and black garment cover the body from head to toe. Veil and headscarf are part of freedoms which granted by liberated and secularist West. It is a fact not a fiction that discrimination against people based on their skin color, ethnic or religious background is bigotry against humanity and all of the human race. A Muslim girl in France, the land of Voltaire, was denied her education, basic human right because she was wearing the headscarf. President John F. Kennedy sends the national guard to Alabama against governor George Wallace refusing to comply to a federal court order allowing two African-American students to register for the summer session at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. That Muslim girl and the same like cases received no help and no media attention. European governments denied citizenship for Muslims based on religious grounds such as refusing to shake hands or a father refuse his daughters to participate in swimming lessons at their school. I know many people don’t shake hands with others because they are Germophobic, paranoid about their health. Others don’t like swimming because of they afraid of the water. It is coincident that these girls were Muslims, so what? I saw several pictures for Catholic nuns wearing traditional dress, swimming in pools and beaches without raising the attention or excitement of anybody, without locals chasing them angry or armed police terrorizing them to take off few pieces of clothes because the locals are scared. Dr. Nawal Saadawi isn’t only famous in the ranks of the Egyptian women's movement but is also passionate about secularism and criticism of religions. The participants in this conference in Montreal were unable to bear criticism because the truth is much greater than their ability to absorb it. The problem lies in the extremist religious sects that they can not survive outside their glass bubble. Radical Muslims also do not accept criticism same as conservative Christians and ultra-orthodox Jewish. The point of discussion isn't about Islam is right, Christianity is wrong or that Judaism is better than both. It is all about rationality, logic and the search for the right data. However, many prefer to ignore historical facts and become bias in a way that doesn't serve the scientific method that should be the goal of all researchers and thinkers. End
First, you speak of "religions". There is thousand of religions, and every major religion is divided in hundred of sub movements which have very different ways of thinking. In your post, you mention only abrahamic religions. Judaism, christianity and Islam are just three branchs of a single religion : the abrahamic monotheism. That doesn't mean they're the same, but being in a way the same religion, they share similarities obviously. Misogynistic behaviour exist by the way outside the abrahamic religion, it exist obviously in hinduism and buddhism. These two religions are however much less united than any abrahamic religion and it's hard to consider them as a whole. Criticizing the abrahamic religion however on the point of freedom and equality is pointless. France is not only the land of Voltaire, it's too the land of Bossuet, Rousseau, Gerbert d'Aurillac known as pople Sylvester II. Our tradition is that you keep your religion as private as possible, we hate politician which show openly their religious belief and make a show of it. This muslim woman can still leave France is she want to study with her scarf. It's mandatory for every religion to remove their visible religious signs if they enter a school.
There is no such thing as rights. That concept relies on the thought that there is a higher power that some how dictates and ascribes a validity to some forms of human behavior. Rights are quite simply what an individual or group of individuals can maintain and enforce.
