We often talk about "the Islamic world," or the "Muslim community," but sometimes it takes being smacked with an enormous, amazing data dump to remind us that Muslims are actually an incredibly diverse group -- if you can call them a group -- who adhere to views that are informed by their cultural and political context as much as their religion.

For their mammoth new study about the world's Muslims, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life interviewed more than 38,000 Muslims in 39 countries on topics ranging from morality, to politics and justice, and the relationships between the sexes.

There's a lot to parse here, but one of the most interesting sections is on views about women, given the recent controversy over sexual abuse in India, the flare-up over the "topless jihad," and the potential resurgence of Sharia law in Syria and other unstable areas.

One big takeaway is this: The way Muslims see the role of women is highly dependent on where they live.

In all countries, surveys were administered through face-to-face interviews conducted at a respondent’s place of residence.

Scot Dutchy wrote:What worries me is the method of questioning.
All I could find was this:

In all countries, surveys were administered through face-to-face interviews conducted at a respondent’s place of residence.

A frightning thought. Hubby there the whole time? Not much free thought.

Oeditor wrote:Face to face? Were the questioners all women? You could hardly call it face to face through a burqa, And if a burqa had to be there, the woman's owner would have to be too, for sure.

Shrunk wrote:

Oeditor wrote:Face to face? Were the questioners all women? You could hardly call it face to face through a burqa, And if a burqa had to be there, the woman's owner would have to be too, for sure.

I remember a telling incident during my brief stay on an Islamic webforum. I had become embroiled in a lengthy discussion of evolution vs. creationism when I received a personal message from a female member of the forum who had previously been a moderator there. She commended me on the strength of my arguments and my persistence, and also reassured me that there were Muslims who had no problem reconciling acceptance of evolution with their religious beliefs, mentioning that she taught biology. However, she also realized that many of her fellow believers were quite intractible on the issue, and kindly suggested that I was not likely to change any minds. It was a polite, courteous and articulate message. Then, at the very end, she informed me that she would be showing our correspondance to her husband, as communicating over the internet was considered the equivalent of being in the same room with me, and she could not do this without her husband present.

Of the many shocking and infuriating things I read on that forum, that was in some ways the most disturbing.

Shrunk wrote:Then, at the very end, she informed me that she would be showing our correspondance to her husband, as communicating over the internet was considered the equivalent of being in the same room with me, and she could not do this without her husband present.

HomerJay wrote:

Shrunk wrote:Then, at the very end, she informed me that she would be showing our correspondance to her husband, as communicating over the internet was considered the equivalent of being in the same room with me, and she could not do this without her husband present.

On a couple of muslim forums I frequent, a regular question that has come up is whether women should answer the telephone at home, or leave it to their husbands. The problem being that they could inadvertantly converse with a non-mahram male.

People with that sort of problem are reasonably few and far between but most people agree that they are technically correct.

Scot Dutchy wrote:And Nora thinks that they have total freedom.

"MATEELA, Pakistan (AP) — For decades, not a single woman in this dusty Pakistani village surrounded by wheat fields and orange trees has voted. And they aren't likely to in next week's parliamentary election either. The village's men have spoken.
"It's the will of my husband," said one woman, Fatma Shamshed. "This is the decision of all the families."

Mateela is one of 564 out of the 64,000 polling districts across Pakistan where not a single woman voted in the country's 2008 election. The men from this village of roughly 9,000 people got together with other nearby communities to decide that their women would not vote on May 11 either."



"In places like Mateela, the fact that men decide women should not be allowed to vote is a decades-old tradition. Some men say women don't have the mental capacity. Other times they don't want wives and daughters to leave the house. Some simply don't see the point.

At a recent gathering in the village, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Islamabad, activists tried to encourage the opposite. The Association for Gender Awareness & Human Empowerment, an independent group working to increase voter participation, met with residents, trying to encourage them to let women vote.

Mateela's men sat with male activists in a courtyard near the village mosque. Secluded behind a gate, the women sat on a concrete floor and listened to a female activist talk about the benefits of voting.

Yar Mohammed, one of the village elders, insisted it isn't a matter of discrimination. The problem, he said, is that the local polling station is mixed gender. The men worry that their wives and daughters will be harassed, so they want a separate women's station. In some places, but not all, polls are specified for men or women only.

"We stop our women from going to polling stations because we think if they do, men would tease them by staring or touching them," he said.

Mateela's women certainly want a political voice. They talk of their desire to see better roads, schools where their daughters can get an education and a reliable supply of gas for cooking and heating.

They don't directly defy their fathers and husbands — but they do lobby them to change their minds.

One resident, Mohammed Shamshed, said the women in his family "come up to us and say, 'We want to vote.'"

"But we tell them that it is a collective decision," he said."

Clive Durdle wrote:http://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-town-men-spoken-no-women-vote-160837465.html