woman rights in Islam

[Eilonnwy]

Nope. A woman should be able to walk down the street completely naked without fear of rape. Should be able to. But that is not the way it is. I should be able to walk down the street with a fistful of cash visible to the public without fear of getting robbed. Should be able to, but that's not the way it is. So with that in mind, if I walk down the street with a fistful of dollars, I am asking to get robbed.

It is incumbent upon me to take responsibility for my own safety and cover my money up. To hide it from those bad elements who wish to forcefully take it from me. Now if people are 'letching' at my cash and constantly asking me for some of it and that makes me uncomfortable what should I do? Cover it up, hide it. The uncomfortableness is my problem which I have created by flaunting my money in public and it is my responsibility to relieve myself of it by not inviting it.

I suppose you will say she has no rights there neither?

(Thank You Leo!) If my fistfull of money gets nickered I have the 'right' to pursue legal recourse if they catch the thief. Does that relieve me of my responsibility of prevention? Does it prevent the crime? Would you NOT say I 'asked for it'?

(edited to add eyeroll)

I'm jumping in late to the conversation but I have to respond to the comments made here. First and foremost, Dotard your analogy, while seemingly ok at first, falls apart when you consider it closely. You compare a woman dressing provocatively and getting leered at (or raped) to waving around money and it getting it stolen. Well there is a problem there, first and foremost, a woman does not have complete control over how they look. Yes they can wear makeup and a nice dress, but a woman is a woman and we have curves and body types that could be judged "provocative" under massive amounts of clothes.

This brings us to the problem of what is provocative. Some cultures judge short sleeves as provocative, other cultures don't bat an eyelash at women walking around topless. So if I walk around in T-shirt and pants that accentuates my body enough to compel a guy to cat call me or rape me, am I asking for it? Honestly, I've had guys whistle at me in the dead of winter when I'm wearing a long coat and scarf, barely any skin showing, and it's no less inappropriate than if I was wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top in the dead heat of summer.

When you even begin to suggest that the way a woman dresses in any way implies "She's asking for it" the way you would be if you were waving money around is atrocious and offensive. Women have been oppressed in horrible ways because of thinking just like this. In Islamic culture, a woman sometimes has to wear a tent so no curves are shown, if they do show skin or womanly and are raped it's THEIR fault. The justification is that women should know better because their bodies incite men. In essence, if women get according to Islamic tradition, if a woman is raped it's there fault. Yes, this is an extreme example but I'm justified in using it since this happens today based on similar reasoning you just put forth.

Furthermore, by your reasoning, if my iPod got stolen it's my own fault if I took it out to change a song. You cannot so easily categorize things based on "Well if you show it to people, what do you expect?"

I consider myself a reasonable dresser but when I go to conventions I like to let my hair down, so to speak, and I might dress in a sexy skirt and wear a fun wig. I do it because it's fun, because I like the way I look and I don't do it to pick up guys. (Actually, in truth, I tend to pick up women at convention parties...>.>) I'm not asking to get raped or leered at, I'm trying to have a good time and enjoy an outfit that looks fun. Sometimes it feels good to look sexy and that can be expressed in a way that in no means want to pick up a guy and have sex, certainly not raped. And say if a woman dressed sexy to have fun with guys, that is still not "asking" for it, the same way if I showed off my brand new iPod to some people, I'm not asking for it to be stolen.

In general people should display common sense, of course. For instance I will often ask for someone to accompany me or give me a ride if it's really late at night and I feel uncomfortable going home alone. But what if no one is available to do so and I still need to go home? Is it my fault I walked by the rapist that night?

It is unreasonable to say that woman should enjoy the same freedoms as men, chose their clothing and appearance as freely as a man can and then say "Oh she was wearing that skirt and she got raped? She was asking for it." It's absurd. A man who rapes a woman makes that conscious choice to do so, and if a woman says no and he violates that, it is his fault 100%. Trying to justify it by saying "She's asking for it" is a gross misunderstanding of the difficulties women face in a male oriented world.