Sheema Khan is not keen on the idea of “accommodating” requests for exemption from class participation with the Wrong Gender.
In Muslim communities, gender segregation has led to the marginalization of women, as they are shut out of debate, discussion and decision-making. Under the pretext of “religious purity”, women are discouraged from full participation in community development. At some events sponsored by Muslim campus groups, women are relegated to the back of the hall. At such events, men may freely ask questions; women are encouraged to write their questions on paper, so their voices won’t be heard. Some groups even forbid women speakers, or offer the excuse that there are no qualified females to address the audience. As in the UK, there should be greater scrutiny and debate of accommodations made to groups where gender equality is compromised.
Professor Grayson should be commended for taking a principled stand. Allowing such an exemption will open the door to further requests that are contrary to the advances made in gender equality. Just ask Muslim women. We don’t want to go backwards.
But of course the whole idea behind this “accommodation” is that you don’t ask the women, because it’s a man who requested it. You don’t ask the women and you don’t inform them; you just secretly “accommodate” the man’s request.
How the hell did this guy get to take sociology? It’s the least suitable subject for avoiding independent women. I did sociology and psychology and both subjects had more female students than male.
Also, presumably the class is going to touch on feminism at some point. Like, daily. Does he expect that all the tutors will all be male? Does he think he can pass a module on feminism without hearing a woman’s point of view?
How’s he feel about text books written by women? How does he feel about the possibility a woman might mark his work? Would he demand an exemption because a woman’s opinion is worth less than a man’s?
It’s pretty much a certainty his classmates know who he is. I hope when they come to study patriarchy they will remember they’ve got a perfect case study.
The guy is totally free to impose the restrictions of his religion on himself, but not on others.
The next step would be for him to require male teachers, I guess…
I’ve no sympathy for Sheema Khan. She’s been around for years and has maintained associations with some of the most revolting islamists Canada has known.
Her ( former) organisation, “Cair-Can” was little more than an MB front group. She has spent decades helping to create the ‘halal’ atmospherics that are now rendering gender segregation the ‘new normal’.
She’s an islamist AND a hypocrite.
She writes as though she’s just discovered, like some delicate flower, that gender segregation is central to islamic theology.
“Golly gee!” she says
I’d like to know just how many gender-segregated events she’s participated in over the years. and her new-found concern for gender equality and dignity didn’t seem to extend to the Shafia sisters, an affair about which she had little or nothing to say.
When you’re the poster-girl for islamophobia, some it real,but most of it invented, and when you’ve spent years running interference for some of the most misgynistic clerics going, you shouldn’t be surprised when it rears up and bites you in the face.
Incidentally, it was also ruled that a Toronto barbershop could refuse to give a woman a haircut because of religious reasons. While many other pseudo-“old-fashioned” “manly” ones simply refuse women secularly, but don’t end up in the news.
Oh? I didn’t know that about Sheema Khan. My bad.
Yet more proof that equality will never be achieved until males are eliminated by sufficient biotechnology.
Yet more proof that equality will never be achieved until males are eliminated by sufficient biotechnology.
Do you honestly think that statement doesn’t make you look like an arsehole?
That comment is by someone who hasn’t commented here before, and it’s very puzzling. Wut? Is that satire, a joke, for real, what? I have no idea.
I just found this comment posted on another Freethought blog by someone with the same name:
The real truth, of course, is that homosexuality is morally superior to heterosexuality. We should try to make kids asexual, but if they’re too weak to handle that, homosexuality is a somewhat acceptable second choice.
Kinda makes it look like Four Square is trolling as a parody of feminism and gay rights.
Yes it does. Thanks anyway, Four Sided.