Gender segregation, like the burka, do one thing: reinforce the notion that women are objects to be controlled.
For women, as Harvard bows to Islamist Stone Age misogynist theory. Perhaps Gloria Steinem can find some room in her schedule to condemn this once she’s done campaigning for Hillary Clinton. Who, of course, also hasn’t said a damn thing about this. But then again, neither has the Black Elite, including the Obamas. Michelle Obama, who feels compelled to regularly remind us of her Blackness, and her husband know very well the obscene oppression segregation represents, especially if it’s implemented under the guise of “religion” or “culture.” After all, the South African regime argued their racial apartheid was cultural and no one else’s business. Nations rejected that argument, but then again the world’s Islamist Elite have a hell of a lot more money to spread around, don’t they? And people wonder why Hillary continues to delay the release of her tax returns. Perhaps it’s because the Clintons have become enriched, in part, due to financial relationships with Arab Islamists.
They’re all disgusting hypocrites which explains so much silence over this outrage.
Harvard Sets Women-Only Hours for Gym, Complying With Muslim Students’ Request
In response to a request by female Muslim students, Harvard University has created women-only workout hours at one of its campus gyms. The decision has angered some students at the Ivy League university.
Since Jan. 28, the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center has been open only to women from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays.
The change was prompted by a request from the Harvard College Women’s Center, which was approached by six female Muslim students, said Robert Mitchell, communications director of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “It was done for religious purposes, but it’s not closed to other women who may want to participate,” he said…
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in Washington D.C., said modesty may prevent some Muslim women from exercising in a co-ed environment.
“If the women are dressed in a manner that makes it more comfortable to exercise, they may not feel it’s appropriate for them to be viewed by men in that particular attire,” he said…”This is just yet another of what we thought was a reasonable request for some special times because of religion, not because of gender,” Mitchell said.
Oh, sure Just like South Africa’s Apartheid was due to culture and not race.
Harvard excuses the defacto segregation of women by saying the women want it that way. Let’s hope the alumni recognize the horror of this precedent and demand its reversal. As for the few Muslim women at Harvard who demanded the civilized world adapt to the misogyny they have accepted in their lives, they can join one of the many “women only” gyms out there.
Look, lots of women out there accept abuse because they’ve been convinced they deserve it, or because they’ve been told God wants it that way. A long time ago society rejected the notion that we collectively should accept domestic violence because the victim stayed with her abuser, and therefore must ‘want it.’ We chose to not be a party to that misogyny. Now, when oppression and abuse of women are wrapped in religion (which historically is very often the case), we are to facilitate it? I think not.
I’ve got mixed feelings about this one. It’s odd that an ultra-secular institution like Harvard would transform an inclusive zone into a segregated one based upon a demand from a practitioner of a minor (at least in America) religion. Can you imagine what would happen if someone were to make the identical request and cite their Christianity as the basis? They’d be thrown out of Cambridge and roundly condemned for thinking they could impose their small-minded values upon such an enlightened community.
On the other hand, setting aside religion and simply considering humanity as it is, it seems to me perfectly reasonable and appropriate that there be women-only hours at a school gym. We’re being pushed into a unisex world, which is a problem because the differences between the sexes are very real; these are not like the artificial differences between races and cultures. So I think it’s symptomatic of a problem in our own culture that these elite institutions won’t meet a perfectly reasonable demand unless it comes from the wrong person for the wrong reason.
I have so much to say on this I could never wrap it up in a single post. I will say I agree totally with TH. Had these been Christian women this would have turned out very differently, and the EM would warning us all about “the new Fundamentalist Christian threat” to our universities.
I too have mixed feelings about this particular issue and many identical ones going on every day. Part of me says, this is not an Islamist state, and we won’t rearrange our furniture to look like your house, so have a coke and a smile, and welcome to America.
But as for the sentiment that these are oppressed women who have this forced upon them, I’ve been to Saudi Arabia a half dozen times with the USAF. While obviously the women are indeed not treated as equals (to say the least!), when it comes to Islam, they are 110% as fanatical as the men, and hate the infidel every bit as much as their crazy men do. It’s usually a mother, not a father, who with fanatical rage in her eyes, will drag her daughter to public corporal punishhment. Male or female, they are equally devoted to their cult.
I’m not in total agreement either. I do agree that this should not be done on a religious basis, since not all religions are treated equally in America.
However, a separate time for women in a gym is not all together a bad thing. It would be nice to be able to workout in a gym that (I’m assuming) is free to attend and not have men check you out while you’re there. That’s not to say that they always would, but a guy’s brain is what it is (and that definitely isn’t bad, just a fact).
If women at Harvard are upset by this decision they can show their dissatisfaction by choosing to workout during co-ed hours. As I understand by the article posted above they are not forced to workout during women-only hours. They are still free to go whenever they like.
The injustice is actually occurring to the men, not the women, since some of their time to use the facilities has been taken away (they have no choice during these hours like the women still do). If the men at Harvard are up in arms then they can demand men’s only hours.
“The women, (Negros, Indians), want it that way.” An argument that could not be better presented by your average red-neck, segregationist, Southern Senator. Way to go, Veritas.
The irony is that in July 2007 Harvard appointed it’s first female president, (Catharine)Drew Gilpin Faust. She’s an American historian originally from Virginia. She’s also the first Harvard president since 1672 without an undergraduate degree from Harvard.
She’s on my radar screen because she is from a very historically prominent Knoxville, TN family. Her great-grandfather was a great American– General Lawrence D. Tyson (WWI) who was also a Tennessee senator. His son, Charles McGhee Tyson died in World War I. There are namesakes all over town. Tyson Park, Tyson Alumni House, and the land for the McGhee Tyson Airport was donated by the Tyson family and is named for Charles McGhee Tyson. (Both father and son are buried in Knoxville) I believe her father was also named in honor of McGhee Tyson as well. Faust apparently goes by her mother’s maiden name (Gilpin) rather than Tyson. Go figure.
There is a significant Muslim population in my area. Muslim women workout in long pants, long-sleeved shirts and hijabs at the community fitness center. Their rules on modesty are their dilemma not everyone else’s. This Harvard business is about muscle, but not anatomy. The fools in Europe are already well down the slippery slope in accommodating Sharia. Let’s not follow.
Our college campuses are flooded with a good chunk of the 70 billion petrodollars the Saudi royal family spend worldwide to further the teaching of Wahhabism through Islamic madrasses spreading their anti-American sentiment throughout our campuses and paying the salaries of the academics who promote and support ” mercenaries ” on campus. These student activists train overseas during the summer and come back in the fall bringing their newly acquired anti-American , anti-Jewish sentiment and tactics with them.
This has nothing to do with accommodating a few women in their quest for exercising . Instead of these women assimilating into our society we are only going another step toward capitulation to Islam.
Thank you Tammy, you are one of the few who refuse to be silent and to speak the truth about how serious the threat of Sharia law coming to America really is.
Nice what money can buy.
Back in Dec. 2005, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal (whose net worth is estimated at $24 billion and is one of the richest people in the world) gave $20 million to Harvard to establish a university-wide program in Islamic studies. (a female-only weight room goes beyond ‘studies’ – guess Harvard is bending over backward to please) Harvard said this was one of the 25 largest gifts in the university’s history. It will pay for four new senior professors, one of whom will hold an endowed chair named for the prince.
It will also pay for sharia-creep, the incremental Islamification of America and the West.
How much money does Harvard need? Why would liberal, anti-capitalism, anti-greed Harvard sell its soul for 4 instructors? Doesn’t it have a absurdly huge endowment has it is?
Guiliani vs. Harvard
-Integrity vs. Moral Vacuity
After 9/11, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani rejected Prince Alwaleed’s donation of $10 million to the Twin Towers Fund for victims because of an accompanying press release that urged the U.S. to reexamine its MidEast policies.
Maybe the prince isn’t worth so much anymore-
his $590 million purchase of Citicorp stock in 1991 is the cornerstone of his fortune – Citicorp stock isn’t doing so well right now.
I grew up walking distance from Hahvahd. I continue to be underwhelmed by the most hyped and self-important institution in the world.
This is so stupid. I guess the women’s libbers of the past are distracted. The previous poster who mentioned that it is unfair to the men have it right. I suspect an all male workout time would not be welcome, just like all male clubs or golf courses or boy scout troops or just about anything else. Personally, I don’t care about women having “private” hours or even women only clubs. If it were only because they were fat and/or didn’t want to be seen in revealing workout clothes I can’t see anything wrong with it. However, and it’s a big however, doing this as apeasement to a bunch of religious nuts, no matter what flavor, is downright dumb. Case in point, the use of Burkas should be tolerated as a part of their religion but it should never be permitted to infringe on safety or other people’s rights. If they do not want to remove the burka to get a driver’s license or any other legitimate reason then – so sorry, you just can’t participate. It’s the price of their piety!
These particular Muslim women were accepted into and are paying for one of the most prestigious universities we have in the US.
Why on earth should it be a big issue for a few hours to be set aside where these and other women can dress comfortably for physical exertion and not feel embarrassed or violate their privacy? The modesty that we decry as selective and sexist is actually integral to their religion. Also the families in many cases would censure these women in ways we can only imagine, and would not want to. Although we reject arranged marriages and patriarchal rule, they could jeopardize their futures and education by defying their religious law and ‘shaming’ their families.
If we are willing to take the money and accept them into the school, they must at least be accorded the same respect we show to observant Jews, who are not expected to remove their hats indoors while others are. I just can’t believe that Harvard has so little space they can’t make room without a fuss. The reason there has been no fuss is that there is no reason for there to be any. It is a simple accommodation.
I may not agree with the rules by which they live, and I may hope that they learn here that being under burqa is confining, not freeing, but as long as we espouse freedom of religion, we need to truly respect the differences that come with it.
Hmmm, I wonder how our conservative friends consider that part of our constitution. It doesn’t seem to me that rights and courtesies are limited to Christians…
Elliehihi,
“Free exercise” is not simply an all-encompassing Aegis which can be used to justify any behavior. After all, there were a number of court cases during the 90’s where Muslim men attempted to marry their underage daughters under Islamic law to other Muslim men, and the courts (thankfully) said that American law trumps Islamic law.
The burqua is both harmful to women and insulting to men. It dehumanizes a woman, leaving no trace of human form. It insults men by telling us that we cannot look at a woman who is not “properly” covered without succumbing to our basest instincts.
Finally, I’d like to reference Brown v. Board of Education. Seperate is inherantly unequal. So why should we promote seperate times for men and women to exercise?
Dear N. Campbell,
I understand that a burqa is dehumanizing to us, I understand that it has been used throughout the centuries to subjugate women and keep them property. The Nun’s veil of the Catholic Church, and the older Habit take their beginnings from the burqa,too.
I have heard the horrible descriptions of how it feels to be smothering in a cloth where you cannot reach out your hand without fear of it being cut off or that you might be stoned.I have heard first hand of the darkness that smothers and injures your soul. I disagree with it’s use and would like to see it gone forever. The sad fact is, it is not gone, and a few women who asked, not demanded , for privacy for whatever reason, religion or just shyness, should not create such contention. Yes , they can join another gym, but why should they when there is plenty of space at Harvard for a bit of time to be spared. This is not about the burqa. It’s about dignity. How about the overweight women who would like to feel a bit more comfortable as they reclaim their bodies and work hard to fit into the acceptable mode of the day, or even just improve their health? Perhaps they too would appreciate a bit of more private time. I know I would have felt better, in heavier days, and gone more often to a gym if that had been the case. It’s not anti-male, it is simply pro-privacy and dignity. Unless you have experienced a loss of dignity, the hurtful stares, the comments, you cannot know how wounding the words can be. I imagine the women who now are allowed to use these facilities are not doing so in peace because of this outcry. Can’t we just accept this one small accomodation with some humanity and let it be. It is a whisper in the wind compared to the things that happen to women worldwide, and allowing a small safe haven to strengthen oneself can only BOOST self-esteem,and perhaps one of them will take her new strength to the next step and become a leader who takes on all sorts of oppression and hate mongering. Give them these few hours of freedom from the veil or whatever form their outergarb might take, and a taste of freedom of movement in an environment where they can do so without violating their religious belief. Sometimes all it takes is a taste of freedom from constraint to fan the desire for more and more.
Elliehihi:
What if a handful of muslim men wanted a few hours of workout time in the gym free from the gaze of gay men? They only want an hour designated as “Straight-Male Only Time” in the name of their religion and dignity. After all, it’s only a whisper in the wind.
Minimally the Islamic Extreme (as well as perhaps most of Islam) shows us clearly women’s shared past, only that they’re here with us today on our ever increasingly small planet.
It appears that when FundaMENTAList men are in complete control, they seek to make women responsible for their own sexuality. The message seems clear to me: “You’re responsible for MY erections and I trying to be a holy man!”
A similiar & somewhat related observation can be understood in the pursuit of society trying to rid ourselves of Hookers and Johns. Primary, the police seek to arrest and harrass the hooker apparently in their well meaning efforts to end the business. However, it’s been proven that when you go after the Johns (who fuel the business and keep it afloat) the business does fail! (At least on that area.) There have been a couple of police forces that have tried this new tactic and shown the results on the air.
Yet, why hasn’t the “word” gotten around? 🙂
The men are absolutely APPALLED at being videoed & thus exposed for what they are. Who wants to be known as a whore mongerer? lol They’re pathetic losers seeking momentarily sexual gratification for $20 from a (typical for not always) drug addicted struggling woman who has turned to prostitution in desperation.