It's not like they tell you. It's not "oppressive" to women, in spite of what is happening to women in some so-called "Islamic" countries. All I ever hear about from non-Muslim women is "Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia..." So, I ask them, "What about the rest of the world? Do you ever hear about any of this stuff in Malaysia and Indonesia or anywhere else there are Muslim communities?" ........Silence.

Women have been placed in oppressive and subjugated situations for as long as we can remember and some cultures just can't seem to shake it and the USA is not immune. Remember the Women's Liberation Movement? Why do we think that came into being? BECAUSE IT WAS NECESSARY! Because someone had taken away rights that were already guaranteed to women over 1400 years ago and what I want to know is who took these rights away from them?! Women couldn't get into certain colleges or even get a higher education at all. Islam guaranteed a woman a right to an education over 1400 years ago.

Women couldn't get certain jobs or get the same money that a man was making. Women are STILL making less than a man! Islam guaranteed equal pay for equal work over 1400 years ago. Women needed a man's signature on things. Some women still need a man's signature on things and in 7 states of the United States and in some European countries, today, they are forced to share their wealth with their husband, as well as take on his debts!  Islam guaranteed a woman the right to own her own property, run her own business, do with her money and property as she sees fit and be accountable only for what she is accountable for, over 1400 years ago.

Islam liberated women from that stigma or original sin for which women are still being "punished" today.

Clothing.... a lot of people have a problem with the way Muslim women dress. It's not considered oppressive for Catholic women (nuns) to dress like this, but for Muslim women it is. This is an amazing situation. Nuns are serious religious women and people think they're "quaint" but when they see a seriously religious Muslim woman dressed in the same fashion, people think she's oppressed and look at her and think, "Oh, you poor thing...".   (CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON CLOTHING).

Think about it, if Islam was a male chauvinist religion, wouldn't it be telling women to take their clothes off, not put more on?  The dress of the Muslim woman honors her, it's  not a sign of subjugation or degradation. It prevents her from being viewed as a sex object and demands respect.  If you saw 2 pieces of candy on the ground, one with the wrapper opened, exposing the candy to what comes to being on the ground and the other piece wrapped up and secure, which one are you more likely to pick up and put in your mouth?

Women are still being reduced to, and exploited as, economic commodities (and I blame women for allowing it to continue to happen).  Some women think that selling their bodies like some piece of meat that they're serving up at places like "Hooters" (the bigger the boobs, the bigger the tips) is being liberated and not viewed as degrading. If that is not a degrading situation, then I must not know what degrading is. Women are brainwashed into believing that they can't leave the house until they've spent hours in front of a mirror hiding their natural beauty with cosmetics. They fry their hair with chemicals, and heat from blow drying. They wear fashions that require them to be squashed in and pushed out. 

They spend millions of dollars trying to achieve impossible fashion industry standards of body weight and shape either on unnecessary cosmetic surgery (breast implants and liposuction) or diet pills or bras and girdles or are lead to believe that they're worthless if they're not like "Barbie". I've seen the ads on TV with my own eyes, women who won't feel good about themselves until they have that nearly $4,000 breast augmentation surgery. Where do women get this idea that they can't be happy unless they have the "perfect breasts"? From men who control advertising and fashion, that's where.

Women are even killing themselves with bulimia and anorexia and are ruining their skin by going to tanning salons. Tan skin is damaged skin. Looking like you're 80 when you're only 40...this is liberation...? What's the matter ladies, is your brain and sparkling personality not good enough? Do you have such low self-esteem that you have to resort to low cut sweaters, liposuction,  breast augmentation and risk premature wrinkles to get the attention that you crave? Oh, you poor thing!

Women sell their bodies by being scantily dressed and even totally naked in advertisements from magazines to billboards and Hollywood films because sex is the only thing that sells and the advertising moguls will use whatever is at their disposal with no regard for human life, especially when it comes to women. They will stop at nothing and they're bulldozing the virtue of every mother, daughter and sister that they can get their grubby hands on, right into the ground. And now they're doing it to men as if two wrongs can make a right. If these examples are not situations that are degrading to women (and now men), then I must not know what it is. 

In Islam, men and women are equal, what is incumbent on the woman is also incumbent on the man. The only thing that makes a person better than the next person (regardless of their gender), according to Islam, is in their piety.  Men and women are equal but men and women are different, just as apples and oranges are equally fruit, apples will never be equal to oranges. Oranges provide for us what apples can't and visa versa.  Women want to be equal. What I want to know is, equal to what?  A man?  Is this a realistic goal?  The problem borne out of the Women's Liberation Movement is that women began to confuse "equal" with "same".

Instead of trying for gender equality, they should have been trying for gender equity. No wonder they're still not getting what they want or realize what it is that they even have a right to!  Women have been using the wrong guide book!  Why not read the best guide book on this planet today, the Holy Qur'an? The Last and Final Testament to mankind! A liberation for the whole of mankind! A hope for those in despair! A guidance for the erring! A solace to the suffering! An assurance to those in doubt!