A few weeks ago, I read Ophelia Benson (B&W) and Jeremy Stangroom’s Does God Hate Women?
I suppose that if the book had been my introduction to the treatment of women under Abrahamic religions, and Islam in particular, my jaw would have dropped a lot more than it did. And it’s not altogether surprising, with her having blogged her research as it was done, that there are so few ideas in the text that haven’t already shown up at B&W, in the year and a half since I discovered that site.
But still, as you accumulate details, you’d think there would eventually be some synthesis into a higher-order explanation of why things are the way they are—as opposed to just a taxonomy, as it were. But you don’t get that, with her. You do get this:
As anthropologists and sociologists have pointed out, a sense of community is high on the list of other things that religion offers—so high that religion attracts many people who don’t actually believe any of the truth claims. (p. 110)
“Don’t believe any of the truth claims”? “Many,” perhaps; but “any”??
The book is extensively endnoted, but you don’t need to wonder why there’s no reference for that! What you do need to wonder is how it slipped past an editor.
Of course we also re-learn (p. 99-100) that “groups don’t value things. Groups can’t literally value anything, any more than nations or communities or families can, because groups don’t have minds.” Followed by the back-tracking admission that “Of course it makes sense and it is idiomatic to say that groups think this and value that, and sociologists necessarily talk about groups in abstract terms in order to analyze broad social phenomena, but the difficulty is that however idiomatic and sociologically sensible the usage is it can obscure the reality that groups don’t literally value anything.”
You also get, after wading in good faith through (p. 136) possible scenarios for the practice of female genital mutilation before Christianity and Islam, the watered-down conclusion that (p. 140-2) “the fact that non-Muslims practice FGM, and many Muslims do not practice it, does not rule out a causal link between Islam and FGM. However, it is important to understand that it is not ruled in here either…. The only thing it is possible to say with any certainty is that a causal link remains an open possibility…. [S]uppose the rate of FGM is affected by factors such as level of education, the urban/rural divide, income level, and so on. If so, then perhaps it is these factors rather than religion that explain the difference [i.e., 79% vs. 16%, respectively] in FGM rates between Muslims and Christians in Côte d’Ivoire. We simply have no way of knowing.”
Well, in the competent academic world, correcting for socioeconomic status, urban/rural dwelling, and the like, is “basic, basic, basic” sociology. Perhaps not in Benson’s world, but even among easy-peasy sociologists.
“Does God hate women?” “We simply have no way of knowing.” Q.E.D.
There is one place in the book where the hope of real insight and solid argument actually materializes: in the second-to-last chapter (p. 165-171), on the moral calculus of criticism, when it causes short-term pain in order to create a long-term gain:
It is quite possible to think that there is a moral imperative to criticize Islam for its misogynous [and homophobic, and anti-free-speech] aspects even if the harm that results outweighs any benefit…. Sometimes even survival is not worth the price of putting up with injustice…. It is necessary to remember 1) that by submitting to injustice we are perpetuating injustice for the next generation and the generation after that and on into the future; and 2) that even if resistance makes things worse now, that doesn’t mean it will make them worse forever.
But that section of the text—even though it’s just Moral Philosophy 101—is so much more tightly and cogently argued, of such an order-of-magnitude higher caliber of thought and philosophy, that it’s pretty obvious that Stangroom (a legitimate philosopher, as opposed to a converted feminist zoologist) wrote it.
The final chapter is titled, “Lipstick on a Pig.” An outlet for Benson’s seething Palin-hatred, perhaps?
Benson says (p. 10), in her best attempt at a higher-order explanation: “Human males are on average larger and stronger than human females. That fact by itself is enough to explain why throughout recorded history women have been subordinate to men and why in most of the world they still are. Men dominate women because they can.”
And yet, by parity of argument, women subtly manipulate men because they can, in particular by granting or withholding sexual favors. But, of course, you’re not allowed to say that without being an Awful Sexist. Because the self-evident feminist truth—in a dynamic which is in no way restricted to the Vatican—is this (p.63):
The most obvious problem … is the one that always looms when any group with a power monopoly lays down the law to a powerless group: what one might call the non-representation problem.
Well, quite.
Overall, if you already know that Islam is a grave danger to Western civilization, don’t waste your time on this co-written book, from a woman who (pathetically) has yet to accomplish a full-length book on her own, i.e., without a man’s help. There are no sparkling ideas in it, not a one—even the moral philosophy section is, truly, just stuff which any thoughtful person will have come up with on his own, just in thinking about life and the moral imperatives which direct his own actions.
Benson needed help even just to get to that point. For your sake, I hope you didn’t, ’cause I sure didn’t.
