A Rebuttal on How Women Are Viewed in the Koran

In the Koran women are repeatedly regarded as inferiors to men. Women are given less rights and privileges in contrast to men. Women are seen as objects to own and control, and not as equals.

In the Koran it specifically instructs men how to handle their women. According to the Koran:

Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. God is high, supreme. (Women)

The Koran makes it very succinct and specific about how men are to deal with their wives. The Koran says that men have authority over women for two reasons. The first reason is because God has made men superior to women. This reason is an absurdity to any reasonably educated person living in the 21st century where women, at least in the Western world, are capable of anything that a man is capable of. We have a society filled with women teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, astronauts, and, generals as well as women who play football, weld steel, author books, and do research. Women are not inferior to men. We are all human beings. The second reason is because men spend their money on women. Even though men spend money on women that does not give a man the right to control a woman and have authority over her actions. This reasoning is essentially a belief in slavery. Women have no rights because they are bought and paid for.

The Koran says that women must be modest and hide their, "unseen parts." Unfortunately, this verse is imprecise and can be understood from a liberal or conservative perspective. The liberal view would only require women to conceal their breast and groin. Predictably, Muslim culture understands this verse in an ultra conservative way requiring women to cloth themselves from head to toe, allowing their eyes and in rare cases not even their eyes to be visible. The Koran does not state any specific regulations that men have to hide their unseen parts.