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muslim misogyny

30 Dec 2005

When I first read this story about violence against women in Pakistan, I knew it wouldn’t take long for someone to make a snide “religion of peace” post. Odd that this story gets top-billing, considering we have a little problem right here at home that sadly doesn’t exactly make the headlines:

Every day four women die in this country as a result of domestic violence, the euphemism for murders and assaults by husbands and boyfriends. That’s approximately 1,400 women a year, according to the FBI.

The AP story about Pakistan only references “hundreds”, but even with a generous estimate of 500/year, the US’s per-capita problem by comparison is still a lot worse not exactly stellar either. I wonder if we can expect Mark to make a followup snide post next condemning Christianity for betraying its roots as a “religion of peace”? I expect not.

UPDATE: To clarify, I edited out where I said that the US was “still a lot worse” – that was based on a cursory calculation based on NOW’s 1400/year figure and the AP article’s “hundreds/year” for Pakistan. In retrospect, it’s obvious that Pakistan’s incidents of domestic murders of women are no doubt hideously underreported. But I believe my point stands that while the US still has a problem with domestic violence towards women,whether or not it’s worse than Pakistan’s, we’re not exactly in a position to cast stones.

Comments

Cubes — December 30, 2005 at 13:51 · reply

Try comparing their overall domestic violence / murder numbers (instead of just the “honor illings”) to the US… I think you’ll find they have a far worse problem than we do when it comes to violence against women.

Also, your quote suggests that domestic violence is a crime whose victms are all women… In 2002, a quarter of the “Intimate Partner Violence” homicide victims were men, and a study found that 29% of women and 22% of men had experienced some sort of domestic abuse, and it’s believed that men underreport this stuff even more than women. The current numbers don’t seem to agree with what NOW has to say.

Sadly, we don’t seem to have a problem with violence against women nearly as much as a problem with violence in general.

cwage — December 30, 2005 at 15:39 · reply

Try comparing their overall domestic violence / murder numbers (instead of just the “honor illings”) to the US… I think you’ll find they have a far worse problem than we do when it comes to violence against women

I don’t think domestic violence as a result of a concept of cultural “honor” versus the myriad reasons for domestic violence in this country makes it any better or worse, which is sortof my point.

Also, your quote suggests that domestic violence is a crime whose victms are all women…

No, I chose statistics regarding women because that’s what the context was.

Cubes — December 30, 2005 at 17:54 · reply

The total number of domestic violence homicides is much higher than just “honor killings”, and the overall domestic abuse problem is far worse there, especially against women, than it is here.

Also, the statistic in your quote is misleading. Of the 1,300 DV homicides per year (as of 2003), a quarter of the victims are men.

cwage — December 30, 2005 at 18:17 · reply

The total number of domestic violence homicides is much higher than just “honor killings”, and the overall domestic abuse problem is far worse there, especially against women, than it is here.

Where did you find those numbers for pakistan? I was looking (briefly) for them last night..

Also, the statistic in your quote is misleading. Of the 1,300 DV homicides per year (as of 2003), a quarter of the victims are men.

The numbers that NOW used were from FBI statistics from the early 90s. It’s not “misleading”, it’s just a different figure, probably owing to methodology and time differences.

Do you have an actual point to make or opinion on the actual point of my post or are you just nitpicking numbers out of boredom?

Cubes — December 30, 2005 at 20:06 · reply

What I got from your post was: domestic violence, specifically murder of women by their spouses/relatives, is a worse problem in the US than in Pakistan, so it’s odd that their situation makes headlines when ours doesn’t.

I am “nitpicking numbers” because the numbers you base your gripe on are just plain wrong.

cwage — December 30, 2005 at 20:11 · reply

What I got from your post was: domestic violence, specifically murder of women by their spouses/relatives, is a worse problem in the US than in Pakistan, so it’s odd that their situation makes headlines when ours doesn’t.

I think it would be odd even if it wasn’t worse, don’t you think?

I am “nitpicking numbers” because the numbers you base your gripe on are just plain wrong.

First, they aren’t wrong, they are different. Do you realize that there’s not like One True Source For A Statistic That Is The Same Forever? I told you where NOW got their numbers – if you’re going to say they’re “wrong”, please provide a source that explains the problems with the FBI’s methodology.

Second, the differences you’ve pointed out are meaningless without the numbers from Pakistan, which may or may not be worse than the numbers you’re citing. Neither case detracts from the point of my post, which is that holier-than-thou condescension about Pakistan’s domestic violence problems is a little asinine in light of our own problems.

But hey, thanks for wasting 30 minutes of my morning!

Johan — December 30, 2005 at 20:26 · reply

While waging a proxy war against the Soviet Union, didn’t the US encourage Islamic extremism in Pakistan?

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