Honor killing, wife-beating, marital rape, polygamy — all justified in Islamic texts and teachings, and all approved of by large numbers of the Muslims surveyed here. What is surprising is that these percentages are so low, given the approval in Islamic texts for all these practices. Apparently many Egyptian and Moroccan men know to tell pollsters what they want to hear.
“Survey finds deeply regressive views of women among large majorities of Muslim men,” National Secular Society, May 3, 2017:
A large-scale survey of views in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine has reported extensive anti-women views and widespread tolerance of domestic violence.
The three countries and Palestine were selected to be broadly representative and “to reflect the diversity of the region”….
The report, produced by International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) found that “The majority of Egyptian men consider it their duty to protect the honour of women and girls in their family, and nearly three-fifths agree with honour killing in some circumstances. More than 90 per cent of men saw male honour as directly contingent on their female relatives’ dress and behaviour”.
Just 45% of Egyptian men believed there should be laws “criminalizing domestic violence, including marital rape.” And only 70% of Egyptian women agreed with this statement.
43% of Egyptian Muslim men said they would approve of their son having multiple wives, though just 9.5% said they would approve of their daughter marrying a man who already had other wives.
Only 6.6% of unmarried men said they “have no problem with marrying someone of a different religion”, and a tiny 2.3% of unmarried Egyptian women said the same.
Just 39% of Egyptian men approved of women serving as leaders of political parties, though 93% said they should be able to vote.
60% of Moroccan men said “if a woman is raped, she should marry her rapist.”
62% of Moroccan men said “a woman should tolerate violence to keep the family together”, and 38% agreed “there are times when a woman deserves to be beaten”. Shockingly, 20% of Moroccan women agreed with this.
The report collected anecdotes and accounts from men and women across the four countries surveyed, including many accounts of domestic violence….
