The treatment of women

Lovesakennah it's quite obvious from your own experiences much like mine you stated some subjective truths about how you feel. I think the key to what you've stated was that the behavior of some women are "unthinkable" to you because they are not as prevalent as it is where I live. I have thus taken into account the state, city, and location where I live as contributing elements to everyday personality. I live in the fourth largest economy in the world and the second largest movie production state in the world. I live in a state where materialism i nsglamorized in films and in the media so its quite possible that all these elements contribute to an individual's personality. So allow me to again reiterate my previous statements and say all what I've said are with respect to my experiences and have not bearing on an objectivity nor are they generalizable, but I have seen common behavior exhibited by women.

Where you come from Muslimah's marry for the sake of Allah which, from face value is a noble thing and have no doubt that such is true where you live. I am with viewing this statement however skeptical that Muslims do in fact marry for the sake of Allah. Without challenging the truthfulness of your statement are you certain those  Muslimah's marry for the sake of Allah? I'm even skeptical of such statements. As a Muslim man I've always done thing not for the sake of Allah but for the sake of others (when I'm doing acts that may benefit another). If I love a woman and told her I marry her for the sake of another it does not sound humanly sincere (if that makes sense) rather it means in a semi-selfish way I'm doing such because "God told me to." This is not to get into a discussion about the semantics of words but to point out intentions in our relations with each other.

If we love out of sincerity and care for that person without thinking of a benefit of ourselves we may in turn love for the sake of Allah. Just imagine someone giving you a card on your birthday and saying "the only reason I gave you a card was for your sake, because I think it nice." To some, it may not have no effect, but to others it may come across as an insincere gesture, only brought about through an occasion not from a self-motivating act. But more imporantly, my point in all this is in addressing the behavior of women in relationships some men do not know a woman's intention and with respect to the legal system here in the United States I have been firmly convinced women can, and could manipulate the system both in the marital sense and legal sense.

Need I remind you that I am in law enforcement so we have delt with false cases of rape however these are far less common than the actual crime. Remeber sister your experiences (and words here) are strictly limited to where you live as well as mines and so the common area I can say we may agree is that human beings in both sexes males and females can be hurtful to each other. I just think its unfortunate that there are some women who are unappreciative of good men and are careless in both muslim and non-muslims. You ask "what would you do with men if it weren't for Islam? Isn't this such a biased and generalization? Oh by the way you mentioned alimony? I'm really curious where you live because in California (and other states where such happens) women seem to win everytime. I'm now convinced when I hit the 6 figure mark (which I have already) when I marry I'm getting a pre-nup.

Hayfa you said:

Israfil, would you say thatwomen can appear more "conniving" because in a basic functional sense, women have needed men more than women. Islam aside (marrying for Allah) why do men marry?

I had a tough time trying to put this together but I think I have it.

Would I say women are selfish, diabolical, or ruthless because of those basic functions (which you've listed above)? No. In marital relationships these qualities are equal. I believe its important in marital relationship men and women have some emotional and physical dependencies, however it becomes diabolical, selfish, and ruthless when these dependencies are illusory to the real intention which is to take advantage of the person irrespective of their partners feelings towards them.

why do men marry?

I wouldn't know because reasons vary, but if I were to make an educated guess I would say religionist men marry for the same reasons as religionist women. There are no significant differences in these reasons and if there are please point them out in several cultures in the world where there are obvious significant differences.

Intraditional cultures both marry cause its the thing to do. Everyone does it. Women may seem more conniving as they are given the basic functional reality of caring for the children.

Sister I'm curious to ask (with no disrespect to you) do you understand the concept of conniving? It means to conspire against someone secretly in case you didn't know. So I was unsure of where you were going with the above bold, but perhaps I myself was not clear. If so, my apologies.

As you see in the west, where marriage is no longer the "norm" men feel no need to make a commitment. Why? Cause they don't need it to have access to sex.

I don't think the changes in family (e.g. marriages) are just from the result of what you've stated above. From studies since the 40's families have changed with the times which includes the advancement of technology (development and production of more vehicles) to the 80's with the creation of computers and internet. Women work more than they have and have more opportunities than they did so the shift in the family has changed. Men on the other hand when it comes to the family have not changed much except with the advancement of technology being more accessible. With respect to sex, the opportunity to access this is open to both genders how else can you account for the reported cases for STD's?

And interestingly, men tend to have more partners than women, men in many cultures can marry more than one woman. Women tend to do this far less. Women have more to loose, both socially and economically with the father or "man" involved.

Hayfa I hope you weren't making this statement as a universal one? What you stated above is more along the lines of tradition and social conditioning verses what actually is and even so, this is limited to the type of society you live in. Again, I have to redirect us back to the state of California where there are women who see having multiple partners as a great benefit especially if they (these women) are materialist. If multiple partners are giving you money and other expenses this is a great benefit both economically and emotionally because you basically have nothing to lose. Again we can only address the issues of our respective societies using the experiences we have.

Am I making any sense?  

Yep.

I do think there are plenty of sweet and good women all over the world. Of course the oneswho do the bad stuff gets the press.

The bad women don't get the press in the sense that you have worded it. I believe this is just common knowledge among men period which has nothing to do with media. The only element I would say that may contribute to a mindset of addressing all women as bad is through family or through media but this is dependent uupon the society you live in. I firmly believe being bad is more of a common attribute in our planet than good. A lot of people do things out of pure selfishness than sincerity.

As we see with the rate of AIDS, 75% of cases for women are getting it from their nonmonogamous partners-be it husband,  partner etc.  Women do tend to hve better impulse control (thinking of consequences) than men.

How would the reported AIDS cases have anything to do with the character of women? I just recently did a report on AIDS cases in the world with the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and I'm curious what country is the 75% from? Or are you speaking in the general sense?

To some extent I agree with all posts.

I think one point is missing about some women thou and why they act out the way they do, is their past, what was their relationship with their father like or the man/men in their mother's live like. Or what was their mothers attitude to men like. Some women act the way they do towards men because of negative emotional baggages if they haven't sorted it out it will be carried out thoughtout their relationships with men. Some women keep attracting bad men that is usually because of the past and the learning they got. Women going from one abusive relationship to another and can't hold on to a good one when it comes along is because of their perspective about men and relationships, if they saw their mother being beaten or some other abusive act from their father or another close male when they were young then this is going to affect them later when they start relationship/s of their own and attract the same kind of men because they think that is what relationships with men are. Until the cycle is broken either from learning about the causes in adult life and re changing your perspective, And how certain things affect kids while growing up for which is then the parents responsibility and/or other close adults.

Of course this goes for men and their relationships. And again of course some of this may not affect the person but has an healthy view.

Another point, for me there is 2 meanings to selfishness which is on par with being self centered, one is where its all about you and you don't care about others and you just take and take, the other is actualy taking care of yourself and surival at times comes into this to. I think some women may act out for survival reasons either taking control so they are not hurt any in way.

Of course some women are just witches who don't give an absolute damn so its all me me me.

Israfil wrote: It is definitely important that women break the cycle because the continuance of negative behavior will only damage potential good relationships in the future.

Well, women, those who are in abusive or bad relationships who tend to repeat, only can break the cycle if they know what it is and why, they tend to be attracting these kinds of relationships.

men need to learn to why they abuse women so they to can break the cycle.