In selecting “The Silence Breakers – The Voices That Launched A Movement” – i.e., women who have spoken out about personally being sexually harassed or abused by men in positions of power – as its 2017 Person of the Year and telling their story, Time magazine failed to address two issues of concern for both genders.
An earnest discussion of these issues is impossible without referencing an historic male breeding ground for such harassment and abuse. Yet, Time’s 5,755-word article failed to do so – not even including on its cover a woman representing a sisterhood of victimhood.
This obviously was not an oversight but a conscious decision to avoid the anticipated fallout that would follow. However, Time’s decision does a disservice to women, ignoring a male behavioral pattern affecting a sisterhood of more than 700 million women globally and three million here in the U.S.
Time detailed some of the conduct, involving males harboring uncontrollable libidos, endured by the Silence Breakers – behavior these men knew was inappropriate. But, as disturbing as that was, it pales in comparison to the aggressive behavior, not only allowed but religiously sanctioned, against women by Muslim males – behavior these men believe is totally appropriate.
According to Islam, a Muslim woman’s existence is simply to meet the demands of her husband’s libido and procreate, ensuring the religion’s perpetual existence. Thus, education is wasted upon women. And a Muslim woman who rejects her husband’s sexual desires is not a good wife, becoming subject to her husband’s right to physically abuse or rape her.
In cases where rape can be proven and a rape victim is not married, she often is forced to marry her rapist so he can avoid prosecution.
The extent to which such female abuse is accepted today is reflected by young Muslim girls forced to undergo female genital mutilation, or FGM – the partial or complete removal of the external female genitalia typically performed on girls between infancy and age 15. A 2015 Newsweek article noted that FGM is on the rise in the U.S., with half-a-million females at risk.
While FGM seems rooted more in culture than religion, Islamic culture demands it be done to curb a woman’s sexual appetite. The practice makes sexual intercourse less desirable for them and, thus, less likely they will engage in sexual activity with male partners to whom they are not married.
As for non-Muslim women, the Quran teaches Muslim males such women are infidels, subject to rape or other abuse as the male deems fit.
We need only look to Europe to see how this male Muslim rapist mindset flourishes. With a longer history of welcoming Muslim immigrants than other European countries, Sweden today suffers the consequences of doing so. It is now recognized as the rape capital of the West. Swedish police, unable to contain marauding hordes of Muslim men, simply advise native Swedish women not to venture out alone.
A second issue Time avoided should be of concern to men falsely accused of such harassment or abuse and the need for due process to be allowed to run its course.
Two high-profile cases in the U.K. have underscored the unfairness of accusations receiving immediate credibility. In one case, the accused could not mount a defense as he had died years earlier; in the other, the accused pleaded not guilty to rape. He would be in prison today had truth not intervened.
In 2015, accusations by an unidentified woman of repeated child abuse acts against much-admired clergyman Bishop George Bell, who died in 1958, received national headlines. His only accuser, she gained national support, even from the Bishop’s own Church of England, which “found no reason to doubt her.” Fortunately, some journalists, upset at this one-sided story, rose to the bishop’s defense. An independent report accused the church of over-reacting, “rushing to judgment … without sufficient investigations,” based on its under-reacting on previous, justified abuse claims against other clergymen. Bishop Bell was fully vindicated. As a male journalist later put it, “If a saintly man can be branded a sex abuser, none of us is safe.”
For two years, Liam Allan stood accused by a fellow student of raping her numerous times. The charges and negativity against him they generated hung like a cloud over Allan’s head until dropped just recently when determined that he had been falsely accused. It was discovered police had withheld thousands of the accuser’s emails proving she “wanted and enjoyed the sex she later claimed was non-consensual.”
Time’s Person of the Year selection hopefully will contribute to the fight exposing predatory male conduct to the light of day. But a complete discussion needs to include the sexual abuse license Islam freely gives male followers and the making of false predatory claims as well.
One of the most famous advertising campaigns in U.S. history was for a new cigarette brand, “Virginia Slims,” in 1968. Marketed to young professional women, its popular slogan was, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”
While women have come a long way in their fight for equality, as Time’s cover story reveals, they all have – taking poetic license with Robert Frost’s poem – “miles to go before they sleep” in winning their fight against sexual harassment. But so, too, do men falsely accused.
Originally posted on WND:
http://www.wnd.com/2017/12/the-silence-breakers-time-magazine-overlooks/