My Favorite News Flash

The word 'misogynist' was uttered on tonight’s episode of Glee.

Misogyny is hatred (or contempt) of women or girls. Misogyny comes from Greek misogunia from misos and gynē. It is parallel to misandry—the hatred of men or boys. Misogyny is also comparable with (but not the same as) misanthropy which is the hatred of humanity in general. The prefix miso, meaning hatred or to hate applies in other words, such as misandrist and misogamy.

Misogyny is sometimes confused with the similar looking word, misogamy, which means hatred of marriage, hence the following error.

The more common form of this general word for woman hating is misogunaios.

The fourth chapter of the Qur'an is called Women (An-Nisa). The 34th verse is a key verse in feminist criticism of Islam. The first half of the verse reads: "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means."

Thanks to the subjective interpretations of the Quran (almost exclusively by men), the preponderance of the misogynic mullahs and the regressive Shariah law in most “Muslim” countries, Islam is synonymously known as a promoter of misogyny in its worst form.

However, in the Arabic Quranic scripture, qawwamun, which is typically translated as "manage" or "take responsibility for", also means that it is the man's responsibility to take care of the woman, feeding and clothing her and her children, and providing them with a place to live.
In contrast to this somewhat polar view there are instances within the Qu'ran that, for its time of revelation, put it far ahead of many other religions and societies of the same era.

However in modern times in comparison to other countries, the social status of women in some Islamic countries is often viewed as unprogressive and limited. The Qu'ran explicitly institutes the protection of a woman's inheritance, allows them the right to divorce and fair provision of assets upon divorce in Surat At-Talaq.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article.