MISOGYNY – Afghan woman beheads daughter-in-law for refusing prostitution, police say

Here’s a horrible story. A woman in Afghanistan, Pari Gul, beheaded her daughter-in-law, Mah Gul, for refusing to engage in prostitution. This happened a couple of weeks ago.

There’s a more to the story but this is the core of it and it’s the part that matters. She got her nephew to help and so on. There are other details too, of course.

We talk about male disposability and its real, but there is also such a thing as female disposability and it is very real too, though it is so foreign to most Westerners’ experience and world view that it’s easy to forget it exists.

If the prostitution angle doesn’t convince you that this is an example of disposability, then maybe the fact that this was a daughter-in-law rather than a daughter may confirm it for you.

I have to wonder where Mah Gul’s husband was in all this. Dead perhaps – male dispoability is real in Afghanistan as femalae disposability is – or perhaps just very firmly under Mother’s thumb. If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

Two things about this story:

One is that this si what rela misogyny looks like. This is what misogyny looks like when it is equal to the misandry we see around us in this country. This misogyny is why whines like this one are so grotesque *. This is what a real War on Women looks like.

And no, it’s not about pointing a finger and saying “Ooooh look over there, aren’t they primitive!” – unless you are willing to say the same thing about our society in the same breath, since it holds basically similar atttitudes about half of its population too.

The second is that this is a perfect example of why the dodge about male disposabilty in this country that “well, it’s men doing it to men, so it doesn’t matter” is so morally bankrupt. (Often this is framed in an explicitly objectifying way: ” It’s men doing it to themselves.” No, it’s men doing it to each other. The fact that you can’t tell the difference is what’s objectifying about that.)

Mah Gul is no less dead, and it is no less a horrible injustice, because a woman cut her head off.

This doesn’t downplay is misogyny in the West. It exists. But let’s be honest – it doesn’t look like this, and it doesn’t look like misandry in the West, and using exaggerated language to discuss it does not help anyone or advance any discussion. That may be harsher than I actually feel on that point, but this story provokes a harsh reaction.

And then there is that young hero in Pakistan who dared to stand up to the Taliban in her district and got shot for her efforts…..

HT: /rMensRights