Originally Posted by starfish

I completely agree. However, I don't think that this student's request violates female students' freedom of anything. If his request was permitted, how would anybody have been harmed?

The thing that confuses me is that my instinctive reaction is that the student's request is both ridiculous and unreasonable, and should NOT be allowed in this society...but when I really really think hard about it, I can't really see why the request would be denied, other than the professor deciding that he disagrees with the student's beliefs. From a legal and human rights standpoint, that reason is not valid.

I disagree with the student's beliefs also. But if I was in the prof's position, is there any other reason (besides my own beliefs) why I should not grant the request? I can't think of one.
You can argue that it's for the student's own good because he lives in a co-ed world and will have to interact with women throughout the course of his life...but that's the student's problem and not the university's place to dictate/get involved in.

Waves of feminism and various other social movements have fought for equality for YEARS. Women were not recognized as people before. They were not allowed to vote. Racial minorities have been oppressed by other groups ie. slavery. This is also a piece of history. This whole problem is because of religion. This man shared his personal beliefs with the professor and asked for accommodation. Sociology deals with oppression. His beliefs are also sexist. You can believe what you want in society but when paired with words and actions things get questionable.

Women being recognized as persons and gaining rights is a part of Canada's history. A milestone in fact. We are a country premised on equality. Canada's constitutional rights trump all BUT I cannot logically imagine WHY he has interpreted his religion as a need to avoid, alienate and isolate himself from women. What is the reason? I don't even want to begin to speculate what it could be.

Post-secondary school exposes you to ideas that you may not agree with ie. a particular theory, how is it any different to complete group work? Who likes group projects anyways? But everyone sucks up their beliefs and does what must be done. I don't think it's wrong for the prof to have felt the way he did. He's teaching a sociology course. Feminism is a theory that gets discussed. Did he opt out of learning that chapter?

If I was in that situation and found out why a male did not want to be part of our group, I'd be more concerned about my safety and the safety of other women since women seem to be a problem for this man. Women being treated as equals is a part of being Canadian and equally as important to religious freedom. If my "religion" was against people of colour, would asking to be in a group with non-African Americans be allowed? Racism and sexism are on the same side of the spectrum when it comes to hate. It is not acceptable. If society were to hold these fundamental beliefs to heart the world would be chaotic.

Extremism should not be tolerated in a country premised on EQUALITY. How can we live in a country of multicultural groups if extremist views are the norm?

Why is asking to not have to work with someone hateful?
I mean if the prof feels that it's necessary then it is fine, but what is wrong with asking?
What if it was reversed, a shy girl asking to not work with boys in a class filled with rowdy guys?

The media always seems to focus on the negatives when it comes to this religion or the middle east in its entirety.

Because of the negative media attention this religion has been getting for a long time now, people obviously have a very wrong and negative idea about the religion. The responses in this thread, except a few, prove that. Just look at the post below, which is insulting to say the least.

Noone said he was Muslim. Everyone just assumed it due to previous incidents like that, including you.

Boy, for a person that doesn't believe in media stereotypes you sure jumped into stereotype band wagon really fast.

First the rape in india thread, and now this thread. Both obviously have a very similar targeted message to two different groups of people. If this is what MacInsider has become, then I'll be damned.

The rape thread was about a new posting about another incident in India, to tell people to be safe if they decide to go there. Which in your opinion is a total bias, and there are no hundreds of thousands of rapes happening there every year. In fact there's no poverty, no crime, and everything is just peachy.

This thread is about a civil rights violation. In fact, in order to reduce the amount of shit storm from people like you, the media decided to not publish the religion of that person.

Anyways, I'll let you all go back to continue bashing the religion. While you're at it, why not continue to look for more news that unfairly represent a whole wide group of people because of the action of a few radicals and extremists?

Please tell us what religion we should bash (not that we really bashed anything). Please put more words into our mouths. Nom Nom Nom.

Originally Posted by WillyH

Why is asking to not have to work with someone hateful?
I mean if the prof feels that it's necessary then it is fine, but what is wrong with asking?
What if it was reversed, a shy girl asking to not work with boys in a class filled with rowdy guys?

I see it as hateful because:

1) if he was intimidated/shy/nervous that would have been his reason, not "his religion"
2) if not ^ then perhaps his religion views women as seductive or evil
3) it's a friggen group project for school, maybe he was home schooled I don't know but aren't we all "grown ups" now and haven't we already went through the awkwardness of group work before?!

Originally Posted by Atheist?

Considering the fact that I am from India I do know quite a bit about the rape culture that is prevalent in India, I never said rape does not happen in other countries. The difference is that in a country like Canada, if someone is convicted of rape they should by our legal system be sentenced to however many years in jail. On the other hand there are countries in the world in which Islam is the majority and you have situations where women are raped and then forced into marrying their rapist. Let me know when that happens in Canada.

And clearly you cannot read or choose to ignore what I wrote. I said just because this one person is insane and is using religion as an excuse, it does not mean every follower of that religion is insane. In fact most people are just normal people, it is the vocal minority that is most represented in the news.

Hopefully in the future you will read the entire post and not just the part that agrees with the point you wish to make. Cheers and hopefully you learned that just like religious people, all atheists are not bigoted arseholes, just the vocal minority

I clearly read your whole post. You started off the post by coming off as nothing but ignorant of the facts. You only made your stance clear once I called you out.

Originally Posted by Atheist?

On the other hand there are countries in the world in which Islam is the majority and you have situations where women are raped and then forced into marrying their rapist.

Most Islamic countries are nothing like this. This only exists in some regions of some countries where extremists and radicals dominate.

Again, you are being nothing but ignorant of the facts. You are essentially assuming this and that based on nothing whatsoever.

YNWA

No one else once said he was Muslim. The article doesn't even say the religion. If you read the thread there's not one word of hateful speech directed towards Muslims.

Please keep the thread ON topic. I wanted a discussion with intellectuals on the matter. I do not want to hear about rape in India otherwise I would have read that thread.

Originally Posted by WillyH

Why is asking to not have to work with someone hateful?
I mean if the prof feels that it's necessary then it is fine, but what is wrong with asking?
What if it was reversed, a shy girl asking to not work with boys in a class filled with rowdy guys?

The issue is not that what he did was hateful (because it didn't seem like he had some evil intention by not working with women) but rather the issue that is perpetuated because of the mentality of excess religious freedom. Your situation is not equivalent either, if the student said they were shy or were Gynophobic then the request would be perfectly reasonable.

The major issue is with allowing excess, and emphasis on the excess, religious freedom there are a lot of problems that can arise and have occurred in countries which because overly religious. An example of this is in the US (possibly in Canada, not to sure on that) there is an issue with companies refusing to provide birth control as a part of the company health plan due to them expressing their "religious rights" to deny men and women, but mostly women, the right to choose whether to procreate or not. Things like that are an issue currently and allowing things like what happened at York only makes things worse in the long run for everyone.

Originally Posted by YNWA

I clearly read your whole post. You started off the post by coming off as nothing but ignorant of the facts. You only made your stance clear once I called you out.



Most Islamic countries are nothing like this. This only exists in some regions of some countries where extremists and radicals dominate.

Again, you are being nothing but ignorant of the facts. You are essentially assuming this and that based on nothing whatsoever.

Maybe reread the last sentence in my first reply to the original thread, that may clear up the issue of who changed their answer once they were called out. And by no means am I ignorant to the plight that Muslims face because of the extremists that exist in their groups. It is an issue and this kind action taken by the student makes things worse for everyone.

And to the OC, I agree rape in India is not relevant and I apologize if I was too presumptuous is saying the student in question was probably Muslim. I was not trying to flame Islamic people just pointing out that allowing things like this do not benefit society or anyone in it. Also for the student themselves, they will have to in some point in life have to work with women unless they want to find an all male society or something.

Originally Posted by shes-a-diva*

I see it as hateful because:

1) if he was intimidated/shy/nervous that would have been his reason, not "his religion"
2) if not ^ then perhaps his religion views women as seductive or evil
3) it's a friggen group project for school, maybe he was home schooled I don't know but aren't we all "grown ups" now and haven't we already went through the awkwardness of group work before?!

It just means that he never had a good experience around women, why is that hateful? Wouldn't a girl saying that she doesn't want to be alone with guys also be hateful since she is stereotyping men as being violent and aggressive?

Because of the nature of this topic can be derailed really quick, please be careful about what you say and how you phrase it. This is an interesting debate though

I see it as hateful because:

1) if he was intimidated/shy/nervous that would have been his reason, not "his religion"
2) if not ^ then perhaps his religion views women as seductive or evil
3) it's a friggen group project for school, maybe he was home schooled I don't know but aren't we all "grown ups" now and haven't we already went through the awkwardness of group work before?!

There's a billion reasons why he could have decided to ask for that. I don't think the news paper clipping, that doesn't even tell the story from his perspective, is something we should judge him by.

The article is more based on the bureaucratic motions after that. Who called who and requested what and for what reason. In fact there's only like 1 sentence about the guy.

actually the article does hint at islam when they bring in afghanistan near the end of it. even though people didnt say it this is on everyone's mind because that's what the media has made it look like. i agree with the other person who said people like to bash one religion, not necessarily you guys but the rest of the world. go on any youtube video regarding any middle eastern country or read the comments in this artilce that we are discussing there are people saying negative things about islam. in my books that's called discrimination. if you guys haven't noticed this then i agree, you're ignorant.

Originally Posted by WillyH

It just means that he never had a good experience around women, why is that hateful? Wouldn't a girl saying that she doesn't want to be alone with guys also be hateful since she is stereotyping men as being violent and aggressive?

I am not stereotyping him as violent or aggressive. Someone above asked how could this be harmful for the women. I don't know of any religion that preaches to avoid women. Therefore as an extremist interpretation of SOMETHING I can only be lead to believe some sort of hate or fear or something. Fear and/or hate can cause issues with safety - which was the underlying reason. And men are usually more violent and aggressive because of how they are socialized. They are taught to be strong, otherwise it's not manly... I definitely don't agree with perceptions of gender - but again that's another type of extremism "gender norms" don't exist. They are however deeply embedded in society.

Originally Posted by MrPlinkett

There's a billion reasons why he could have decided to ask for that. I don't think the news paper clipping, that doesn't even tell the story from his perspective, is something we should judge him by.

The article is more based on the bureaucratic motions after that. Who called who and requested what and for what reason. In fact there's only like 1 sentence about the guy.

See above reply ^

C'mon guys, no one obviously knows ANYTHING about this situation unless you know this man personally.

I'm not trying to hate on men or stereotype them. I'm more curious as to why freedom of religion is more important than sexism.


It is a reluctance to accept change that we as a society fail. If everyone were able to be more impartial the world would be a better place. But instead views of extremism persists. You don't think that in moderation even a slight change in thought could start a new generation for the future?

So someone takes an article from the star and wants to engage in a "discussion". Well, here's a thought - this entire thread is exactly what's wrong with media and journalism today. Someone decides to knit pick a story of some random guy's life or world views and makes it a mainstream headline for days. But this is where the naive and preconceived views you formulated in a university lecture on equality and secularism fall apart because you can't even see through the absurdity of this article. Is this really news worthy because it seems to me that this is nothing more than a feeble attempt to marginalize an already isolated group. If they haven't already, I'm waiting for CBC and other "centres of unbiased and honest reporting" to hop on this stupid bandwagon..