Tom Facchine – They said Islam and The Quran Oppresses Women

			Someone on Reddit said that Muslims oppress women or the Quran oppresses women. And I would
seriously implore that person to consider what oppression is in the first place. And who's really
oppressed. Because I live in the United States of America, I don't know about that person. And what
I see is that you have a very, very small window to go to college here. If you're 40 years old, you
can't go back to college without taking out and in ordinate amount of loans with interest that
you're gonna be paying back for the rest of your life, you have to work extremely hard in this
country just to survive rates of successful relationships and marriage and are at all time lows, or
		

			if not at all time lows at generational lows, we've got drug addiction, we've got all these sorts of
things that are happening, and they're happening to women just as much as they're happening to men.
So where's this utopia that I see where women are very free? I would really like to know, what are
the things that that give a person satisfaction, here's the thing, we imagine, and this is a huge
categorical mistake, we imagine that the ability to do whatever we want is going to make us happy.
And that is ridiculous. Because first of all, we're probably 5050, maybe 6040, knowing what is
actually going to satisfy us many, many times we think that something is going to satisfy us, and
		

			then it doesn't. So the increased freedom to be able to choose or do what we want. First of all,
right, it's somewhat of an illusion. The second thing, even if it makes us happy that happiness is
short term, it's not a long term happiness, I get to choose to do this, I get to choose to do that I
get to have 50 different types of toothpastes. When I go into the grocery store, does that make you
more free, does that make you less depressed, you get to I get to work, I get to leave the home and
work have to work overtime without pay, you have to have poor health care, so that your ones you
know, illness or injury away from having to take on loans, all these sorts of things, you're living
		

			paycheck to paycheck, I don't see the freedom myself, I see the illusion of freedom. And I see a
society that really, really wants women to believe that they're free, because I think that's good
for certain sectors, certain sectors have have figured out how to monetize that and make a lot of
money off of that. Alright, so that's the first thing about people coming to Islam and saying Islam,
this Islam, that Muslims as Muslims, that first of all, people who live in glass houses shouldn't
throw stones, look at your own situation and tell me how free women are. First of all, let's not
compare Islam or what Muslims are doing to this imaginary ideal that doesn't exist anywhere. Once
		

			we're talking apples to apples. Okay, what is it that makes someone free? What is it that makes
someone happy? What is it that makes someone satisfied? There's a whole lot of seated social
research that indicates that what makes people truly happy is the quality of their relationships,
the amount of time that they have to pursue skills and develop themselves, how much they feel valued
by other people, we have one of the most essential things in the life of women and one of the most
rewarding things motherhood that's not valued at all. In North American society, first question is,
what's your name? Second question is, what do you do? I'm a stay at home mom, how many times has
		

			that conversation happened? Our society looks down on those sorts of people in general, in general,
there's pockets here, there's pockets there. But in general, in general, our society values people
for their ability to produce to add to the GDP to participate in the market economy. And there's a
whole bunch of women out there who have the most significant experience of their lives not valued at
all, where's the freedom who's oppressed, whereas Islam says that through that very relationship,
you can not only have honor in this life, you can have honor in the next life too. You have certain
responsibilities and roles and other people have certain responsibilities and roles if you
		

			destabilize your assuredness that you live in a free society or a society that's not oppressed or
that doesn't oppress women, then we can make a comparison and we can talk in Islamic law. We have
this and in this society, we have that but before you do that, it's not even worth talking about
really