Whose Responsibility?

When I first heard the story of Adam and Eve, it seemed a little wrong. If God could create Adam, why was it necessary for God to create Eve that way? If he were all powerful, he could not create Eve in the same way? What was going on with that rib thing? It really struck me as wrong; when Adam ate the fruit and all knowledge was lost and the lost was blamed on Eve. Now, I was very, very young when I heard these stories and I did not analyze them. I just knew something was wrong. When I became a young adult, I began to think these stories gave justification to men’s superiority over women, with the exception of some aspects of morality. Adam being tempted became the allegory for seduction. The feminine is totally defined by seduction and so Eve must forever repent for that sin of seduction by being morally responsible for Adam and so must all women. I refused to be that woman, but it doesn’t matter, because their have been and still are circumstances that our society requires it. You still will bear consequences for some man’s actions.

Recently, the public, focused on the treatment of women, have been looking at Islamic communities. On the one hand, in dress and veiled, we are told that it gives women freedom from being objectified and it is their choice to honor their tradition. Then on the other, a woman must be responsible for his desire, sexuality and perversions; since her actions, dress, speech and movement are subject to wreck the morals of men. It appears that some Muslim clerics believe that it is not a woman’s choice at all. It is commanded. You then wonder if sermons like this are being given in every mosque; as the Khaleej Times Online reports, this sermon is delivered in a prominent mosque in Australia, by Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly.

In a Ramadan sermon last month, the mufti of Sydney’s biggest mosque, Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly, said sexual assaults might not happen if women wore a hijab and stayed at home.
“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem,” Hilaly said, according to a newspaper translation.

Read the entire article.

This sermon has caused much controversy and the Sheikh has apologized, but has not really backed away from his sermon. Even though his analogy is gross, it is representative of attitudes in the Muslim world. We may abhor those ideas, but we must not forget that it has not been the only religion or culture where women have been expected to be responsible for male morality. Is it too much to expect of men to take responsibly for their morality?