As-salamu alaykum guys. Before we start today's session, this is part of a greater project called the Sapience Academy. This is one of the greatest academies in the world when it comes to interdisciplinary studies and intellectually defending Islam. I would argue it's the best. It's the best in the world when we talk about things like feminism, liberalism, atheism. Yes, if you want to defend Islam and have information like the ones that you're going to see today, click the link below and go through the courses that we've got in the Sapience Academy. As-salamu alaykum.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh and welcome to another session where we're going to be talking about something very, very important, which is feminism. And actually, we're going to be speaking about pseudo-Islamic feminism. Or what Ali has coined now, I think is I have to give him credit for this, the nifaqi feminism, or which we're going to come to this, which is the strand of feminism which attempts to harmonize between Islam and feminism, tries to reconcile between those two things. Although, as we said, that's a theologically and intellectually bankrupt and impossible exercise.
So, we're going to be speaking about that, but before we do speak about that, we're going to be speaking about feminism just as a recap and an overview. Obviously, we've done lots of sessions in before as part of the London area. I've spoke about first wave and second wave feminism, etc. And I've written a book on feminism called fifth wave feminism where I'm responding to intersectional feminist approaches, which is like third wave and beyond. But this is going to be a quick overview, but with some very important information, I think.
The Outdated Aqidah Syllabus
The first thing I think that we need to say is this. Now, if you go to a lot of the masajid, if you go to a lot of the students of knowledge kind of circles, right? If you go to a lot of the academic centers of Islamic studies, if you go to the aqidah studies that they study, right? Is ancient and outdated a lot of it. Because what they'll say is, let's talk about the Mu'tazila, for example. The rationalists, the Mu'tazila. Let's talk about khalq al-Qur'an. Because Imam Ahmad was so opposed to khalq al-Qur'an that he was put into prison for such and such a thing. He was Imam Ahmad was put into prison because the people believed in khalq al-Qur'an and he had no he said a creation of the Qur'an, he said no, the Qur'an is not created and he was tortured for that. So, we have to go through that.
Let's talk about the Khawarij. Although that does have some level of continuity with some of the things and the movements today. Let's talk about the early Shi'a. Let's talk about this and that. Although all of these things have their place. I want to submit to the people watching at home today that frankly, if you go to the average Muslim and you tell them and you ask them what is the difference what are the key differences between an Ash'ari and a Maturidi? I should forget about the average Muslim. I assure you the students of knowledge don't even know the differences. A student of knowledge if I ask a student of knowledge give me three differences between the Ash'ari school and the Maturidi school. He will not be able to outline three differences. I promise you. If you go to a layperson and tell them what's the difference between the Athari and Ash'ari aqidah. You might be able to squeeze from some of them or some of them believe that you know the Allah is above the throne and the other ones don't believe in that.
Maybe. But if you go to any layperson not just in the West but in Latin America, in Asia, in the Middle East and you ask them about the feminist movement. Every single I'm not going to say every single one of them but great number of people especially in the West probably a majority of people know what feminism is and they have been affected by it. Likewise with liberalism. But somehow the aqidah syllabi have not been adjusted to refute these two most threatening aqidah aspects. Because look, these are claims to akhlaqiyat, to ethics. They have a separate ethical system. Feminism and liberalism has a separate ethical system and they affect the iman of the Muslim people. So, this is aqidah studies.
Yet the aqidah syllabi have not been adapted and updated to reflect how to respond to the feminist movement or to feminist [snorts] claims or feminist attacks against Islam. Although we have found that feminism has actually constitutes for Muslim people, feminism and liberalism, those two ideologies, the basis of a lot of the doubts that they have about Islam. For example, we have in Sapience, this institute here, we have the Lighthouse mentoring service. And I asked Luqman Yusuf Pond as who's doing great work there to tell me what are the five he's tabulated everything. I said what are the five most things that people have shubuhat about, like doubts, destructive doubts about. And three out of the five were related somehow to feministic ideas. Things about Islam which are not incommensurate with feminism. People have doubts about that.
And what we've found is that in in Islamic history or in the recent times, the mashayikh and the ulama and all these, they have an approach which is trying to do some kind of a hermeneutical gymnastics, trying to get the verse to fit with like popular conceptions. And that's a weak and backfooted and impossible approach. And in fact, it probably leads to more apostasy and shakk and doubt and rayb than anything else. The correct approach is a confrontational approach to those elements of aqidah that oppose Islam in a direct way. In the same way as Imam Ahmad opposed the Mu'tazila. If you I bid to you and I submit to you that if he was alive today, he would be opposing these. If al-Ghazali was alive today, he would be opposing these.
If Ibn Taymiyyah was alive today, he would be he would the first thing he'd be speaking about is not khalq al-Qur'an. He'd be speaking about the most destructive elements of the aqidah of the Muslims which is feminism and liberalism because of the global hegemonic power which has allowed those two ideologies to flourish for economic reasons which we'll come to.
Defining Feminism
So, let me ask a question to start us all up. What is the definition of feminism? Who knows what the definition of feminism is? You know no one knows it. Yeah. What's the definition of feminism? You guys talk about feminism all the time. What's the definition of it? Go ahead.
AudienceThat women are equal to men in every way.
Mohammed HijabThat's not really a correct that's not correct, okay? The correct definition is, yeah?
AudienceEqual rights for men and women.
Mohammed HijabYeah, so that it's more of a prescriptive statement. It's they want there to be equal rights. So, equality was correct. That part of it was correct. They want there to be equal rights for men and women socially, economically and politically. That's the most basic definition like Britannica Encyclopedia uses that definition, etc. However, the fact of the matter is that in academia, feminism is not just one strand. You have, for example, liberal feminism, okay? You have what is referred to as materialist feminism. Now, materialist feminism is like Marxist feminism. Either Marxist or socialist and both of them are on the same spectrum, yeah? And you have radical feminism. These are the three main in in the academic literature, the three main types of feminism, okay? Which have been represented. Obviously, there's different waves which we can go through quickly now. But you should be aware that each of those kinds of feminists would have a kind of different definition to the other one as to what feminism is.
So, if you ask a Marxist feminist, you'll have a slightly different definition of what feminism is to a liberal feminist. A liberal feminist will have a slightly different definition as to what a materialist feminist and so on and so forth. But one thing that unites all of these feminists together is an idea of the patriarchy. Okay.
The Patriarchy
Now, what is this patriarchy? Explain to me what the someone tell me what the patriarchy is.
AudienceIs it that society is run by like the male figure, whether it's the family, government, institutions, all down to the micro level.
Mohammed HijabYeah, sure.
Audience[laughter]
Mohammed HijabThat's fine. It's run by it's run by men, right? Most I mean here's here's the thing. With patriarchy, there's no fixed definition. Once again, different thinkers have different ideas. But I'll give you one definition, okay? Which I think captures a lot of what patriarchy is about. Sylvia Walby defines patriarchy as a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women. It's not just that it's not just that they have power over them. They dominate over them. They oppress them and they exploit them. Okay?
Now, why is it that they think that men are dominating, oppressing and exploiting women? And they think that's happened throughout history and they think that's also happening now. Why do you think they think that? Say that again. Why do you think that feminist theorists, whether they are radical feminist, liberal feminist or materialist feminist, why do you think that those particular feminist theorists believe that historically men have been dominating, oppressing women? Why is that?
AudienceHow? Because that that that that has that that has happened. But it depends how they define it. So, men men are the ones who've been dominating certain work fields, but they've misconstrued it to make it seem as if them dominating those areas means that they are treated unequally. So, that's that's number one.
Mohammed HijabThat's good. I actually don't I don't think that's bad, but let me let me get couple of other answers and then I'm going to give you a couple of also Christianity as well played a role as well. Sure. The discussion of does a woman have a soul and this that.
AudienceTwo brief reasons might be number one, men have the highest paying jobs and so on and so forth. And secondly, men are usually the leaders of the nuclear family, the traditional nuclear family. So, there's some examples of that. So,
Mohammed HijabBeautiful. So there's some examples of that. So that's a good point that some of them say that the evidence of a patriarchy is that men have been allowed into certain fields than women have not been allowed to historically, right? For example, politics. There's been more male leaders in history in every civilization than women. Et cetera, et cetera. They'll give many different examples of that.
Refuting Patriarchy
Now, I'm just going to get straight into this, okay? Um and refute this, okay? Because attention spans now are very low. So I need to get straight into the thick of it. The refutation of patriarchy is as follows, okay? And I want you to write this somewhere down, okay?
Refutation 1: Power Does Not Equal Oppression
Refutation number one. Patriarchy assumes in many cases that just the fact that men have power over women is an evidence of oppression. Mhm. Let me say that again. Patriarchy assumes just the fact that men have power over women is evidence of what? Oppression. Where did they get this understanding from? You could argue, and this is what I think they got it from, especially the radical and materialist strands but also the liberal strands. They probably got it from critical theorists.
Now, critical theory I don't want to give you too much information, all right? But critical theory started with something called the Frankfurt School. Okay. And you had someone called Adorno and Horkheimer, Max Horkheimer, and others who started this school the Frankfurt School and they essentially said that where there is a power relationship, that's evidence of oppression. Okay? They actually followed up from Marx, Karl Marx. If you remember when we were talking about uh Marxism in the Londoner we said that Marx essentially had this idea that the upper class are exploiting the lower classes or the working classes. The bourgeoisie is oppressing the proletariat. Yeah, this is the technical terms. They're they're doing that by being in that hierarchy. So hierarchy is inherently what? Oppressive. That is the hidden assumption of many of the patriarchy theorists. That hierarchy is what? Is oppression.
Now, what's the what's the question that we want to ask? What's the evidence for that? No. Even the Quran mentions, and this is to bring Islam into it that we have put some of you above others so that some of you can employ others. So from the Islamic perspective hierarchy does not mean oppression. In fact, there's a clear verse. That's probably one of the clearest verse in the Quran that shows you hierarchy cannot mean because Allah is allowing the hierarchy. Allah is saying here he is allowing the hierarchy to happen. Some people have more money than others. Some people have more knowledge than others. Some people have more whatever than others. Allah is allowing that as an imtihan, as a as a test for the people. But obviously that's from our spiritual confessional perspective. We're going back now. If they are saying that a hierarchy means oppression, they need to provide what? They need to provide evidence for that because they don't have any evidence.
So the first question that you would ask someone who believes in patriarchy theory is what? Do you believe, first question, put this question down somewhere, do you believe that just the fact that men have had power, if we assume that they have, and this is a questionable supposition, right? Do you believe that the fact that men have power over women is evidence of oppression? If they say yes then you ask them what? Bring your evidence for that. And you'll see them scramble because no one has been able to bring evidence for that. What's the question again? Do you Do you believe power relationships between men and women, where men dominate women through power indicates oppression from one party to the other, yeah? If they say yes we do believe that. Of course it does mean that. So what's the evidence for that? Bring your evidence. You are now proposing that just by the fact that there's a power hierarchy, huh? That there's oppression. You haven't provided any evidence for that, have you?
AudienceWell, what what what's the refutation though?
Mohammed HijabSo we're we're refuting what? What are we refuting here? Yeah, but what's the example you're giving? No, no. What what's the the main thing we're refuting? That the power relation Yeah. So we're refuting the I'm going to call it patriarchy theory, okay? Which is I would say if if there was one pillar of feminism, you know how Islam has five pillars?
AudienceYeah.
Mohammed HijabThere was one pillar of feminism, it would be patriarchy. If you can get that, you can break feminism. Yeah? You can break the whole ideology. So I'm giving you refutations for how to break patriarchy because if you can get break that one, you break everything. The first thing we said patriarchy assumes that men dominate women and that equals what? Oppression. We said that they probably got this from critical theorists. Like who? What school? What's it called? The Frankfurt School. Yes? And then you can research that in your own time. And some of them go for the post-modernist school. I'm not going to go That's a bit too deep for now. Which assumes that power equals what?
AudienceOppression, right?
Mohammed HijabOkay, excellent. If power equals oppression what's the evidence for that? That's We only have one question cuz you're making a claim, right? That the men have had power over women and that means that they've oppressed them. Okay, what's the evidence for that? You see?
Refutation 2: The Mother-Child Dynamic
The second refutation. The second refutation which I thought about when I was in the shower. Usually my best ideas come there, yeah?
Audience[laughter]
Mohammed HijabIs Okay. Why do they say men have power over women? Because they're stronger than them, because they're in certain industries that they're not in. They give a variety of different examples. Let me ask you guys a question. Is there a power relationship between a mother and a child? Yeah. Yes, there is. Who's more powerful, the mother or the child? The Mother. Is that the case cross-civilizationally? Yes.
AudienceYes.
Mohammed HijabIs that the case historically? Yes.
AudienceYes.
Mohammed HijabSo you could say throughout history mothers have had power over children, right? Yeah. Even when they become adults, they have power still over them. They have influence, right? So why is there not a word to describe this phenomenon just like there's a word like patriarchy? Yeah. Since you are against all types of power hierarchies, then why are you allowing mothers to have power over children? Or is it only when men have power that you have a problem? But when women have power, you have no problem. And that's interesting cuz they can come and say, yeah, but mothers tend to love their children and they won't they won't oppress them. But we know through our NSPCC that women are the ones that more likely to abuse their children.
AudienceThat's a good point.
Mohammed HijabBut the point I'm making is that they're they're going further than that. They're saying any power hierarchy means what? Oppression. Didn't they say that?
AudienceYes.
Mohammed HijabSo if they say any power hierarchy equals oppression, if a mother has a power hierarchy, therefore a mother is doing what? Oppression. Now, I'll be honest with you because I have to be for the sake of honesty, some of them will admit that. Now, I was in the gender studies department for postgraduate for one year. People don't know When I wrote my book actually, I I spent a whole year doing gender studies with the transgender people and these guys. I was there for a year studying. And in fact, when I did the book, each of those little essays that I did were essays that I handed in, they reviewed it, and then I made it into a little book. And all of them got hamdulillah excellent distinction marks, you know, as you would expect.
But nevertheless I actually brought this up in a seminar in a way and they did a lot of them bit the bullet with it. And I was surprised to see that they bit the bullet. They said, yes, I agree. And the ones who would bite the bullet with it are the intersectionalist feminists. Third wave feminists, they Some of them will bite the bullet. They say, yes, mothers have been oppressing children. And that's why there should be an equality even with that. And you'll find some of that being now echoed by the way in Netflix series and stuff. And there should be a whole program done on Netflix series and how Netflix influences through third wave feminism these ideas. Like for example, they'll make the child be the one who has to make the decision and the the parent is the one who has to listen, and there's an equality between child and parent. They're they're clearly putting that forward.
So some feminists will bite the bullet on that. But my criticism is, why is there no word for this? Okay? There's a word for patriarchy, but there's no word for the relationship between mother and what? Child. Yes. Isn't the argument Yeah, but there's dependency there as well because if if the vessel of the man is stronger than the vessel of the woman then there's clearly dependency from one another. And it doesn't matter if there's dependency or not biologically. For them, they only care that these particular ones only care if there's power. It doesn't matter how the power got there. If there's power, then it's oppressive. You see? So if they're saying it doesn't matter how the power got there, whether it's biologically justified or whatever, they don't care about any of that. The question is if there's power, they say power is evidence of oppression, okay? So I'm saying if power is evidence of oppression, the mothers have been oppressive for the last 5,000 years of civilization, human civilization, and beyond actually, before civilization. You see?
Refutation 3: Preference Theory
The third refutation. Do you understand this refutation? Okay. The third refutation of patriarchy. The third refutation is actually one I found from a feminist. Which her name was Catherine Hakim, okay? And it's mentioned in the slides. You can look at the slides in your own time. But she had something and I was reading her papers and stuff. And she's a self-described feminist. I mean, don't let the surname uh uh fool you. She's not a Muslim or anything like that. Maybe she had a maybe Muslim father, but she's nothing to do with Islam. She's a proper feminist. She had something called preference theory. A very interesting thing. And now remember, she's coming from a liberal individualistic perspective. She says the following. She says She first of all, she done a study in I think it was Australia in the beginning and then she did in other places where she asked women what they want to do. What would they prefer to do?
So, women were divided into three types. Some of them said what? Some of them said we'd rather be stay-at-home mothers. Some of them said, "No, we want to be career-orientated." And the vast majority wanted to do a bit of both, part-time work and rearing the children. This is Western women, white women, right? And then she said that the the patriarchy assumes that for human history or for that that it assumes that the reason why women are in not in the workplaces they want to be in is because they've been stopped but the fact is they've preferred it. Do you understand this point? The the assumption is women have wanted to go into the military, have wanted to be in politics, and they've been stopped by men continuously and systematically. But what she's saying is that that actually, the fact that when you ask women today what they'd rather do, and there are some women that say that we would rather stay at home or some of them that say that would want to do part-time work and be with the kids, it shows you that it's something that they prefer to do. And obviously, you can see for biological reasons why that would be the case. Do you see the the argument here? Yeah.
So, the patriarchy assumes a lot of it a lot of the definitions of patriarchy assume that there's been some suppression by men. A lot of them have that word in there, subjugation, suppression. That men have subdued women and stopped them from doing what they've they've inhibited them from doing the things that they've wanted to do. But what it fails to understand is that actually, women have chosen those things. And imagine if that's women in the modern world after feminism, imagine in the pre-modern world when there was no such thing as feminism. Imagine the numbers of women that would prefer to be women uh uh mothers. I imagine the amount of women that it would be much higher than that.
AudienceSo, preference theory can be used as a way to show that you guys assume that women have been stopped by men from doing all these things, but the fact is historically and contemporaneously, they've chosen to have children and have adaptive roles. Yeah? And bearing in mind that if we go the past decade, there was more insecurity and instability in societies, uh you know, with you know, wars and stuff. It's not like you had Tesco around the corner, police officer, and mechanic coming in. You they relied heavily on men more than they did today. So, maybe they can make that So, if if if in today's in today's in today's time they have those privileges, they are still wanting to go to the workplace, imagine how would it been back then when they solely relied on a man.
Mohammed HijabPerfect. So, do you remember that So, this is a good point. Refutation number one was what? Of patriarchy. Patriarchy assumes that in many cases that the men having power women is No, sorry. Do you believe power relations between men and women indicate oppression? Yeah. Yeah. And what's our point? We said that the child and the mother. How do you prove that first? We ask first, how do you how do you prove that hierarchy equals what? Oppression. You can't prove it. Yes, you can't. Yeah. Okay, number two is we said If hierarchy equals oppression, then why are mothers not oppressing children throughout history since they have a power hierarchy over them, yeah? The third one, and we said some intersectionalists will bite the bullet. Yeah. And and they have but bitten the bullet. The third one, we said what? We said preference theory, Catherine Hakim. She makes the argument, she's a feminist herself, that women are choosing to go into these vocations. They are choosing to rear children.
Refutation 4: Intersectional Feminism
Mohammed HijabThere's a fourth one before questions, one more and then I'll Not a question. Maybe this adds on to it. We can see many examples in power dynamics Yeah. that the children and women are saved first.
AudienceThat's a good point.
Mohammed HijabCan we add that because Yeah, yeah. I will mention I will mention that. Is that is that to this point or something else? There's a fifth one. That's that's number five. We'll come to that number five. It's good that you reminded me actually. Number four before number five is the intersectionalists uh uh refutation. So, feminists themselves refute patriarchy, okay?
Now, just to remind everyone, there's let's say three main waves of feminism for the sake of argument. Yeah, the fourth wave feminism is there's not really much to it. It's not nothing to talk about here. First wave was what? Who remembers what the first wave of feminism was? Equality between the sexes? In what sense? Social, economical The first wave. When was it? What was the what was the main focus of the first wave of feminism? No. Voting. Voting. Yeah, voting, voting, yeah? This was the the suffragettes and suffragists and all this kind of stuff.
AudienceYeah. Some scholars they say that the first person who uh started the first wave was Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. Okay, so they they date it around that time. But really where the first wave took prominence was in the enfranchisement movement where 1792 or 1972? 1792. Yeah. So, uh the enfranchisement movement was in the early 1900s.
Mohammed HijabOkay, so that you know, that's when women got the vote in 1914 in this country and 4 years later in America. And then in 1924, women over the age of uh 80 like 18 First it was 35 then it was 18. So, etc. etc. The first wave movement was was focused on that. We spoke about how it was a racist movement. It was anti-black. Elizabeth Stanton was saying for example that the black man should How could the black cuz the black people had the vote before whites women by the way in America. Black people had the vote before what? Women. And she one of the cases that she was making, Elizabeth Stanton and others, was how can this black man, the son of a slave, that's a direct quotation, son of a slave, how can he have this the the the vote before me? Before us white women, how? What's her name? Elizabeth Elizabeth Stanton?
AudienceElizabeth Stanton. Stanton? Stanton.
Mohammed HijabYeah, it's in the slides. You you'll find it. So, how could this black man have the slave thing before me? So, the first wave feminist movement, right? The first wave feminist movement was all about the vote. Um Some call this equity feminism. Some call this equity feminism. We don't have as much a problem with this by the way from the Islamic perspective as we do with the second and third waves. The second wave was Germaine Greer and Betty Friedan. And now you have abortion, the sexual liberation, and all these kinds of things, and equal pay. But then you had the whole domestic drudgery, and the mother was being deprecated, and being in the home was some kind of an oppression, and all that kind of stuff. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, etc. etc.
Then you had third wave feminism, which is the intersectionalists approach, okay? The intersectionalists approach is where they start to talk about transgenders, etc. etc. Now, third wave feminism started in 1984. Most people say that with Kimberlé Crenshaw who had this idea of an intersectionalists approach. And her point was, and I'll tie this to the patriarchy, she said the following. She said that And actually, she had a refutation of the of the patriarchy herself, Kimberlé Crenshaw, yeah? Who's like in a in a way the the the the main figure that separated the second and the third wave. She was a lawyer by profession, I believe. And she said that well, actually, a woman is not just a woman, is she? She's a woman, she could be black woman, she could be old or young, she could be gay or straight. This is the language they usually use. These are the four main things they usually mention, yeah? Sexual orientation, age, um sometimes they bring in disability. Yeah, but usually those four things, yeah?
So, they say we can't just look at oppression and power dynamics by men versus women. We have to look at it also including the black card. Including uh for example, colonialism. Including age and disability, etc. etc., right? So, that's why Judith Butler, who was one of the main figures still alive today, and she's one of the main figures of the third wave uh movement, she refuted patriarchy. In her book Gender Troubles, she refuted it and she said, "Well, that's a binary." Because it's not just men versus women, is it? There's there's all kinds of different A woman is not just a woman, but she's a black woman. She's a religious woman. She's a non-religious Whatever it may be. There's many different um identifiers. I wrote a book in refutation of that called The Fifth Wave Feminism. But I used her uh refutation of of patriarchy there as well.
The point is is that if you say that if you say, "Well, it's not just a woman, but it's you know, you've got all these other intersects, yeah? You've got all these other things." Then the patriarchy collapses. Because you can't say that men have been oppressing women because what what is a man? What is a woman? We don't even know. It's a fluid thing. And number one, number two is that she's not just a man, but this is a man that's a white man, a a black woman. I'll give you just one example from my own that I've used myself on the streets as well, and it's been uh successful. That illustrates this point. America had the transatlantic slave trade, right? So, I want you to imagine a house with a white man and a white woman. And they have a black slave, a male black slave. Who has more power even according to them? The white woman or the black slave?
AudienceWhite woman.
Mohammed HijabThe white woman. So, he's this black slave, if you look at it very binary in a binary way, he's meant to be part of the patriarchy really. He's meant to be colluding with this other white guy. But the fact is, it's the white woman and the and the white man that are colluding together against a black man. And you might think it's a trivial example, but you know, slavery at transatlantic racist type slavery is one example. Then you have colonialism. All these white women are benefiting from all these brown men. How can you say that these brown men are somehow a part of a patriarchy against the white woman? Do you see the point? So, when you look at it in a more complex manner with all the different intersects, the intersectionalists approach says that patriarchy itself kind of collapses. That's why you'll find a lot of the second wave feminists, they really have a gripe with the third wave ones. There's a fight between them actually. The J.K. Rowling, yeah? The one who's written Harry Potter. She's always on Twitter like attacking the transgender. Why do you think she's doing that? She's attacking the Why do you think she's attacking the third wave feminists?
AudienceWhy do you think Germaine Greer, who wrote The Female Eunuch, one of the biggest figures of the feminist movement, why do you think that she attacks the transgenders? Why? Because she understands that the moment you say that gender's fluid, you destroy the patriarchy.
Mohammed HijabYou're destroying our ideology. You're you're you're you're you're you're annihilating our religion. You see the point? That's why they have infighting. But we use that infighting to our advantage. Cuz it constitutes the fourth refutation of patriarchy, which is that a woman is not just a woman, is she? She's many different things. And how do you know that it's that men are oppressing women in the ways that you just described when you have all these other intersects? Yeah?
Refutation 5: The Myth of Male Power
The fifth one is what you mentioned, Ali. And this is something which Warren Farrell, when he wrote And this is We'll go through a bit of a reading of this. That he wrote in The Myth of Male Power, and I think it's a book that everyone should read. This book is one of the There's six books I think everyone should read, yeah, about like feminism. And this is one of them, The Myth of Male Power, Warren Farrell, yeah. It's a classic. And he says, "Okay, look." He makes a couple of arguments like the ones that you're making, right? One of the arguments is that he makes. He says, "You Men have been forced to do things in history. For example, conscription. This is his famous example." And Jordan Peterson takes his examples and he takes his arguments and copies them. He's actually interviewed him once, but he never gives him credit for the arguments. It's not his arguments. It's Warren Farrell's arguments. He wrote two really good books, The Myth of Male Power and The Boy Crisis, both in the reading list of six books to read about this. You should read them cover to cover. Excellent books.
But he makes the point. He says, "Men have been forced to go into the army. It's called conscription. They've been forced. So, why is