A while ago in a forum a Muslim man attempted to construct an argument by announcing he “wouldn’t be surprised” if I were raped or abused and were blaming Islam (?) for this instead of those who had inflicted the injustices upon me (and thus obviously any interpretation I make is a result of hysteria). I did not deny these “charges” nor directly address the statement, as it was all ridiculous, and it was apparent he was so drunk on male privilege that he could easily toss around triggering words. The continuing tradition of men deeming women insane in order to invalidate their assertions is uninteresting by now. Victims make their (religious, racial, ideological, etc.) communities “look bad” and therefore must be silenced. Frankly what’s more incredible was his need to discredit me at all, as a number of people were already militantly disagreeing with me based on strawman arguments and ad hominen attacks, both of which his accusation neatly embodies. Obviously I had never blamed Islam (strawman) and had merely proposed that interpretations of the Qur’an have been subject to a patriarchal paradigm, and… well, the ad hominen is clear.
Because he seems quite active in the Islamosphere I have the unpleasant experience of running into him again in comment sections.
Anyway, I raise this little incident from its grave to address an underlying premise embedded within it: Muslim men are so arrogantly obsessed with policing hi’jab on women that they’re conceited enough to believe they could never lose faith. He was assuming that I was on the brink of losing Islam (firmly, no) and was convinced that if he had endured rape and abuse he would still remain Muslim. I’m highly wary of (and amused by) those who feel so strongly secure in their faiths that they effortlessly shame the struggles of others, believing they would have endured. Had he not been a Prophet, no doubt they feel that they would have never committed Adam’s destined sin? That in the place of Jonah, they would have never faltered?
Such hatred and repulsion for those who have left the faith, as well as the unspeakable disparagement aimed at victims of suicide (whom many Muslims interpret as having lost faith without consideration for the victim’s state of mentality or recognition that it’s for God alone to judge) while advertising their own security, is only telltale of one’s own unsteadiness.
I’ve noticed a number of Muslim men are much crueler to members of their own faith who disagree with them than they are to others, which is laughably reminiscent of people who pretend to be nice to you for a few months before exposing their true colors.
Were Satan alone at fault, God wouldn’t punish men.
the fatal feminist 
So typical.
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So sorry you had to put up with that – I’m always amazed how easily people (especially those on the internets) reach for the ‘you should be raped’ option in debates.
I’ve been thinking a lot about narratives of victims and victimization recently, not sure why – I’ve never really understood the argument of ‘well yes, you would think that, you were raped/abused/harassed/whatever’. We are the sum of our experiences, the good and the bad, but we seem to have an expectation that those who had suffered some kind of abuse should be able to distance themselves from their experiences when they discuss the abstract concept of abuse. All I can think is that this is just a way to excise them from the conversation, to invalidate their experiences, possibly also with a hint of Puritanical perfectionism, the belief that somewhere out there there’s a perfect human being who has never had anything but good, rational experiences and so can speak to any subject without risk of bias.
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Thank you Jessica. I agree entirely.
Our criteria of objectivity itself is skewed by the framework of the points of view we privilege. After all, who defines what’s objective but the hierarchies of oppression? I’m beginning to wonder if I should have made these arguments as a man.
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