Antifa International
Roughly half or more in each region say gender equality is very important. Pew Research Centre. Guess who was at the bottom of that list? The Middle fucking East. And you want more of them in Europe, right? Brilliant.

We’re guessing that you’re talking about part of the Pew Research Center’s 2015 Global Attitudes Survey (since you didn’t bother to properly cite your source).  This studied several different topics, surveying 38 countries around the world but just five in the Middle East (Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey).  They measured the importance of gender equality by asking “how important is it that women have the same rights as men in society?” 

Now that we got that out of the way, here are all the reasons why you’re fucked, Anon:

1) Generalizing about regions - yeah, you’re right, the five countries that = “the Middle East” for this survey came out at the bottom on the gender equality question.   What do people in Syria, Iran, the UAE, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, or Kuwait think about gender equality?  We don’t know because Pew didn’t survey those ten Middle Eastern countries, just five others.

But in every Middle Eastern county polled, the majority said it is somewhat or very important that women have the same rights as men in their society.  

In fact, gender equality was more important to people in Lebanon than people in three of the European countries polled.  You know Lebanon - the country hosting the most refugees per capita in the world?  Yes, that one.

So let’s not get too excited about what the results from this one poll done in five Middle Eastern countries actually means.
 
2) Ignoring the other factors that were identified - you probably didn’t bother to actually read the Pew report on the survey you’re histrionically waving about here, but if you did you’d know that women, the higher-educated, and the more left-leaning were all more likely to prioritize gender equality.  But of course you want to paint the world in broad, xenophobic strokes, so better for you to just ignore what women, better-educated people, and leftists in the Middle East think about gender equality and just ban ‘em all.  And of course never mind the less-educated and more right-wing dudebros where you’re from that don’t care about/are against gender equality.  Just pretend they don’t exist.  “Brilliant.” 

Hey Anon, don’t you think that maybe refugees coming to a country where there are still functioning schools they can attend that aren’t bombed-out or where they don’t have to worry about being violently attacked on the way to/from school might = more people achieving higher levels of education, which in turn would (according to this study) = better attitudes towards gender equality, as shown in the very survey you’ve referenced?  No, you didn’t stop to think about much before you wrote to us, did you?  

3) Ignoring the other parts of the survey - Like we said, this was a just a part of a larger survey on social attitudes.  

Did you know that four of the five Middle Eastern countries surveyed were more supportive of free speech than countries like Japan, Russia, or Ukraine?  That’s from the same survey, Anon!

Did you know that the same survey found that the five Middle Eastern countries were more likely to support people’s right to practice their religion of choice than the countries polled in Europe, North America, and Latin America?

Did you know that the same survey showed that people in the Middle East were more supportive of the rights of citizens to criticize their governments than people in Asia, Africa, or Russia?  

Same survey shows that people in the Middle East are less-likely than people globally to support government censorship of large political protests.  Bet you didn’t know that, huh?

It’s almost as if you cherry-picked the data you wanted to support your claim and ignored data that contradicted it.  That’s a particular logical fallacy we sometimes call The Texas Sharpshooter, Anon.  Stop doing it because it makes you look like a clown.

4) Prioritizing an opinion poll over people’s actual lives - Let’s assume for a second that you were right and that a survey done by a private Western research company that asked exactly one question about gender equality to people in just five of fifteen+ Middle Eastern countries = an accurate reading of people’s attitudes towards gender equality in the region and that attitude is not as positive as it is elsewhere.

Let’s also assume that, contrary to the very survey you’ve cited, these attitudes about gender equality cannot be swayed by things like better education and that the people that hold them will never change their minds no matter what.

Let’s also ignore the data from the same survey you’ve cited that shows that people in the Middle East are more likely to support free speech, freedom of religion, the right to criticize governments, and freedom from government censorship and focus solely on their attitudes towards gender equality.

Assuming all of that, what you’re saying still comes down to this:  you think we should refuse safe haven to refugees - people literally fleeing for their lives - if they come from a region that scored low in an opinion poll on gender equality.

That’s what you’re saying here - “we’re sorry that you’re going to be murdered or die in a bombing or starve to death, but we can’t have people from a country that scored low in an opinion poll on gender equality coming to live here!”  

What kind of fucking monster would suggest that?  That people and their families should all be condemned to unimaginable horrors and violence and death because you don’t think they scored high enough on a fucking opinion poll.  

You know what, Anon?  We’ve had it with people like you that pretend to care about gender equality as a fucking smokescreen for your Islamophobia; your racism; your xenophobia.  We see right through you.  GTFO with that shite.


asked by Anonymous
This answer with 522 notes was posted 2 years ago on the 14th of March, 2017.
  1. goth-presenting reblogged this from gei-ayanami
  2. abendlichter reblogged this from gei-ayanami
  3. gei-ayanami reblogged this from an-average-sized-person
  4. an-average-sized-person reblogged this from an-average-sized-person
  5. decentwater reblogged this from queerphylline
  6. lladcy reblogged this from queerphylline
  7. abysmal-apathy reblogged this from queerphylline
  8. aaa-galaxy reblogged this from queerphylline
  9. queerphylline reblogged this from antifainternational
  10. peanutbutt-ur reblogged this from gendernihilistanarchocommunist
  11. sirpmffofjersey reblogged this from gendernihilistanarchocommunist
  12. gendernihilistanarchocommunist reblogged this from gei-ayanami
  13. introvertedinchworm reblogged this from wlwocsource-archive
  14. hornyhungrysleepy reblogged this from wlwocsource-archive
  15. antifainternational posted this