You are an appropriately dressed (as according to your values) woman, walking through a neighborhood, when suddenly you hear catcalls that are obviously addressed towards you. Do you:
a) Turn around and engage in admonishing the person, educating him about the inappropriateness of his actions, thereby ensuring that you can walk through the neighborhood again without a similar incident taking place; OR
b) Ignore him, and make sure that you never walk through that neighborhood again; OR
c) Ignore him, and the next time you walk through that neighborhood, dress in even more layers of clothing, even if you would not normally do so in any other neighborhood; OR
d) Ignore him, and walk through that neighborhood again dressed exactly as you normally do?
How much should you let the actions of persons and society around you affect your actions, especially if you are engaging in behaviors that you feel are perfectly acceptable to you, value-wise?
Increasingly, men and women are marrying later, pursuing careers and trying to accomplish some sense of financial independence before getting hitched: a challenge for many Muslims in the West, as cost of higher education is becoming more prohibitive, and many are paying back loans years after graduation. For Muslim men, the aspect of obtaining financial independence is even more important as it is the responsibility of the man – in front of Allah (swt) – to financially provide for his family, and seeking this strong footing is often the main precursor to even thinking about marriage.
The (negative) repercussions of delayed marriage are many – so how should a Muslim man specifically balance seeking financial independence with seeking to complete their faith vis-à-vis marriage, especially if an early marriage can be more emotionally sound for him? What is the importance of financial independence, given that in this day and age, a woman is likely to earn and contribute financially to a family unit, more so than she could in the past?
Generally, it is more challenging to change one’s self than to change one’s surroundings. Perhaps one can gain more things from changing one’s surroundings – one can then glean an opportunity to become more independent, learn more about oneself, and expand one’s mind without the confines of one’s parents’ opinions or thoughts.
How necessary is it for women to live with their parents if they have the means to provide for themselves and live on their own? If one feels that she can be a better daughter by living apart from her family, should she move out?
Which is better in order to improve one’s relations with his/her family? Changing one’s self or changing one’s surroundings? Are the two mutually exclusive? Can one always change without changing her surroundings?
*Questions as posed by R.
While living in the West, how much should ties to the motherland dictate our behaviours and actions? Are minority communities living in the West more insulated than their counterparts, insisting on practices that would not be considered the norm even by the educated in the East?
Articles of relevance:
To what extent are men and women socialized to be different? Does one gender naturally possess certain characteristics – mental, not physical – over the other?
Excerpt from an article:
The study seems to show for the first time in physical terms what many people probably assume they already know: that women are generally more empathetic than men, and that men take great pleasure in seeing revenge exacted.
Men “expressed more desire for revenge and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as deserved physical punishment,” said Dr. Tania Singer, the lead researcher, of the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College London.
But far from condemning the male impulse for retribution, Dr. Singer said it had an important social function: “This type of behavior has probably been crucial in the evolution of society as the majority of people in a group are motivated to punish those who cheat on the rest.”
Articles of relevance:
When bad people are punished, men smile (but women don’t)
Brain scans reveals men’s pleasure in revenge
 | just_another_teen on World’s Biggest Pro… |
 | Matthew on World’s Biggest Pro… |
 | cracked on Memory |
 | S on Dating and Courting |
 | .m on Rights of Minorities |
