You, objectify and belittle all women when you refer to us as ‘items’.

sr Hamidah,

That is exactly what I meant.

Boys/men need to be taught modesty when dealing with the opposite sex. A consistent modesty with all females: non-mahram, classmates, hijabi, non-hijabi, Muslim, non-Muslim, and every girl in between. Too often brothers don’t hold themselves accountable but complain about sisters being immodest.

I emphasise the distinction between the identified cause, and its *form*, because the same cause in a different *form* affects women and girls in many conservative cultures. sometimes we fixate on the wrong part of a study because of confirmation bias (it suits our pre-existing view), and so miss the wider insight from the study.

For instance, if the media always portrays women as the students, never the teacher, the accused/defendent but never the judge or lawyers, the clerk, never the boss, the one sitting on the park bench, never the parent playing frisbee or soccer with her son/daughter in the field, listening to a man’s opinion, never offering valuable input of her own, the lab researcher, never the field researcher, the scholar, never the sporstman, the team member, never the team lead, etc etc this also projects an implicit cultural expectation of what women should be, that still probably impedes math, science and athletics, not to mention authority and leadership, even if it is not a sexualised expectation.

ultimately it is a matter of what the culture really wishes for its members, both men and women, and whether its cultural expression – of which media portrayal is a key part – matches that aspiration.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is what the Brother is saying, I believe. *he* is not objectifying women, he is recognizing that we have been turned into objects not only in one society but in many, and it’s not a new phenomenon, either, if I may add.

However, the reality that you describe in your article does not mean that women in Islam are not oppressed. One oppression in one (western) society does not erase it in another (islamic) society.