The thing about Western civilization is that it is continuously progressing to ever greater heights of achievement and happiness for its citizens. Western values continue to improve year after year as new moral truths are discovered and new liberties are established.
Women’s liberation is the best example. Ten or twenty years ago, no one knew what “mansplaining” was and how it was one of the most evil ways men regularly oppress women. Twenty years ago, there was no #metoo movement liberating women from the rape-y men who are subjugating them through toxic masculinity. Twenty years ago, no one was talking about “rape culture” and no universities had instituted strict anti-rape regulations to protect innocent, defenseless women.
But now, we know about all these things and can fight against them on a personal and institutional level. And that’s why Western society today is more advanced, more moral, and more conducive to happiness for all, especially women. This is progress! We can do it!
For many decades, drugs of abuse were a menace that mostly threatened the lives of men. In 1999, fewer than 1 in 25,000 adult women in the United States died of a drug overdose, and childbirth was twice as deadly.
No more. Drug overdoses have become a prodigious thief of female lives in the U.S. And they are increasingly claiming women’s lives deep into middle age, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of the 70,237 fatal drug overdoses in the United States during 2017, 18,110 of the victims were women between the ages of 30 and 64, records from the National Vital Statistics System show. That’s up from 4,314 in 1999.
Some of the steepest increases in fatality rates have been seen in women who may not fit the public’s expectations of drug abusers. For instance, the rate of drug overdose deaths among women ages 55 to 64 multiplied by a factor of five between 1999 and 2017, driven by a tenfold increase in the rate of prescription opioid deaths.
Oh… guess not.
The finding that women well beyond middle age are misusing prescription drugs, abusing illicit drugs and probably taking dangerous drug combinations is more than just a curiosity. Added to an 80% rise in suicide rates among 45-to-64-year-old women since around the turn of the century, it suggests that daughters, wives, mothers and grandmothers are bearing greater strains than they have in the past.
Along with rising death rates of alcohol-related diseases among women, fatal overdoses are sometimes referred to as “deaths of despair.” In the last three years, they have begun to reverse decades of gains made in the nation’s life expectancy.
But how can this be?! Haven’t women’s rights advanced so much over the past few decades? Hasn’t the sisterhood made so many advances? Haven’t things like the Women’s March given newfound hope to women that there is a “women’s wave” that will overcome all obstacles?
Then why are suicide rates on the steep rise? Why are 50 year-old women binge drinking themselves to death?
In traditional Muslim society, a typical 50 year-old woman is a grandmother enjoying her children and her children’s children, living her golden years surrounded with family and loved ones.
In today’s Western society, a typical 50 year-old woman is a strong, independent careerwoman who wears genitalia hats on the weekend, marching against the patriarchy, and then coming home to her empty, husbandless, childless, grandchild-less apartment, to chug cheap wine and anti-depressants in front of Netflix.
Feminist Muslims need to take a good, hard look at where their choices are going to lead them. This is your future. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just look around you. Open your eyes. The happy-go-lucky lesbians and patriarchy-hating activists might look like they’re enjoying life on social media. But behind closed doors, they’re taking prescription drugs to manage their crippling depression.
Does anyone care about these women? Does anyone care about why they are more depressed and suicidal than ever despite supposedly being more independent and more “woke” than ever?
I’m sure there is a way to blame all this on men, of course. It must be men’s fault that women are more suicidal now than ever. It can’t be the fault of the feminist ideology that lies to women telling them that they will be more happy the more independent they are, the more they shun their natural inclinations towards motherhood in order to “reach their true potential” working as corporate stooges 40+ hours a week. It can’t be the fault of the feminist ideology that lies to women telling them that they must be equal to men in every respect and can never “stoop so low” as being obedient and faithful to a loving patriarch, recognizing his leadership and his authority as the wali.
It is never the fault of feminism.
I wonder what the female suicide and drug overdose rate will be in another 5 years…
I never miss the chance to quote Khalil Gibran in such situations,
“Modern civilization has made woman a little wiser, but it has increased her suffering because of man’s covetousness. The woman of yesterday was a happy wife, but the woman of today is a miserable mistress. In the past she walked blindly in the light, but now she walks open-eyed in the dark. She was beautiful in her ignorance, virtuous in her simplicity, and strong in her weakness. Today she has become ugly in her ingenuity, superficial and heartless in her knowledge.
very interesting article I would like to add that in USA the mother of feminism the rate of incarceration of women has increased by 400%…thanks to “liberation” , however I would like to disagree to some extent that the feminism is the only culprit….I do believe that women have to stop blaming men for their unhappiness , it is their desire to liberate themselves from obedience to God and thus their desire, then , to liberate from patriarchy and family values etc. In doing so they have exposed themselves to extreme vulnerability, but men of today have failed as well…in pursuit of wealth, beautiful women, their lifestyles have subjugated women too….the fathers and the brothers and the husbands need to step up and honour the women of the family….it is when both sexes realise their duties to God and towards society can these issues be addressed
“but men of today have failed as well…in pursuit of wealth, beautiful women, their lifestyles have subjugated women too…” your comment ceased to make much sense from this point on. how exactly is pursuit of wealth and beautiful women subjugating women?? (Unless you’re referring to worldly pleasures in general that let men’s guards down) Both of those things are halal, encouraged and existed since Adam (P). in fact, that is what used to keep women happy. men today are doing less of those two things. today’s men have less drive to pursue either of those things. men are faced with a shortage of wealth left for them after women have been pushed to take up so much of it. there is also a shortage of women men find themselves attracted to (not at all men’s fault – if you need more elaboration, let me know). men’s fault is loosening their grip, not having or practicing enough imaan, tawakkul and jihad, becoming weak men, indulging in worldly affairs, and letting their guards down, not fighting dangerous -isms, and often inviting them inside their very homes.