Ibn-Zohr University Comparative Studies Master's Program Academic Thinking and Writing Instructor: A.

Elomari Name: _Mohamed Idyassine_________

Acad. Year: 2011-2012 First Term Final Exam January 31, 2012.

A.
1. Ashley Montagu contends that female sex is not emotionally or physically weaker than male sex. On the contrary, the female sex is naturally superior to the male sex for many reasons. Firstly, it is only the process of socialization and culture that play great roles in prescribing the ways in which girls and boys are supposed to behave. Girls are more introvert and quite while boys are more quarrelsome and aggressive. These specific traits are only adopted by boys and girls through social conditioning. No one of the two sexes is born aggressive, yet boys are more likely to react aggressively as they have a lower threshold for frustration. Meanwhile, girls are able to exercise more strain and keep equilibrium and composure under similar conditions of frustration because they are socially conditioned to tolerate a lot of tactile stimulation at their nursery school age. Also, females are much more interested in bonding and human relationships than males who are attracted to things: Males ultimate attainment in older age is [measured in terms of material possessions] while females happiness often stems from higher levels of sociability. Females again surpass males in this unique emotional quality. Evidence from numerous surveys that shows that women are emotionally unstable also indirectly implies that females are endowed with superior resilience powers. In other words, women possess the ability to endure and recover from shocks more than men can do. Scheinfeld draws a beautiful analogy between car springs and females and males ability to absorb shocks. The stiffer the springs are the more damage is likely to happen to the car. Males and females also react to shocks in the same way as car springs do. Although women are 1

considered emotionally unstable, they have always been a refuge for their husbands from the hardships of life. Women are always ready to support and sometimes mother their husbands. Indeed, Nature ordained such complementary and beautiful reciprocity between the sexes. Furthermore, Surveys conducted in areas and times of distress show that females not only resist diseases and outlive males but also withstand trauma and respond to psychotherapy quicker and better than men. Overall, the female strong physical constitution and the super resilience powers help females surpass the males abilities in many evidenced cases of distress and tragedy throughout history.

2. For centuries, controversy and debate over the superiority and the inferiority of one of the sexes to another was ignited and fuelled by relentless and reckless sexism. Sexism and discrimination against women tainted the histories of most prominent civilizations and religious doctrines. In medieval times, the church discriminated against women for so long that women felt subordinated and more animals than humans. It is only lately that The French discovered that women can vote as well. Also, Evil and vice are common attributes of the female sex since Eve. She is blamed for inciting Adam to sin and leave Eden for good. In the twentieth century, as the horizon of liberties is becoming broader than ever, feminist groups and some vehement enthusiasts such as Ashley Montagu try to pledge support for a reverse sexism that claims that women are naturally superior to men. Such gender essentialism causes more harm to the beautiful reciprocity of the sexes that the laws of nature ordained. Neither sexism nor any other distorted attempts to reverse sexism ever served the convenient arrangement of complementarity that

God praises most in holy matrimony. In this essay, I will argue that superiority 2

and inferiority between sexes is meaningless and unbeneficial. To begin with, ancient Greek philosophers raised this debate but failed to settle on one assertion. Plato, in his book the republic maintains that women and men are endowed with the same capabilities that entitle them to the same rights and obligations. He argues that women and men have the same talents and physical ability to endure even military training. The difference between sexes for Plato is only quantitative but not qualitative. That is to say, although women are weaker in some respects, that should not mean restricting them to certain fields of activity. Plato, the father of philosophy and the brilliant thinker of all times, does not try to establish the superiority of the sexes over one another even if he says that he thanks God for not being a woman1. Instead, he believes that both man and women have the same talents. Unlike Montagu, Plato abstains from charging neither of the sexes of blatant imperfection.

These inconsiderate claims of imperfection and superiority between the sexes are prevalent among westerners than easterners. Such attitudes of superiority and inferiority between sexes always proliferate in secular systems of thought and amongst those who deliberately misquote religions. Islam for example is often misquoted in this regard to serve the best interests of the sexist. Some sexist opportunists always quote the prophet Mohammed(sal-Allaahu alayhe wa sallam) as sayingI have never seen anyone with a deficiency of Aql (intellect) and Deen (religion) who are more overpowering to men than one of you[women]. The sexist and segregationists hastily rush into conclusions that the Prophet means that women are intellectually and spiritually deficient. Nonetheless, the prophet leaves no room for confusion when he elaborates more on his initial Hadeeth by saying that the deficiency in womens intelligence is only in the witness of two women that equals one and that women are only deficient in deen as they can not pray and fast during menstruation. By responding in this way, the Prophet Muhammed emancipates women from any charges of blatant imperfection and deficiency. Instead, Islam 3

generally cherishes the relation between the sexes. The relation between a male and a female in Islam is rather complementary than competitive as it is viewed by western seculars. Man is endowed with physical strength and toughness to protect and earn bread for the family while Women are endowed with emotional resilience and softness to and nurture the offspring. Ashley Montagu does refer to these differences but did not try to argue in favor of complementarity. Nonetheless, he tries to prove that women are superior to men on all accounts.

Sexist allegations prosper in secular nations. The gap between the sexes in these civilizations is getting wider and wider as both sexes proclaim equal rights and liberties. In these cases, the roles of women and men are becoming less distinct and significant. Consequently, families are deprived of the nurturing mothers as well as the protective fathers. Ashley Montagu implies in his discussion that the Mans physical strengths is dispensable in modern times. Todays technological tools can replace mens muscular power but can not replace the caring and loving nature of women2. This failure to recognize the importance of the roles of both sexes in family and society causes the emergence of disastrous social and psychological phenomena such as suicide, neurosis, homosexuality and lesbianism. These are the plagues that challenge the laws of nature and mark the downfall of morality and civilization.

Let us for example accept Ashley Montagus assumptions as viable and true. What would societies and cultures look like then? What about power the dynamics that may guide humanity? Should not we fear the future? Fortunately, Ashley Montagu fails to present alternatives to the existing order of things. He only managed to select some evidence to support his radical contentions without thinking of the possible ramifications that such a power reversal situation may have on the future of humanity and civilization. The surveys that he selected carefully to suit his contentions are sometimes nonsensical on theoretical grounds. He concludes that the 4

female sex has superior biological predispositions and instincts. This argument is rather inconsistent and biased because recent research in evolutionary biology shows that nature traits both sexes equally and only endows one sex with specific traits where it is better for this sex to have this trait better than the opposite sex. Men and women scores on every measure of intelligence are approximately the same. It is only schools that privilege male students as more intelligent than girls. Ashley Montagu does indeed blame the process socialization for most of the differences between the sexes. The roles of women and men are shaped according to the cultures norms and values. Boys are not allowed to burst into tears in public while girls are not allowed to curse and swear. He also contends that a combination of biological and cultural factors is responsible for much of the differences between the sexes. Certainly, this argument is uncontestable, but Montagu only seeks excuses for some of the traits of women that are culturally defined as weaknesses and never abstains from trying to establish the superiority of the female sex. On the contrary, we all have to find excuses for both sexes weaknesses in order to espouse the need for complementarity and not competitiveness.

To summarize, celebrating the superiority of one of the sexes over another is an imminent threat to the future of humanity and civilization. The two sexes are naturally endowed with qualities that create the need for the opposite sex. Women need protection while men desperately need loving and caring. This heavenly chemistry brings about nice interdependence and equilibrium rather than competitiveness. Allah creates males and females to live in affection and

compassion not in competition. The Qur'an says: And of His signs are this that He created your mates from yourselves that you might find rest in them, and He put between you affection and compassion". (Surah ar-Rum, 30 : 21) ___________________________________________________________________________________
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Plato. Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Montagu Ashley. The Natural Superiority of Women.Allen George.1592

B. 1. Strengths 1.Conclusion connects to the last paragraph 2.Definition of atheism(background information) 3. Concluding sentences of the paragraphs. 4.Indenting paragraphs 5. Consistency in argumentation in the body. Weaknesses 1. No clear thesis statement or no thesis Statement at all. 2.Fallacies right at onset of the

introduction.(generalization) 3. The introduction is not interesting and too general. 4.Unsupported claims 5. No adequate rebuttal or refutation of the counter arguments. 6. Unclear presentation of the arguments. 7.Unclear purpose of the essay 8. The conclusion has nothing to do with the thesis statement. 9.No logical order is followed in this essay 10. The conclusion is emotional and uninteresting. 11. Inconsiderate to the audiences positions and opinions. 12. Unable to establish credibility for his arguments. 13.No extensive background information 14. Irrelevant ideas and information.

Commentaire [i1]: Apologetic+word... Commentaire [i2]: atheism Commentaire [i3]: times, (comma) Commentaire [i4]: what

2. Everybody knows that the most important activity in human life is religion. But many people tend sometimes to forget this. The problem is the atheism. In modern time the number of atheists is growing rapidly. Which exasperates the situation is that the atheists think that religion is a myth that humanity must forget about it. Moreover they go around telling others and sewing seeds of doubt in the mind of the believers. To start with, the fact of being an atheist is the fact of believing that there is no deity for people to worship. Careful consideration shall reveal that this by itself is a belief. Atheists are sure that God is a figment of the human brain, and this certainty is the hallmark of religion. As a consequence it withstands to reason that atheism is a religion. It is a religion because it is certain and certainty is not a property of science but a property of religious belief. However, atheists like to pint out that followers of religion are so sure of the truth of their own religion that they do not hesitate to say that all the other religions must be false. In spite of this, atheists are also so sure that God doesn't exist that it is perfectly acceptable from their aspect to say that everyone who believes in God is certainly wrong. In other words, the atheists blame the people of religions that they are self-righteous, obstinate, narrow-minded, and exclusive to the others. In reality it is the atheists who have more really all these qualities. They are sure of something that they are unable to convince or prove; and they blame the rest of the world for this reason. Simply put, they have a religion and they think that this religion is the only truth and considered all the other religions for being completely wrong. In addition, many atheist today, the likes of B. Russell, R. Dawkins, and Ch. Hutchins, are prone to ridicule the believers are strong crusaders for the cause of atheism. Not only they believe that believing in god is superstitious ans unscientific but they are fighting in their books, articles, interviews to convince every person that their way is right and the creed of Christianity is the wrong one. Thinking about this, atheism is clearly a religion and a religion of the worst kind. Because it wants to be a religion and cannot accept other religions. Secondly all religions know the fact that they are indeed religions but atheism is so badly indoctrinated that that that atheists think that religion is unscientific while in reality they have a religion. In a number of ways, the atheistic are more religious than the religious. From the past arguments, it was proved that atheism is nothing but another new religion with the problem that they don't realize it is a religion in the final analysis.

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3. Religion is one of the most important activities in human life. However many people overlook the importance of religion to their life. Atheism is becoming problematic as the number of atheists increases rapidly in modern times. To make matters worse, atheists think that religion is but a myth that humanity must dispose off. They also try to cast doubt on the devotion of the believers. In this essay, I will argue that what is irritating about atheism is that it is a creed that denies both the existence of God and other religions. To start with, atheism means believing that there is/ exists no deity for people to worship. Careful consideration of this phenomenon will reveal that atheism is by itself a religion. Atheists are certainly convinced that God is only a figment of the human mind. Since certainty is the hallmark of religion, atheism is therefore a religion. However, atheists like to point out that the followers of other religions are so sure of the truth of their religious beliefs to the extent that they do not hesitate to say that other religions must be false. Atheists as well are certainly convinced that God does not exist and whoever believes in God must be wrong. They blame religious people for being self-righteous, obstinate narrow-minded and exclusive to others. Indeed, it is the atheists who have all these qualities. Atheists blame the rest of the world for not being able to prove the existence of God which they themselves can not disprove. Simply put, atheists consider their religion as the only true religion while other religions are completely wrong. In addition, many atheists today like B. Russell, R. Dwkins and CH. Hutchins ridicule believers on every occasion. These people are the notorious crusaders of the atheist cause. Not only do they believe that believing in God is superstitious and unscientific but also strive in their books, articles an interviews to convince everyone that atheism is the right way whereas the creed of Christianity is wrong way. Atheism is clearly the worst of all religions because it does not accept other religions. Unlike other religions that acknowledge the fact that they are religions, atheism is so distorted that it fails to recognize that is it indeed a religion because religion for the atheist is so unscientific. Generally, atheists are more faithful to the doctrines of their creed more than any other religious people. From all the arguments above, it can be concluded that atheism is also a religion which does not realize how similar to or different from other religions it is. Atheism is itself becoming a religion that ironically tries to negate the existence other religions.