Red Pill, Respect & Qawwama

Rolo Tomasi says that men and women have different ideas of what respect means. But of course, individuals have different understandings of what respect means, so that's not saying much. The tricky thing that Tomasi does though is that he applies one definition of respect when it comes to men dealing with each other and another definition of respect when it comes to dealing with women. Between men, he uses respect to mean high regard or high esteem, but for women, he basically means deference and politeness. For example, in his argument, if a man says no to a woman over whatever thing for whatever reason, the woman will regard that as disrespectful.

When a man says no, when a man and I'm I'm not that's as polite as I can make this. When a man just says no, a man hold that woman accountable. The first thing she does is say, you're misogynist. You don't respect women. You told me no.

You should respect me.

This is in one of the patented imaginary scenarios that one gets the impression are continuously playing out in Tomasi's mind. And he affirms that that is in fact disrespect but it's only because the woman has not earned the man's respect in that scenario. You see, Tomasi believes that women feel entitled to respect by default whereas men have to earn respect.

Well, I only I I respect women who earn my respect. Right? That's the conflict between the two. For men, respect is earned.

What Tomasi is doing here by alternating between these two different definitions of respect depending on which gender he's talking about is to imply that women are being unreasonable when they expect basic courtesy and good manners because those things are signs of respect and men only show respect that has been earned. But the type of respect that men earn is high regard and esteem, not basic politeness and courtesy. He's pretending that he's leveling the playing field by requiring women to do what men are required to do, I e, earn respect, but it's not the same kind of respect. He's actually requiring women to earn a kind of respect that men don't have to earn but is default between men. Basically, he thinks it is empowering to be rude to girls.

Now in Islam, of course, the default position for everyone is respect, male or female, Muslim or non Muslim. And unlike in Tomasi's formulation, for us, disrespect has to be earned. We will think the best of you and treat you accordingly until your deeds show us otherwise.

Okay. Do does the average person walking down the street deserve your respect? Yes. Of course. Everybody deserves respect.

It's like that participation trophy that we grew up on. Everybody deserves to feel special. Right? Do they? Do they really?

For us, respecting others is a component of respecting oneself and having a refined character and good manners. For Muslims, yes, high regard and high esteem are things that are earned regardless of gender, but this kind of admiration is never expressed directly to the person we admire precisely because we do admire them and don't want to harm them by potentially inflating their ego. The level of cordial respect in Islam that's afforded to women is quite high and that's partly because they are more vulnerable and because they don't have the same capabilities as men in terms of earning respect. So that's part of male magnanimity and kawama.

Why is it that there is this presumption that women deserve a default respect?

She is someone's wife, someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's mother, and we all have wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters. It's also because every woman is under the kawama of a man, and in respecting her, we respect him. In fact, the fastest way to lose the respect of other men in the Muslim world is to disrespect women. So again, Rolo Tomasi and his followers hold a position that is radically at odds with Islam, and any Muslim who follows his approach will find his own character as a Muslim degraded.