When Men Deprive Women of Their Free Will, They Are Not Protecting Anyone: They Are Obstructing God’s Plan

If women cannot make their own decisions, what is God to judge them on? Women will certainly get no credit for a “good deed” that is forced upon them, much less grow spiritually from it, any more than they will for or from any good their menfolk do. As the Qur’an never tires of telling us, every single soul—whether male or female—will ultimately face God individually. Yet once again, faux-hadith arguments denigrating women’s moral nature and intellectual capacity are deployed to justify restricting women’s freedoms, including an eye-popping one placed in the Prophet’s mouth that makes a wife’s access to heaven essentially dependent on being in her husband’s good graces. What if he is a despicable fellow?