Farfisa

Just something to say before I start. I'm just looking for opinions and personal experience on this subject, please don't let this thread be closed due to hateful comments.

Ok, I've been wondering this for awhile and I've yet to go to an Islamic country or read the Quaran. Are women really viewed as inferior to men in Islamic countries? I've been starting to look into the happenings of the uprisings in the middle east and how women have been treated. There has been a lot of talk of how women have been sexually assaulted and harassed in those countries, but I can't help but feel the fact that there is so much unrest in that part of the world and that leads to crimes against women. Why? I'm not sure, but in third world countries and in countries suffering civil wars there seems to be a lot of sexual assaults and crimes against women.

I've talked to a few Muslims in my life and they seem like everyone else, but with different beliefs. Granted that these conversations and meetings were short, and the ones I've met seemed liked generally happy and good willed. So, is it just the extremists and the general unrest in Islamic countries or is it that they really view women just as objects of sexual desire?

Please, if I've said anything offensive or uneducated, please correct and educate me. I don't want to be a sheep who follows lazily along to whatever the US media says.