Male Gynecologists Are Being Targeted in Iraq

I'm having difficulty wrapping my mind around this ... I mean, the thinking behind what's going on here. On the one hand, gynecologists are being threatened and murdered in Iraq for supposedly violating the sanctity of Muslim women; and on the other hand, they are being murdered for not circumcizing girls. Somehow, to the militants, preventive medicine and health care are violations of Muslim females, but cutting off part of their genitalia is not. How does that work exactly unless it's about really hating women?

Male gynaecologists are being targeted by Islamic extremists in Iraq as they are accused of invading the privacy of women. Women’s NGOs have raised concerns as there are few women gynaecologists in the country and their male counterparts are scared to continue working.

“Extremists say that [male] doctors are not allowed to see the private parts of women and two male doctors were reportedly killed last week after leaving their clinics. A message was left near their bodies saying that was the end for any doctor who insists in invading the privacy of Muslim women,” Mayada added.

In one case the extremists tried to carry out their threat. They kidnapped the son of a doctor and only released him after the doctor had closed his clinic in Karada district, in Baghdad,” Rafi said. “We are worried about women’s health in this country. Few of them have access to good medical care and now with the fear of male gynaecologists, few remain in the job and this could have a serious impact in the coming months.”

Rafi added that aggression against doctors who treat women had also been reported in the northern provinces. “We don’t know the exact number of doctors who have been killed but we can confirm that four doctors were killed in the north for refusing to circumcise young girls.”

Once again we see that the primary victims of the militants are in fact innocent Muslims.

There is a book called, "Home Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism," written by Abby Ferber. She theorizes that racist hate is born out of male sexual anxiety -- meaning, that insecurity toward women is dysfunctionally taken out upon "the other," by men who need to prove they (still) have power in their lives. Although she focuses mostly upon white racist groups, it would appear from the article above that Ferber's theory could apply to Islamist militants as well, n'est-ce-pas?