Improvement for Saudi women possible within the confines of Wahhabism?
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I had a difficult time finding any women’s health news worth blogging about today and I ended up spending a lot of time reading an interview called Saudi Women: Breaking the Chains. It was from back in February but was still very interesting and worth reading if you haven’t seen it yet.
The person being interviewed is Moudhy Al-Rashid, a woman from Saudi Arabia who is going to school at Columbia University. She obviously is concerned about women’s rights, but seems content to work within the framework of Saudi law’s to better the position of women. It seems to me that much bigger changes will be needed if women in that country will ever be treated even close to equal to men.
Moudhy Al-Rashid doesn’t seem to want to admit that women in Saudi Arabia are victims, even though all women there are prevented from exercising even the most basic of rights.
I have to wonder is she defending Saudi laws and sharia because she is afraid to do otherwise? It is even safe for a Saudi women, even while in the US, to be interviewed on a web site and speak out againstSaudi laws and sharia?
The interview is divided over two pages, so be sure to click the link at the bottom of the page to see the second part. The comments are interesting also.
I should point out that the site the interview is on seems, at a glance anyway, to express a very conservative viewpoint which in general does not reflect my own views. I tended to side with the interviewer in this case though.
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April 18, 2006
Blog to Raise Awareness About Sexual Violence
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I’m really not sure what to write about today for this, but I really want to participate because it is such an important issue.I haven’t personally been a victim of any sort of sexual violence, and have never talked to anyone has who has been about their experiences.
I only know that crimes like rape scare me to death. And I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why so many men are so violent, in general, and especially towards women.
I’m especially horrified by the type of violence many women, mostly in non-western countries, have to experience regularly.
These include: female genital mutilation – which is just so horrible to even think about on even a superficial level; dowry murder – 15,000 dowry deaths estimated to take place each year in India; honour killings – where members of a woman’s own family kills her because she was a victim of rape and much more.
In many cases the violence seems to reflect a general lack of men even considering women to be real people, but instead just a piece of property they can do what they want with. Or mutilating women’s bodies so that they either become somewhat helpless (as in foot binding) or unable to experience normal pleasurable feelings. Or they involve women’s virginity or the possible lack of it.
So what causes this horrible behavior in men and what can be done about it?
It seems to take place all over the world – or at least has in the past – so it is hard to blame it on any particular religion or culture.
One possible cause – which may not be a popular one – is that men (not all, but most) are just naturally violent and aggressive. Can they change? I think so – I certainly hope so. I have no idea how.
Or maybe we are just still too primitive a species. Violent and aggressive behaviors are maybe part of our evolutionary past that we still need to confront, learn about and move beyond.
Or maybe in general, we are just a violent species. Maybe if there is intelligent life in the universe somewhere they are avoiding us because we are so primitive and violent. I wouldn’t blame them if that is the case.
And still, women all over the world are sufferering due to violence perpetrated against them everyday.
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March 8, 2006
International Women’s Day/Blog against Sexism Day!
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Today is International Women’s Day and also Blog against Sexism Day!
For International Women’s Day I started a new section on my site about women’s history and issues.
I decided to participate in the Blog against Sexism Day a while back – so now is the time for to do my blog post against sexism.
But what should I write about? I’ve been pondering this all day. Some news stories I saw about International Women’s Day discussed all the progress women have made so far. I don’t feel like making some positive things-are-all-better now posts. I’d rather be more negative, as there is still a long ways to go.
I see where Chantel is doing a ‘how have I experience sexism in my personal life’ type of post. I don’t really feel like examining my life at the moment and reliving any sexism that I’ve experienced.
I spent quite a few hours today reading news stories about International Women’s Day as well as other blog posts about the current state of women.
I now finally and clearly understand that we in the US are living in an ‘oppressive misogynist theocracy’. (Thanks for Twisty for this realization.
The current story in the US that illustrates this point so very convincingly is that South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds signed legislation this past Monday to make forced pregnancies legal. (Otherwise known as making it illegal to have an abortion in that state unless the woman’s life is in danger.)
Which means that a woman raped through incest would be forced t o give birth to her sister, niece, etc.
And worse yet was the comments made by SD state senator Bill Napoli on NewsHour discussing the only circumstances in which he thinks an exception should be made:
“A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”
So apparently to him if a woman is not a virgin or religious she’s not been traumatized enough to be able to avoid a forced pregnancy. Once again any woman who is not a virgin is a slut who deserves whatever happens to her.
He also seems to be saying that its her loss of virginity that is really an issue, not her well being.While in the US we live in country with forced pregnancies and state-owned uteruses – we also have a so called ‘religious leader’ like Pat Robertson who calls feminism a “socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
Elsewhere in the world 583 million women are illiterate – 66.7% of the 876 million worldwide who are illiterate.In Afghanistan, as an example, the literacy rate among women is 14 percent and more than half of young women there are married before they are 16.
In Libya women who are raped get sent to prison indefinitely.
An average of 5 women in India are killed each day in ‘accidental’ kitchen fires because dowry payments have not been met or considered good enough.
Female genital mutilation, honor killings – the list goes on.
When will it end? Or will it?
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March 1, 2006
Women’s History Month!
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It is Women’s History Month and the 8th is International Womens Day! I have been planning some special features for the site for it.
Why do we need to remember women’s history and issues?
Because many women before us struggled for many years just to have the right to vote, to be able to own property and to have many other basic rights.
And because even now in many parts of the world women still do not have the basic rights that all people are entitled to.
In India some women are still burned to death because the groom’s family didn’t think her dowry was good enough. Many women who have been raped in middle eastern and persian gulf countries are killed by their family to ‘preserve the family’s honor’. And female genital mutilation is still common in some African countries.
We represent half the population – and yet many of us still have a long ways to go before we will be treated as equals to men.
Please spend some time this month appreciating the rights you do have and thinking of ways to improve the conditions for women elsewhere. If you have a blog, the 8th is also ‘Blog Against Sexism Day’ – for more information see: Blog Against Sexism Day.
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