[creativecoding]

Sounds like something you'd read off of The Onion, right? Well it's not.

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Since last week, Saudi women’s male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together.

http://www.rawstory....stem-for-women/

What a disgusting country.

[raziel_]

Will there be a device that will zap her if she leaves the kitchen?
On the serious side they treat them as a stock. I understand that this whole male domination thing was helpful in the early ages of the world but today its just retarded.

[strawhat89]

It was always retarded. This just takes subjugation to a new level.

[BenignDesign]

The saddest part of this story is that it doesn't surprise me.

What DID surprise me, as I was researching the topic to form a logical, informed response (I know, doesn't happen every day.... mark it on your calendars, boys), was the idea of "Breast milk kinship" (from Wikipedia... I read about it other places, too, but this was the most succinct description I could find):

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In order to reduce the difficulties of strict sex segregation in modern life, some clerics issued a fatwa encouraging women to provide breast milk to any man with whom she comes into regular contact. Abdel Mohsen Obeikan, a renowned Islamic scholar, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, said in 2010: "The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman. He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about mixing." Breast milk kinship is indeed considered to be as good as a blood relationship in Islam and this way, for example foreign drivers can mix freely with all members of the family without breaking the Islamic rule which does not allow mixing of genders. Another cleric disagreed, saying the man should take the milk straight from her breast. The issue moved one female Saudi blogger to ridicule: "The whole issue just shows how clueless men are. All this back and forth between sheiks and not one bothers to ask a woman if it's logical, let alone possible to breastfeed a grown man five fulfilling breast milk meals. Moreover, the thought of a huge hairy face at a woman's breast does not evoke motherly or even brotherly feelings. It could go from the grotesque to the erotic but definitely not maternal."

FIVE full meals of breast milk for a grown man?!?! I couldn't provide that for my own children as infants (I had considerable issues breast feeding and had to supplement with formula - my boobs pretty much said "Oh fuck naw"). My favorite part is the debate over whether she should squeeze that shit into a cup and let him drink it or if he should nurse straight from her boob. WHO THE FUCK COMES UP WITH THIS SHIT?!?! When my kids were little, my brother refused to sit at the same table as a bottle of breast milk - "Eww. I don't want to look at anything that came out of your tit. That's disgusting! Most of the time, I just try to forget that you even have a gender!" Sexism on a different level, perhaps, but to be honest, I try to forget that my brother has boy parts, too... that's not a mental image I want burned into the recesses of my mind.

Add to that the idea of child marriage - I read an article not too long ago about a 5-year-old who slept through her sunset wedding. And never mind the stories of a wife beheaded by her family for refusing to become a prostitute, or this gem:

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In 2009, the Saudi Gazette reported that a 23-year-old unmarried woman was sentenced to one year in prison and 100 lashes for adultery. She had been gang-raped, become pregnant, and tried unsuccessfully to abort the fetus. The flogging was postponed until after the delivery.

What bothers me most is some of the women argue against change. One of the articles I read included a snippet from a Saudi woman who attacked the Western stance on the burqa and how the burqa is the least of their concerns and that Westerners just want to see Saudi women in short skirts out clubbing like "all the Western women" (and all this time, I didn't realize short skirts and clubbing were supposed to be my primary goals in life!). I understand what she's saying, but at the same time - to me anyway - the burqa represents oppression in and of itself.

The way people latch on to a religion and defend it at all costs astounds me. "I do this because Islam says so." "I do this because Christianity says so." "I do this because [insert religion here] says so." What is so wrong with free thought, free expression, equality? Why does the daily behavior of large swaths of people have to be dictated by magical, mystical beings in some dream afterlife utopia?

[strawhat89]

That was some post B9! From what I have seen, people could stupidly obstinate. Especially with religion and values that have been ingrained into them throughout their lives. Its when people like this come into power that problems arise. In India, one of the major arguments people make in rape cases is that, the rape was the victim's fault for wearing revealing and modern clothes! This when traditional clothing for women in India, the saree is revealing as fuck.

Its one thing for the men to say this, but what I find apalling is that women in power support this crap. There was this one event where a few teenagers of legal drinking age, got beaten up by a group of moral police. Even the girls were beaten inhumanely and when the media talked to the head of the women's right committee, she said the men were in the right as girls drinking is a huge fault!

Apart from this, you see auto-rickshaw drivers grumbling over a boy and a girl sitting on the same bike where the girl is wearing jeans or skirt. Once a driver in an auto I was in pointed a couple on a bike to me and started saying stuff like "These are the people who destroy India's culture. If we let them stay this way these girls will start going around naked, right now they must be going somewhere to fuck.." and then the girl on bike called the boy "Anna" which means elder brother!

There was this another crazy time when people would grab couples off roads and force them to marry and then they almost made a pair of siblings marry and that's when the cops finally rolled into action. I hate it with all my being when people try to force their beliefs onto others.

tl;dr People be crazy.

[BenignDesign]

strawhat89, on 23 November 2012 - 08:32 AM, said:

Especially with religion and values that have been ingrained into them throughout their lives.

As one raised in a psychotically Christian home, this is no excuse. Being force fed a specific religion all your life does not stop your ability to think, do, and decide for yourself.

As a child, I was dragged to church every Sunday morning and every Wednesday evening. I was forced to attend Sunday School and Bible School and Awanas. I was in the Churchmouse Choir, the District Youth Choir, the Adult Choir, I taught Sunday School classes, I taught Bible School classes. I faithfully attended church camp every summer, I went to 5 or 6 weekend youth retreats every year, I took a 2 week bus trip to Colorado for National Youth Conference. I participated in every Christmas Eve pageant, live nativity, passion play, and caroling expedition to come through town. In high school, after dinner, while our friends were outside hanging out or flirting with cuties or listening to a boom box, my siblings and I were inside, around the kitchen table with our parents, reading the Bible aloud. Every. Single. Night. I attended all 4 of our communion services annually - I blindly accepted the gender segregation, washed the feet of the smelly old woman next to me, kissed people I'd rather not touch, ate the beef broth and stale bread, recited scripture like a good little robot. When it was over, I shuffled off into the kitchen like a good little woman to help clean up the mess while the men sat around and talked work and politics in the next room.

Then I went off to college and discovered there's a whole universe out there that doesn't revolve around some 2,000 year old idea of how life should be... where no one has to talk to invisible people in the sky... where no one has to wash a stranger's feet... where no one dictates your role in life based on what is or is not between your legs. And the wheels started turning. I started to think maybe what I'd been force fed all my life wasn't really right. And I struggled for YEARS with a horrible, soul-wrenching guilt... for as much as my eyes had been opened, I still had that deeply ingrained fear of burning in Hell for all eternity.

But when the father of my children and I split up and my own mother looked and me and said, "If you would just do your wifely duties and submit to him sexually like you're supposed to, this whole problem could be avoided. Why don't you go back to him, apologize for being headstrong, and then just let him do what he wants with you until he's happy so you can work out this whole mess and do what's best for the kids?" For a brief moment, I considered her suggestion... then I thought of my then 18-month-old daughter and whether I would ever want her to live a life like that... and in that moment, I realized that everything I had been taught all my life was complete and utter bullshit and the guilt went away.

I have swayed back and forth a few times over the years, but inevitably I come back to what seems logical and rational. Two years ago, I sat at the Vacation Bible School program listening to my children speak in unison with 50 other children - reciting Bible versus in a sort of robotic chant - and I was horrified. It was so cult-like and creepy... despite my mother's urging, I've never taken my children back to church, Sunday school, or Bible school. I want them to know about religion - I'd like them to study the various religions of the world in some capacity - and then I want them to form their own opinions and make their own decisions about what's real and right and true and what isn't. I want them to grow to be good people - to be kind and helpful and caring - but of their own free will, not out of some fear of eternal damnation.

My mother, however, has no knowledge of my lack of faith. It would break her heart to find out that her youngest daughter won't be joining her in the imaginary paradise in the clouds. When she talks God and the Bible and a woman's place in the world, I roll my eyes and say "Ok, Mom. I know." And move on. I have far too much respect for her to hurt her so badly.

So... after all of that... I think I just argued both for AND against your comment. Hmm... this shit gets complicated.

[strawhat89]

You are lucky you had those moments of enlightenment. From what I have seen on TV, the Internet and books, in Europe and America, being an atheist nowadays is not that big of a thing. But here if I mention that I dont go to temples much (I believe in God, I just dont believe in religions), I get stared at as if I said I murdered babies.

Ours is a culture where widows (though that has lessened a lot) and women in general are treated like dirt. Even now in villages and this is the major part of India, women dont get to study beyond the 7th grade. The syllabus in the village schools are useless with poems which go like "Male name, play cricket. Female name, help your mother in the kitchen". These girls have no chance for free will. Some even go as far as to say a girl child is a burden.

When all a person knows is what is told to them and when they are ridiculed by society for thinking differently, they start believing that what they are told is the truth. There are three kinds of people here: some, dont even have an idea that explanations exist for the stories they believe. Then they are the people who dont want to think. Who dont want to question even when they have the chance. They convince themselves that what the society and religions tell them is true and refuse to think beyond that. The last and worst are people who refuse to question beliefs and dont want other people to question them either!

What I'm saying is, some people dont get the chance to question what is told to them and some dont want to. Those who do question are the people who actually improve, but sadly, the percentage of the latter category compared to the first two is very small.

[BenignDesign]

Let me ask you something, strawhat89, and I truly do not mean to offend or accuse you of anything in any way... just looking to understand the culture and the rationale of the culture a little better: if men like you exist in these societies - men who don't look at women as possessions, men who think far more liberally and progressively - and you see the wrong in the treatment, enslavement, and dehumanizing of women... why don't you say something or do something? Why don't like-minded men band together and start a movement? Why not take steps to empower these women and show them that not all men will treat them like property or insubordinates or slaves? Is it a fear of retaliation from the other men in the country? Fear of government intervention? Complacency? Acceptance?

[strawhat89]

All of them actually. The government parties are based on religion, the help groups are based on religion and whereas the people of different religions mostly hate each other, what they do agree on is that India should retain its 'culture'. What I find sad is that this moral police has a lot of youths and there have been many instances of people getting beaten up by these people for not following their rules. India has improved a lot over the years though incidents rise up during elections.

There are many disgusting traditions followed and its hard to shake people of it. I do what I can of course, but its nowhere enough. A few months back, my cousin married for love out of our caste and everybody was aghast. Her own younger brother refused to talk to her and sat glowering all through the wedding. My parents were like 'I can't believe she would do something like this!'. Another cousin and I were the only ones who actually supported her and spoke out for her. When we were talking to the elders, one of my aunts locked her up in a room and started beating her because apparently the aunt had promised my cousin to somebody's son! We had to break open the door to pull the aunt off. Now almost 6 months after the marriage, after everybody got to know my cousin's husband better, the subjugation has reduced in the extended family and this month another cousin married outside the caste.

India is improving, but at a very slow rate because many of the women themselves dont want things to change.

P.S. I'm not offended

[aresh]

BenignDesign, on 23 November 2012 - 09:34 PM, said:

Why don't like-minded men band together and start a movement?

All that sounds pretty good in theory, B9. In India (and I think everywhere in this world) people know that what is wrong and what is not, but they are not able to take a stand against the wrong. As Strawhat said, there is no single reason behind it. If you start discussing about the problems of India, I bet every citizen will have a very strong and definite opinion, but not many of them will be willing to work to actually resolve those problems.

Straw, ""Male name, play cricket. Female name, help your mother in the kitchen"? I have never heard about something like this o.O

This post has been edited by aresh: 23 November 2012 - 09:49 AM

[BenignDesign]

It doesn't take many. It takes a few who are willing to stand up for something. Granted, in Saudi Arabia and India, the landscape is a bit different than in the US, but if it hadn't been for a handful of people standing up for something, women would still be property here, too. And we'd still have slaves working on plantations. Somewhere along the line, someone has to stand up against something or nothing will ever change.

[aresh]

Yup, I understand your point.

Not to be a total jerk, but since you believe so strongly in women equality, what have you done for it? Again, I don't mean to be a total jerk, just curious.

[strawhat89]

aresh, on 23 November 2012 - 04:48 PM, said:

Straw, ""Male name, play cricket. Female name, help your mother in the kitchen"? I have never heard about something like this o.O

It was in a Hindi school poem I read.. I forgot the name, but I'll try to remember it.

@B9 I do what I can, but for there to be change, there must be enough people who want change too.

[BenignDesign]

aresh, on 23 November 2012 - 11:57 AM, said:

Not to be a total jerk, but since you believe so strongly in women equality, what have you done for it?

For one, I speak up whenever I see something that doesn't sit right with me - whether it's a gender equality issue, a race issue, a child abuse issue, a gay rights issue, etc. Sometimes it elicits a positive change, sometimes I am ridiculed for my point of view, but regardless, I speak up.

Additionally, I am doing my damnedest to raise two bright, intelligent, independent daughters who I hope will follow suit in being unafraid to speak out for what they believe.

So let's turn the table, Aresh... what have YOU done?

[aresh]

I agree, I have done nothing. I have only seen such things in TV or heard reports. Nothing of this sort has ever happened either to me, or in front of me. And I think I am a bit too young to start a movement or something. Also, I have no children to raise. Maybe some day...

Fine, I am making excuses. I have done nothing.