Scheherazade

[JerrySeinfeld]

There are many threads about Muslims, but all the discussions seem to concern men.

All the videos about Muslim protests of Danish cartoons, in London or elsewhere, show men. I have seen no Muslim women (none) protesting anywhere, whether in the UK, Pakistan or Syria. Why?

What do Islamic women think about these controversies?

Are there any female Imams?

Fifty percent of the people in Saudia Arabia are presumably women. What do they think?

We all know of Omar Sharif. Have we ever heard of an Arab woman, a Hollywood star? Why not?

they're busy getting beaten by and submitting to their husbands.

[betsy]

But isn't it a fact that unless a woman is a "bitch" or considered so by men, she will never get anywhere?

I agree Belinda is quite capable of looking after herself but I also think Harper though she was out of line and not good at being a good little woman and doing as she was told.

One of the things I do not agree with is women demanding to be in men's clubs and then turning around and refusing the same right to them. We all need our little groups and we all should be entitled to have women or men groups.

Feisty maybe....but not by being "bitchy". The NDP woman and the Conservative Rona Ambrose (who were debating with her) proved to be women of class.

From an article a long time ago, a man wrote to a women's group in support of women's rights and help eliminate violence on women. Instead of thanking him for his support, the spokesperson for the group dismissed his letter and more or less told him to get lost. That got me convinced that women shoud be wary of group claiming to speak for them. I find that I identify more with a group called REAL WOMEN.

How about that woman who wanted be a fireman? She did not pass the physical test of being able to lift so many pounds (weight)...so she complained. Of course, they lowered the required weight to be lifted....which means the standard got lowered. Imagine being an obese person trapped in a burning building that needs to be carried out by a fireman.

Women are fighting for some issues just for the sake of proving something.

Did we really gain? Yes, I suppose...but we've also lost a lot.

[betsy]

Sorry we got side-tracked. It's all Margrace's fault!

Now, back to the title.

Did you hear about a niece of Bin Laden who allegedly posed semi-nude for a spread? Of course she lives in the west.

[margrace]

Sorry we got side-tracked. It's all Margrace's fault!

Now, back to the title.

Did you hear about a niece of Bin Laden who allegedly posed semi-nude for a spread? Of course she lives in the west.

You really believe in Real Women, you're kidding aren't you????

[August1991]

Did you hear about a niece of Bin Laden who allegedly posed semi-nude for a spread? Of course she lives in the west.

Several, I think:

Carmen bin Laden (sister-in-law)

Wafa Dufour (niece)

Like Sheherazade, this is titillation: the standard card in the traditional woman's hand. Margaret Thatcher never titillated.

[August1991]

Sorry, but "men and women are different" is more than just fatuous: it's a cop out. Gender differences are complicated: some are inherent others are social creations. I think it behooves us, as individuals and a society, to look at the gender differences we take for granted and examine how many make sense in the context of living in a society where people are suppossed to be equal regardless of gender. Arbitrary gender distinctions don't serve us well at all.

I may be fatuous but what-the-hell is that remark supposed to mean?

Gender differences are complicated: some are inherent others are social creations. Wow!

Some are inherent? Which ones?

Others are social creations? Why? (We're talking hundreds of thousands of years here.)

And then this: Arbitrary gender distinctions don't serve us well at all. So, why do we have pay equity? And why did Louise Beaudoin (for example) just argue that 50% of parliamentary seats (for example) should be reserved for women?

----

One side of me says: Letting a group use the political sphere to obtain an advantage is hardly new. Let's let this one play out. That's society.

Another side of me says: Our Charter's free speech provisions won't protect us against the Islamist hordes but our pay equity legislation maybe will. The Koran gives a woman property rights.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear August1991,

Here is a video worth watching. (click on the link to 'video' from this site)

http://emoodz.com/?cat=2

Hopefully, stuff like this will spread. Not the sultry music video, but the message and the ability to spread it.

And Thelonious, it is rank anti-Americanism to suggest Hollywood can't tolerate foreign accents.

I never said they couldn't tolerate them, I merely explained why Mad Max was dubbed.

[scribblet]

Sorry we got side-tracked. It's all Margrace's fault!

Now, back to the title.

Did you hear about a niece of Bin Laden who allegedly posed semi-nude for a spread? Of course she lives in the west.

You really believe in Real Women, you're kidding aren't you????

Why would she be kidding, I'd take Real Women over that other radical group, and Real Women do not get government funding.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear August1991,

Gender differences are complicated: some are inherent others are social creations. Wow!

Some are inherent? Which ones?

The ability to suckle young, for one.

Arbitrary gender distinctions don't serve us well at all. So, why do we have pay equity? And why did Louise Beaudoin (for example) just argue that 50% of parliamentary seats (for example) should be reserved for women?

Some people don't see the absurdity in quick-fixes, and fight for them as though it is the correct answer.

[August1991]

Dear August1991,

Here is a video worth watching. (click on the link to 'video' from this site)

http://emoodz.com/?cat=2

Hopefully, stuff like this will spread. Not the sultry music video, but the message and the ability to spread it.

And Thelonious, it is rank anti-Americanism to suggest Hollywood can't tolerate foreign accents.

I never said they couldn't tolerate them, I merely explained why Mad Max was dubbed.

Really good, Thelonious. Ya gotta love the internet. She's clearly not Middle Eastern (and apparently you've never been to a Cairo or Beirut night club) but who cares.

From the web site linked above:

The singer, who was born in Norway but moved to the UK after her act alienated her from the Muslim community, has been forced to cancel performances and hire a team of bodyguards after inciting anger from British Muslims as well.

----

Allow me to generalise. I once asked a young Muslim woman how Muslims thought about sex within marriage. She answered that, within marriage, it was purely a question of pleasure. Protestant Christians have given me the impression that any pleasure, sexual relations or otherwise, even within marriage, are uncomfortable. Catholic Christians seem to me to view sex as a means to create life - with all that implies.

In the movie Notting Hill, a character says that the word "actress" in many languages is identical to the word "prostitute". A half-clothed singer gyrating in front of Asian street scapes is hardly new or shocking in a movie. In the video, I was more surprised by the tape on the mouth.

Watch it here.

----

Thelonious, for me, the fundamental difference between "our world" and "their world" is the so-called "scientific method". They see us as rich. We see them as ignorant. The rich among them are frustrated. Why do these poor foreigners think I am ignorant!

In my view, middle eastern women are torn between a sense of allegiance and an understanding that the current rules are wrong. Each woman alone has no idea how to change anything - even within their own families.

[betsy]

Sorry we got side-tracked. It's all Margrace's fault!

Now, back to the title.

Did you hear about a niece of Bin Laden who allegedly posed semi-nude for a spread? Of course she lives in the west.

You really believe in Real Women, you're kidding aren't you????

Why would she be kidding, I'd take Real Women over that other radical group, and Real Women do not get government funding.

Let's make a separate topic about this so we can really argue to our hearts' content. Will post it now.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear August1991,

A half-clothed singer gyrating in front of Asian street scapes is hardly new or shocking in a movie. In the video, I was more surprised by the tape on the mouth.

I also have seen many 'eastern' videos that are very similar. A combination of 'rap', modern music and traditional music is quite popular nowadays. However, that is why I qualified my statement with 'the message and the ability to spread it'. My wife and I were both terribly impressed with the overt 'anti-oppression' message conveyed by such things as the tape over the mouth, and the lyrics.

Interestingly, I believe one of the shots in the video of people with tape over their mouths was of one Abdul Haq, a former Pathan leader of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, killed by the Taliban after the CIA sent him in before the invasion.

[August1991]

Weird.

Kola Boof, an apparent former sex slave of Osama bin Laden, began writing for the NBC soap opera 'Days of Our Lives' last month, it's been reported.

Boof, a womanist and outspoken author, has upset a number of groups with her books - which have been viewed by some as anti-Arab and anti-Islam - and has since received a fatwa death sentence from a Sharia court in the Sudan, her place of birth.

After her birth parents were killed, Boof was adopted by a family in England who subsequently put her up for adoption again. Eventually a Washington family adopted her and she moved to the United States where she grew up. In 1996 while Boof was in North Africa pursuing an acting career, she was reportedly held captive by bin Laden and forced to have sex with him. She said she was forced to live with him in a hotel in Morocco for four months. She then managed to escape to Spain in 1998.

Some Gossip Magazine

A womanist?

Kola Boof's long awaited autobiography "Diary of a Lost Girl" is nothing less than magnificent. Many will be spellbound by more than 90 pages detailing her terrifying experience as Osama Bin Laden's former mistress, but the Sudanese-born Novelist/Poet writes even more profoundly about the hardships of being vaginally circumcised, about witnessing her birth parents killed in her presence as a small child, about slavery and Arabism in Sudan, about being adopted and raised in the U.S. by African Americans, about her quest for true love, and in one particularly daring chapter, about her hopes for the future of her sons.

Amazon

[Charles Anthony]

A womanist?

Yeah, I want to know what that word means too.... In fact, I do not ever remember hearing it before in my life.

If the same author can describe a woman who "was reportedly held captive by bin Laden and forced to have sex with him. She said she was forced to live with him in a hotel in Morocco for four months" as a womanist, I wonder why the use of a non-existent word??? Hmm.... Is a womanist a good thing or a bad thing? what opinion is that writer insidiously reluctant to actually state directly.... Hmmm.....

[August1991]

This news report has attracted the attention of Fox News. This disjointed thread above (worth a peek) seems a good place to post:

A TEENAGE Saudi gang-rape victim who was sentenced to 90 lashes for being alone with a man she was not related to has beseeched King Abdullah, the country's monarch, to intervene in the controversial case.

"I ask the king to consider me as one of his own daughters and have mercy on me and set me free from the 90 lashes," the 19-year-old said in an emotional interview with a Saudi newspaper yesterday.

"I was shocked at the verdict. I couldn't believe my ears. Ninety lashes! Ninety lashes!" the woman, identified only as G, told the Saudi Gazette, an English-language daily.

...

The case is the latest in a series of highly controversial judgments that has highlighted the shortcomings of the Saudi legal system.

But it is also regarded as a sign of change that the once tame and timid Saudi media are prepared to cover and challenge cases of rough justice.

G's ordeal began a year ago when she was blackmailed into meeting a man who threatened to tell her family they were having a relationship outside wedlock, which is illegal in the desert kingdom.

She met the man at a shopping mall and, after driving off together, the blackmailer's car was stopped by two other cars bearing men wielding knives and meat cleavers.

During the next three hours, the woman was raped 14 times by her seven captors.

...

Five of the rapists were arrested and given jail terms ranging from ten months to five years. The prosecutor had asked for the death penalty for the men.

However, the Saudi justice ministry said rape could not be proved because there were no witnesses and the men had recanted confessions they made during interrogation.

The judges also decided to sentence the woman and her original blackmailer to lashes for being alone together in his car.

Scotsman

Make of this what you will (and bear in mind the horrific tragedy for this young woman).

I'm curious to know whether - to be geographist - Western freedom, technology and scientific method will win out over Eastern tradition, imitation and superstition.

[BC_chick]

There are many threads about Muslims, but all the discussions seem to concern men.

All the videos about Muslim protests of Danish cartoons, in London or elsewhere, show men. I have seen no Muslim women (none) protesting anywhere, whether in the UK, Pakistan or Syria. Why?

What do Islamic women think about these controversies?

Are there any female Imams?

Fifty percent of the people in Saudia Arabia are presumably women. What do they think?

We all know of Omar Sharif. Have we ever heard of an Arab woman, a Hollywood star? Why not?

I'm sure there are many differing ideas amongst them.

[August1991]

I'm sure there are many differing ideas amongst them.

Meaning?

[marcinmoka]

Sadly it's only in French, but if you've ever seen the film Amelie Poulain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35OvPW9jjBU

[buffycat]

Here is a very good interview with Yanar Mohammed:

"In 2003, Mohammed founded the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which shelters Iraqi women targeted in honor killings and sectarian violence (both on the rise since the war and occupation). It also monitors women in jail and assists formerly detained women, such as prostitutes. And, most visibly, OWFI speaks out loudly and insistently for women’s legal rights and secular law in opposition to Iraq’s growing Islamism. Her demands shed light on the precarious position of women under radical Islamism but, perhaps more to the question at hand, they confirm the disastrous consequences of the Iraq war and the political repercussions of occupation, which, according to Mohammed, has unleashed militant fundamentalism that is proving impossible to subdue."

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m32568&hd=&size=1&l=e

Amy DePaul: Tell me about the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq.

Yanar Mohammed: OWFI was founded by a few Iraqi women who decided to have a voice. We were sure the future government would not be a woman-friendly one. From the first day our policy was to try to gain support from outside Iraq. We got help from Canadian, European and U.S. supporters. We formed in 2003, and spoke about full equality. We represent the modern, secular voice of Iraq that will not allow this country to be turned into another Afghanistan under the Taliban.

*** click on link above for entire article***

It's an informative interview which illustrates the backward turn wrt women's rights and treatment under the US occupation of Iraq.

I'm surprised no one here already posted this.

[cybercoma]

There are many threads about Muslims, but all the discussions seem to concern men.

All the videos about Muslim protests of Danish cartoons, in London or elsewhere, show men. I have seen no Muslim women (none) protesting anywhere, whether in the UK, Pakistan or Syria. Why?

What do Islamic women think about these controversies?

Are there any female Imams?

Fifty percent of the people in Saudia Arabia are presumably women. What do they think?

We all know of Omar Sharif. Have we ever heard of an Arab woman, a Hollywood star? Why not?

Do women have any say in anything involving the Vatican?

Are there female cardinals/bishops?

I wonder what Christian women think...

Erm, I forgot. Organized religion doesn't give a crap about women and when your government is religious, it no longer gives a crap either.

[buffycat]

What I always find so interesting when the issue of women's rights in Muslim lands comes up, is that those bitching about it tend to forget that women in the so-called West have not even enjoyed suffrage for 100 years.

[August1991]

Do women have any say in anything involving the Vatican?

Are there female cardinals/bishops?

I wonder what Christian women think...

This might have been an issue when Savonarola ejected opinions in the 15th century but it's not now.

We Christians live in a modern world.

It's an informative interview which illustrates the backward turn wrt women's rights and treatment under the US occupation of Iraq.

Some people just have to find a way to bring the US into the discussion (and blame it). It's likely that men are suffering more in Iraq than women but I'll let that point slide...

If the same author can describe a woman who "was reportedly held captive by bin Laden and forced to have sex with him.

I ignored to mention that bin Laden (from southwest Arabia, near Yemen) chose a Sudanese woman, Boof, as mistress. There is an old tradition of Yemenite men crossing the water to Ethiopia (Djibouti & Eritrea) to seek a wife. The first stretch of salt water humans ever crossed may have been the Red Sea - from Africa to Arabia.

----

Can I quote myself? Why not.

Thelonious, for me, the fundamental difference between "our world" and "their world" is the so-called "scientific method". They see us as rich. We see them as ignorant. The rich among them are frustrated. Why do these poor foreigners think I am ignorant!

In my view, middle eastern women are torn between a sense of allegiance and an understanding that the current rules are wrong. Each woman alone has no idea how to change anything - even within their own families.

I made two points here. A twist on the first point: Some Saudi men are extremely rich. Unlike John Travolta, they fly a late model Boeing when and wherever they want. Other Saudis are merely rich. How do these men view ordinary educated person in the West? It is one thing to be rich and it is another thing to be free of tradition and superstition. I sometimes think that educated Westerners (even progressives) don't quite realize how truly rich they are.

The second point: I was thinking of a Muslim women's allegiance to her family first, to her religion and to what Nasser referred to as pan-Arabism. Such allegiance prevents most women from making any change. But ignoring this, I once had a conversation with a Syrian woman, a Muslim, and she explained to me how one woman can do nothing. She had no allegiance to her family and was free to speak her mind to me. Yet she was frustrated in her personal freedom because, as she explained, one woman can do nothing.

The story of Scheherazade is the story of a seductress. Yet Muslim prostitutes are non-existent. Since Islam is not a religion of prudes, it is not prudishness that prevents them. I think it is raw but recent tradition. Superstitution.

[August1991]

What I always find so interesting when the issue of women's rights in Muslim lands comes up, is that those bitching about it tend to forget that women in the so-called West have not even enjoyed suffrage for 100 years.

100 years?

Jeanne d'Arc, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great are part of Western Culture.

But here's another one to consider. Harriet Jacobs.