How brave is this woman?

[shimmerysilverglitter]

I have already posted this on the In The News Board but I wanted to discuss it here. I knew Saudi women had a hard time of it but I did not realise that in a so-called developed country that women are not even allowed to drive!

saudi women beats up virtue cop.

As I said on the other thread I cannot imagine how desperate this woman must have felt knowing how severe her punishment would be for doing something she has every right to be doing. I can't begin to imagine this kind of life.

It says at the end of the article that there are changes happening in Saudi with regards to attitudes towards women, does anyone know anymore about this subject? because I am woefully ignorant and I don't think I should be.

Well you first have to get your head around the fact that women aren't regarded as full human beings. They're really not. The idea takes some getting used to but when you accept it then everything else makes sense.

I think that power goes to the head of any empire. Posie's glad that she's on the same side as the empire at the moment. I am too in a way. I wouldn't like to be the enemy right now because of the way the US allies treat "the enemy."

And I don't think the East or Middle East or Africans could do a better job either. They'd be just as mean.

WHich is why we need women in real power. WOmen need to be right at the top working together to make the decisions. WOmen cooperate more; it's in their nature, due to their low fertility.

But you have made a very good point throughout this thread. The real enemy is apathy . All men are apathetic to women's plight (except those who can write books and make money out of women's suffering) but unfortunately lots of women are apathetic too.

There are lots of psychological reasons why women don't want to accept they're treated with contempt by the powers that be.

I am also puzzled about where non Islamic nat ions and cultures fit in to your world view?

X posted. It is lovely there are people like you in the world. But meanwhile other people are doing the rather more dirty work of educating women, providing contraception and health care, pulling individuals from the social gutter, finding them in toilets where their jobs are to clear faeces by hand and rehabilitating them, and more ..damn their imperialist cultural obliteration.

Well, Japan for example, is wrapped up in trade relations with the US that it is not allowed to break free from. The US has recently forced JApan to expand its already enormous military base there, which will have devastating consequences on the environment.

Most non-Islamic nations tow the US party line. Go to almost any country in the world now and you will find Macdonalds'.

Iran doesn't. That's why the US HATES Iran

As I said, you don't know what I do IRL and I am doing something so you really must put these derogatry comments aside

Appletrees, the work you described in your last post is the clean-up work that the women get. The women's work, if you will. The men make the mess, the women clean it up, and thus it has always been

Sakura, I am sorry, it's impossible to continue. I am sure you won't mind. It's not that I'm not interested, but I am seeing so much flawed argument and self contradiction it takes a computer to respond, and I have only a phone and a ho.uselessness issue to resolve today. So perhaps we'll talk again on this issue, perhaps not. But your tone is rather hectoring which for me states again.st productive discussion.

Okay sure I know I'm trying really hard to get my point accross and it does come accross as hectoring.

But I don't think my argument is inconsistent. So if you see inconsistencies and flaws in my argument, please let me know what they are

I'll check back tomorrow

It has been a fascinating discussion between both of you. I don't find Sakura hectoring at all. I think she is very passionate about her beliefs. If we had women like Sakura in parliament, there would be a few changes made. We need women like Sakura to stand as MPs (even though I disagree with her on some of her socialist beliefs). I think you are not too far apart, just different perspectives on how to achieve the best results for women worldwide.

I am reading Sexual Politics at the moment and I came accross a part that reminded me of this thread.
It was a passage about D.H.Lawrence who always argued strongly that women and men should be kept in separate spheres: women the domestic and men everywhere else.
HIs ideal world was one where middle class women would cooperate with their men by visiting the poor and helping out, darning clothes etc, like some sort of medieval almsgiver. These women were given the societal role of trying to make up in some way for the havoc their male counterparts were wreaking on society with their wars and workhouses. YOu could say that Lawrence believed women's role was to act as men's consciences. They weren't allowed any real power, but they had the role of making a tiny recompense.

I see that happening here, except with the added flavour of imperialism.

I don't want to say anything that will get my posts deleted. Authors have targeted MN before

If ANY book or campaigng cares about women they must lobby their government to allow women a 50% representation in parliament. When that happens women can use their power to insist that other countries allow women a 50% representation too. Hopefully when women are well-represented they can start working together for the good of their countries in the way that they all see fit.

The LAST thing women in the third world need is women focusing their efforts on cultural practices. If Western women are concerned about harmful cultural practices they must first look to those in their own country first (pornography, anorexia, cosmetic surgery, DV- 2 women a week are murdered in the UK)

And I know women, and women will side with their men any day before they side with some intruders. SO I can even see a campaign approach dividing women of the world. WOmen cannot be "helped", they must be empowered. And western women have no power yet themselves, or not much to speak of (they couldn't stop the Iraq war) so they can't very well go to other countries to teach women how best to live.

"Personally I hope we don't export our breakdown of family, promiscuity, abandment of children, drinking and nakedness and pornography.
More than we already have."

Forced marriage, females as slaves, general crushing of human spirit is acceptable elsewhere. Promiscuity is widespread Riven, just not acceptable for women elsewhere, children are abandoned everywhere or tortured, mutilated, left to die, drinking and nakedness (let's stick with no free will and chastity shall we, tbh this is too silly to address) and pornography is enjoyed by men everywhere.

Seems to me Riven you want to keep women in their place as all of your Western exports exist for Men everywhere anyway.

BUt Posie if you went to Africa say, and spoke to a tribeswoman whose bare breasts were feeding a baby and told her that in your country, doctors betray the Hippocratic oath (DO no Harm) and cut into women's breasts, insert some sacks of plasticy stuff, for no logical reason, and that sometimes they leave a hole in her armpit so she can pump herself up and down to adjust the size, and that she loses sensation in her nipples and often can't breastfeed; or that female genital mutilation is culturally acceptable (designer vaginas); or that women die from liposuction etc they'll look at you in abject horror and disbelief.

or that female genital mutilation is culturally acceptable

I think you'll find that this is routinely done in Africa, as are many pretty harsh practices. And yes stuffing and cutting your body for appearance would sound dreadful, but it is a choice unlike say a thriteen year old girl sent to another tribe to have sex with her future husband against her will.

But I don't agree it's a choice. I think women are groomed from an early age to believe they are freaks if they don't look a certain way. Some women have the personality to withstand the ongoing assaults on their psyche but many women succumb. I almost had implants myself and I'M so angry now at the capitalist forces at work behind my decision. Thankfully I couldn't afford it at the time, then I read Greer, then I never looked back.

FGM is culturally acceptable in the UK too; it's called designer vagina. So how would you feel if those African women you just talked about started coming over here specially to teach and explain to you all about how oppressive your society is for women?

And women in the west are totally objectified to the point where many young women believe having sex is a performance I think Greer again, made the point that 80% or so of women who have been infibulated experience orgasm during sex, but women countries where women are objectified are less likely to.

I'M not justifying the practice of FGM, but I think that western women have LOTS of problems too.

Sakura, I think you're talking nonsense. I only know of one associate/friend who has had breast implants, one has has eye surgery. Cultural acceptability is a rather large leap for something that is available. I'm not sure there's any evidence to suggest that women don't fake orgasms elsewhere, although I would imagine in cultures where your genitals are mutilated noone gives a shit whether the woman enjoys herself, in fact best not.

If anyone talked about me being oppressed/women in UK being oppressed I would expect her to be rather better informed than you for a start I would hope she painted a picture of women really being 'forced' to have cosmetic surgery...so at least 50% having work done, I would expect her to be able to clarify that this is something only women are expected to do, I would expect some evidence to illustrate a disadvantage for those who do not have some sort of designer pastry cutter for their appearance.

Maybe there are some cultural norms that are unhealthy and oppressive in the West but most are choice, hence people do not follow.

I was thinking about the tribeswoman and the Western and think many of the things that blight a Western woman's life, comparatively, are material and commercial over feminist issues. The things to be gained from these women are more life enriching which are not the same as Western bondages of beauty, afterall many cultures mutilate and enhance the body.

I think we'll just have to disagree on this. If you read the Beauty MYth, you'll see how pervasive and accepted it is in the west for a woman to have her body surgically altered for no logical reason. The statistics in there are astounding. And that was written around 1990 so I can only imagine it has got a lot worse since then. I believe it's worse in the US, especially in places like MIami, but you have to ask yourself why is it happening at all ?

It's not a choice; it's a con.

And Western women's sexuality is as straightjacketed as it's always been. Some wOmen are so clueless abotu sex they think porn is a true representative of what sex is.

Western culture is the only culture where the mutilations upon women's bodies are carried out by men (posing as doctors). It think we should take a moment to think about this.
Studies on tribes that practice FGM have shown that not only is it carried out by other women, but the men often do not know whether their wife has been circumsised or not. In the West many cosmetic surgeons operate on their own wives.

So while I personally would not like to see FGM existing in the world, I do think it's imperialism to set up shop abroad, smash other cultures, bring in Macdonalds, get rid of women's rituals, introduce billboards and magazines of unattainable beauty for African women to emulate, and then whisk in the plastic surgeons who can achieve it for them - all creating lots of lovely profits for the imperialists

I think western women should be represented in parliament once and for all, be granted some decent power, then attempt to enforce other countries to have a quota for women too, then those women can deal with the problems in their countries as they see fit

But I 100% agree with your last post Posie. That's why I will fight to the death to stop the rot from spreading abroad. When I look at images matriarchal societies, magazine cuttings or a TV clip, my jaw just drops in awe at how at ease the women appear in their own skin, how comfortable, sexy and whole.

It makes my skin crawl that western imperialists want to impose their cardboard cut-out tasteless nothingness onto women in other countries.

Tesco makes me sick as well. I read a recent case about an African woman who was being paid 70p an hour. When she complained they sacked her.
These western conglomerates throw women off their sustainable land and turn them into slaves

Back for a little bit.

I do think these views are rather racist and paint a picture of cultural victimhood which I don't recognise.

Caste, Hinduism, forced marriage, honour killings, dowry, female abortions, female infanticide.. poor India..we inflicted all these on them? I don't think so. On the contrary, many western charities support the women who need help. But here's the dilemma according to your world view. If women help, they are doing some kind of "dirty work"? If men help, they are being cultural imperialists?

I am using India as an example because it's a country where all the political campaigning has worked. There are some extremely powerful female politicians and many laws to support female equality. It is illegal to scan for a baby's sex, there are very strict laws on dowry, murder is plainly not legal, and so on.

Yet it remains a country where such practices continue. And yes, there are men (posing as doctors) who will abort female fetuses for gender reasons and there are men (posing as fathers) who will kill their daughters for honour reasons; but the pregnant woman and the mother is often complicit. Which you seem to think is some kind of justification, to look at your fgm example.

(I can't believe you attempt a justification of fgm btw. "i'm not defending it," you say. Well if it looks like a defence and quacks like a defence, I think you need to know - it's a defence.)

Now here is the dilemma I am still trying to resolve internally. To try to combat such injustices we find ourselves in direct conflict with another culture. Not an offshoot of western culture because, it may surprise you to hear, many cultures have proved themselves more than capable of finding disgusting ways to treat women all on their own.

And please don't hector me about political campaigning again. I notice you ignored the conversation about sanctions against Hinduism. I have said this before on the thread..political campaigns have "worked".Most politicians, male and female, are upright and robust in their condemnation of such practices. Me writing to my MP will achieve for these women precisely nothing.

Notice the current cosying up between the UK and India? Nothing could stop this. Nothing. The evolution of cultural experience is mutual: India is an exporter as well as an importer: and the political party which most resent and fights "modernization", which perhaps you would call "westernisation", is the party most repressive towards women.

You may think you are repressed if you feel you need to wear make up to sit in a bar: I think you'd feel a lot more repressed if you were driven out of it entirely by thugs because of your sex.

Your passion is admirable, but you need to realise it is not all our fault.

Posie, you are making a lot of sense.