<p>Aries, I have several times pointed out to your SSBB that rights of women in this country are a lot more lately won than many young women realize and, as far as I’m concerned, a lot more fragile than they think. Too many people think it’s a great thing for a woman to be a yesdear.</p>
<p>You have pointed that out - which is some of the reason I say that we take it for granted… it is hard to realize on a regular basis how far we have come, how easily we can move back, and how the rest of the world just isn’t there yet.</p>
<p>From boysmom:
</p>
<p>I suspect people used to think the slaves didn’t mind picking cotton either. How do women get to work? To school? To doctors? To vote - oh that’s right, they don’t.</p>
<p>All the hogwash you hear from Bush about Democracy - and notice you NEVER hear anything about women’s rights - neatly ignores half the populations of these countries. (While at the same time the conservatives would LOVE nothing more than to roll back women’s advances here.) Not that I think we should be involved in any of it though. I think this country should get REALLY serious about getting off the middle east oil addiction and say goodbye. They’d be happy, so would we.</p>
<p>sarorah:
Just curious, do you think you have much better opportunities here than you would at home?</p>
<p>Sarorah isn’t from Saudi Arabia, if I’m reading her first post correctly. But I do wonder how many of those women wouldn’t see the freedom in driving once they had the priviledge. It’s easy to say “it’s always been that way, and they accept it” but accepting something is an entirely different idea than embracing it. I doubt it’s the women in SA who embrace the no driving rule.</p>
<p>Isn’t Saudi Arabia where the holy men prevented girls from leaving a burning building because their heads weren’t covered?</p>
<p>I’m a women, a US National, from California. I lived/ worked in Saudi Arabia for a year. Never before, and (perhaps) never again, will I have an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life.</p>
<p>True, I was not allowed to drive…and true, I had to wear the abaya/ hijab, ie. to be fully-clothed in black. But, there is something to be said for being chauffeured everywhere (I had a driver) and for walking around feeling so regal, dressed in a flowing (black) robe. Far from being/ feeling oppressed, it was wonderful to have men taking care of everything for me. Additionally, I had a maid and a cook. I never felt so much like a royal princess.</p>
<p>Then, I return to the US. I have to do everything myself…as I work to get dinner ready each evening, I feel more like the kitchen help now, by comparison. What a bummer!</p>
<p>Giving the other perspective,
Ms. Saudi</p>
<p>^^^ I’m thinking about your maid and cook…</p>
<p>It always bothered me during the first Persian Gulf war. Part of the reason we were over there was to protect Saudi Arabia from Iraq (which had already invaded Kuwait). So we had servicewomen over there who weren’t allowed to drive, but were risking their lives to protect Saudi interests. </p>
<p>A few years ago, there was a fire at a girls’ boarding school in Saudi Arab. Girls died because men blocked the exits and forced them back into the burning building to keep them from going out on the street uncovered. My own child was in boarding school at the time, so this really affected me when I read about it.</p>
<p>I simply don’t think the US should be in the business of protecting countries that oppress women.</p>
<p>ETA: Found a link to one of the articles: <a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm[/url]”>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm</a>. It was actually the police who drove the girls back into the burning building. </p>
<p>"According to the al-Eqtisadiah daily, firemen confronted police after they tried to keep the girls inside because they were not wearing the headscarves and abayas (black robes) required by the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islam. </p>
<p>"One witness said he saw three policemen “beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya”. </p>
<p>The Saudi Gazette quoted witnesses as saying that the police - known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice - had stopped men who tried to help the girls and warned “it is a sinful to approach them”. </p>
<p>The father of one of the dead girls said that the school watchman even refused to open the gates to let the girls out. "</p>
<p>15 girls died.</p>
<p>This is what Civil Defense officials who tried to rescue the girls had to say, in another link: <a href=“http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/03/15/saudia3801.htm[/url]”>http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/03/15/saudia3801.htm</a> </p>
<p>The report noted that mutawwa’in were at the school’s main gate and, “intentionally obstructed the efforts to evacuate the girls. This resulted in the increased number of casualties.” The religious police reportedly tried to block the entry of Civil Defense officers into the building. “We told them that the situation was dangerous and it was not the time to discuss religious issues, but they refused and started shouting at us,” Arab News quoted Civil Defense officers as saying. </p>
<p>“Whenever the girls got out through the main gate, these people forced them to return via another. Instead of extending a helping hand for the rescue work, they were using their hands to beat us,” Civil Defense officers were quoted as saying. </p>
<p>“The officers also said they saw three people beating girls who had evacuated the school without proper dress. A Saudi journalist told Human Rights Watch that the mutawwa’in at the scene also turned away parents and other residents who came to assist.”</p>
<p>I don’t care if its “right to them” - </p>
<p>Women are oppressed there, beaten, few legal rights…yeah, and they are our bestest friends…</p>
<p>Laughing about being treated like royalty while girls are beaten for not dressing properly</p>
<p>makes my stomach turn</p>
<p>I have never understood the “progressive” viewpoint that suggests that oppression, stonings, honor killings, FGM, etc. are all perfectly OK, because these are endemic to “the culture”, and we imperialists shouldn’t muck around with native culture.</p>
<p>There is nothing OK about these backward (yes, backward, evil, bad, etc) attitudes towards women, and while I don’t believe one can impose “democracy”, I do believe that human rights are important for everyone, and that we need to ensure that all humans are treated fairly and decently. So, it is important to speak out against these abuses, whether or not natives accept them as part of their culture.</p>
<p>on edit: I don’t think excusing Saudi women’s lack of rights is anything to be heralded, whether or not one is driven everywhere, or has cooks.</p>
<p>
This wonderful life you describe raises an obvious question. Did your maid and cook also have a maid and cook?</p>
<p>I’d rather scrub my own floors and cook my own food rather than be told that I am not allowed to drive. I don’t WANT to be a royal princess. I want to be a person with rights.</p>
<p>I also have to state that it is sad to read through this old thread and read Lucifer’s words after he is no longer with us. :-(</p>
<p>If anyone has a spare couple of hours and wants to read about the lives of women in Muslim countries, a wonderful book is So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba. It’s an episolatory novel set in Senegal, told from the perspective of a devout Muslim woman, a wife and mother who embodies the virtues of Islam…charity, hospitality, piety, etc., but nonetheless is able to see some of the harm done to women in the name of her faith. Though the book deals mostly with polygyny, it touches on many other areas of the female situation in the Muslim world.</p>
<p>This book was the first winner of the Noma Award for Publishing, Africa’s highest literary honor. Sadly, the author, who had been in poor health for some years, died soon after.</p>
<p>I love the fact that this discussion about human rights abuses and oppression of women, etc all started with an article about the law forbiding women to drive in Saudi Arabia. There’s something you guys forgot: driving is a privalege, not a right. This law is in no breach of women’s rights.</p>
<p>Oh, and all of you that drive cars (especially SUV’s), I’m sure all of those oppressed women you weep for are glad you are buying the Saudi regimes oil so that you can be free while “enslaving” their women.</p>
<p>So what do you consider the police forcing young girls back into a burning building to die because you don’t like what they are wearing? Is that a human rights abuse or just withholding of a privilege?</p>
<p>wow, wow, wow</p>
<p>rights are rights, meaning that are for everyone, not just those with testicles</p>
<p>Why did you have to bring this thread back up? Why?</p>
<p>
It is not necessary to breach someone’s rights in order to create gender discriminiation. Whether driving is a privilege or right is irrelevant. Men and women should be treated the same. There is simply no reason to prevent women from driving. Doing so represents men’s desire to keep women as “second class citizens”.</p>
<p>Who cares?..I miss my chauffeur. Oh, and he was a man…so, no lack of ‘women’s rights’, there.</p>
<p>Also, you can have your own maid/ cook right here in the USA…you just have to pay more…hmmm, why is no one storming the housekeeping/ nanny agencies here in the USA? Hmmm…different when it’s on your own shores, eh?</p>
<p>Ms. Saudi</p>
<p>HUH? We are talking about a country that beats women and girls for publci policy and you use the fact people have house cleaners here to justify missing your maid over there?</p>
<p>So, Saudi, it is okay with you that in Saudi Arabia, young girls are beaten for what they wear? Is that what you are saying?</p>
<p>Good thing you had a chaufer over there, so you wouldn’t have to be on the street and perhaps have something show and get hit for it</p>
<p>Good thing you didn’t have your own child pushed back into a burning building for not be covered properly</p>
<p>Good thing in you safe little bubble over there you were able to ignore the brutality that is shown women</p>
<p>Good thing you apprecitated being take care of while others are not</p>
<p>You are soooo lucky you can ignore it all, cause you got driven around</p>