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Saudi Author: "Imagine You're a Woman"
MEMRI ^ | 10-24-05

Posted on 10/24/2005 11:02:28 AM PDT by SJackson

Saudi author Badriyya Al-Bishr, a lecturer in social sciences at King Saud University, recently published an article titled "Imagine You're a Woman" in the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.

The following are excerpts from her article: [1]

"Imagine you're a woman. When your brother is born, people say: 'It's a boy, how wonderful,' and when you are born they say: 'How wonderful, it's a little girl' – using the diminutive form. [2] Your arrival is welcome if [you are] the first or second girl, but it's best if there are no more than two, so that nothing undesirable happens to the mother. On the other hand, your brothers' arrivals are welcomed – the more the merrier.

"Imagine you're a woman. You always need your guardian's approval, not only regarding your first marriage, as maintained by the Islamic legal scholars, but regarding each and every matter. You cannot study without your guardian's approval, even if you reach a doctorate level. You cannot get a job and earn a living without your guardian's approval. Moreover, there are people who are not ashamed to say that a woman must have permission to work even in the private sector.

"Imagine you're a woman, and the guardian who must accompany you wherever [you go] is your 15-year-old son or your brother, who scratches his chin before giving his approval, saying: 'What do you think, guys, should I give her my permission?' Sometimes he asks for... a bribe [in return], heaven forbid! [But] your brother avoids taking such a bribe in 'cash' because his self-respect prevents him from touching a woman's money. So he prefers the bribe to be a car, a fridge, or an assurance of money that you will pay in installments [for him], until Allah gets him out of his financial straits...

"Imagine you're a woman, and you are subject to assault, beatings, or murder. When the press publishes your photo [together with] the photo of the criminals and [descriptions] of their brutality, there are people who ask: 'Was the victim covered [by a veil] or not?' If she was covered up, [the question arises:] 'Who let her go out of the house at such an hour?' In the event that your husband is the one who broke your ribs, [people will say] that no doubt there was good reason for it.

"Imagine you're a woman whose husband breaks her nose, arm, or leg, and you go to the Qadi to lodge a complaint. When the Qadi asks you about your complaint, and you say, 'He beat me,' he responds reproachfully 'That's all?!' In other words, [for the Qadi], beating is a technical situation that exists among all couples and lovers, [as the saying goes]: 'Beating the beloved is like eating raisins.'

"Imagine you're a woman, and in order to manage your affairs you must ride in a 'limousine' with an Indian or Sri Lankan driver... or that you [must] wait for a younger brother to take you to work, or that you [must] bring a man who will learn to drive in your car, and will practice at your expense... because you yourself are not permitted to drive.

"Imagine you're a woman in the 21st century, and you see fatwas [issued] by some contemporary experts in Islamic law dealing with the rules regarding taking the women of the enemy prisoner and having sexual intercourse with them. Moreover, you find someone issuing a fatwa about the rules of taking the women of the enemy prisoner even in times of peace, and you don't know to which enemy women it refers.

"Imagine you're a woman who writes in a newspaper, and every time you write about your [women's] concerns, problems, poverty, unemployment, and legal status, they say about you: 'Never mind her, it's all women's talk.'"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), October 9, 2005.

[2] The expression 'How wonderful' is used here to translate the Arabic phrase ma sha'a 'llah (literally, "that which Allah wills"), which is used to express joy and gratitude and to ward off the evil eye, but is also used ironically.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: myturbanisdirty
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1 posted on 10/24/2005 11:02:29 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: SJackson

Imagine that you still live in the 7th century. Male or female, it would surely suck.


2 posted on 10/24/2005 11:05:27 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy
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To: SJackson

Imagine that you're outta there living in freedom!!


3 posted on 10/24/2005 11:07:23 AM PDT by DustyMoment (FloriDUH - proud inventors of pregnant/hanging chads and judicide!!)
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To: SJackson

I am sure the feminists will be all over this like white on rice.


4 posted on 10/24/2005 11:07:28 AM PDT by coloradan (Hence, etc.)
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To: SJackson

Imagine you're a woman
It's easy if you please
Just driving a car
Or making your husband clean

Imagine all the women
Voting Like a man

Imagine you're a woman
In Saudi Arabia
Can't vote or drive by
Or live Beatle-mania


5 posted on 10/24/2005 11:07:45 AM PDT by RockinRight (I am beginning to think conservatism is buried somewhere under New Orleans' mud...)
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To: SJackson

Boy howdy am I glad I was born in America!


6 posted on 10/24/2005 11:07:52 AM PDT by Sunshine Sister
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To: SJackson

I have been asked why I get a hostile and wary look about me when some poor harem thrall drifts by in her smothering slave rags . Nobody would ask a Jew why he hates a swastika, but they don't credit a real feminist's reaction to these horse-blanket shackles...


7 posted on 10/24/2005 11:09:01 AM PDT by Mamzelle (.)
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To: SJackson

Yeah, ya gotta guard against that old "evil eye"


8 posted on 10/24/2005 11:09:02 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Makes me even more grateful to live in the US. It's the greatest country in the history of the world.


9 posted on 10/24/2005 11:11:01 AM PDT by AprilfromTexas
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To: SJackson
Imagine you are a woman - not muslim and living in a land of freedom...
10 posted on 10/24/2005 11:11:49 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - They want to die for Islam, and we want to kill them.)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

..................

11 posted on 10/24/2005 11:13:36 AM PDT by SJackson (I went to the intifada, and all I got was a UN T-Shirt, Hugh Hewitt)
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To: SJackson
'Beating the beloved is like eating raisins.'

And women are a majority of Muslim converts in Briton. Go figure.

12 posted on 10/24/2005 11:18:28 AM PDT by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: SJackson
'Beating the beloved is like eating raisins.'

Nice proverb, Saudis. Real nice.

13 posted on 10/24/2005 11:18:46 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave troops and their Commander-in-Chief)
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To: SJackson

Imagine you're a woman who forgot to put the toilet seat up.


14 posted on 10/24/2005 11:19:24 AM PDT by umgud (Comment removed by poster before moderator could get to it)
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To: SJackson
Saudi Author: "Imagine You're a Woman"

...keep writing articles like this one in an Arabian state and you can start to imagine your new job

Doogle

15 posted on 10/24/2005 11:23:32 AM PDT by Doogle (USAF...7thAF ..4077th TFW...408th MMS..Ubon Thailand.."69",,Night Line Delivery..AMMO)
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To: ClearCase_guy
Imagine that you still live in the 7th century.

The hardest part in general would probably be menstruation and dealing with that in a Dark Ages "land that time forgot" would really suck.

16 posted on 10/24/2005 11:25:31 AM PDT by GraniteStateConservative (...He had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here...-- Worst.President.Ever.)
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To: RockinRight
>Imagine you're a woman / It's easy if you please

Hey, if there's one thing
Lennon did, it was never
to mince words. He wrote:



17 posted on 10/24/2005 11:28:21 AM PDT by theFIRMbss
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To: SJackson

Imagine... that American feminists think Western men are worse than Muslim ones, and that they'll use this to destroy what's left of Christian sex roles in society.


18 posted on 10/24/2005 11:28:47 AM PDT by Dumb_Ox (Be not Afraid. "Perfect love drives out fear.")
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To: ncountylee
And women are a majority of Muslim converts in Briton. Go figure.

Religion requires a person to submit themselves to a higher power. People who seek religion are not looking for a church that shifts with the times, they want one which gives them a sense of being tied to an immutable truth.

In the post Vatican II catholoc church, people wonder why the church has lost people, seen an erosion in fidelity to chuch teaching (a.k.a. the rise of cafeteria catholics), and a plunge in the number of people taking vows. Invariably when this is asked in the media, the answer is assumed to be that the church needs more liberalism. I think that the truth is quite the opposite, that with every liberal reform the church looks less like the timeless, immutable institution that people thought it was. When they sense a church will shift in the wind, it disillusions them, and hence Vatican II made people wonder if the church could change after so many centuries, perhaps it was wrong all along and is still wrong. So why take it seriously? They begin to just go through the motions, and over time, drift away.

Say what you want about Islam being stuck in the 14th century, I believe that is actually apealing to many people who are looking for a church that stands up and says "we DO have the answers and we WONT change to suit fashion". Thus to me it isnt surprising that people would willingly submit to the restrictions of Islam. And I think this is a big reason why Islam isnt going to change. It is what it is, and we need to confront it or be swept aside. Just my opinion.

19 posted on 10/24/2005 11:48:52 AM PDT by pepsi_junkie (Often wrong, but never in doubt!)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Imagine you're a woman in America. You can:

Wreck the institutions of marriage and family.
Bankrupt your Ex-husband.
Drench the environment in sexual debauchery and lewdness.
Let "fairies" out of the closet to run wild and wreak havoc on the morals of young people.
Decimate the moral fabric of civilization itself.
Command an exhorbitant extortionist price for sex in the workplace and everywhere else.
Elect Bill "Elvis" Clinton president.
Elect Hillary "Witchcraft" Clinton president.

Yep, women in America are surely living in a women's paradise!

How "lucky" they are, and how stupid American men are.

DA740


20 posted on 10/24/2005 11:56:56 AM PDT by DA740
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