Posted on 12/26/2006 6:07:21 PM PST by naturalman1975
HER voice shaking, the young woman in the hijab sitting about five rows back from the podium was clearly angry with me. As were other women in the audience, some in hijabs, one wearing a nikab, only her eyes visible through a narrow slit. Angry with me for writing about Muslim women.
It was late one Friday afternoon a few weeks back and I was speaking at a conference on The Journalist and Islam at NSW Parliament House. I asked them what I had done to offend them so.
Was it that I had written about the many Muslim women in Arab and other Muslim countries who are treated as second-class citizens and the many Muslim women in the West who are similarly mistreated in the shadow of Islam?
Apparently, white Christian girls should not write or speak about such things. My error, they said, was to presume to speak on behalf of Muslim women. But, of course, I had done no such thing. The role of the media is to expose and debate. No apologies for that. And in doing so, a journalist is no one's spokesman. When I pointed out that a more open debate depended on Muslim women talking honestly about the problems of radical Islam and the consequent inequality inflicted on women, there was only silence.
And that silence is the problem. So again, in that vacuum, a white Christian chick will write on this issue because, in an enlightened world, the inequality of the sexes should transcend race, ethnicity and religion.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Strange headline. Like they're talking about the Laker Girls or something.
Maybe she doesn't mean that we gals should all be united against those knuckle dragging men. I'll read the rest and find out, but it sounds like this is where this is going. If so, I will read it with the derision that it deserves.
It should. Just as all Iraqis should want freedom. Welcome to the real world, Ms. Albrechtsen.
When Muslim women decide they want liberation, they seem to jump from suffragists to 2nd Wave leftist feminism very quickly.
That is if they are lucky- usually they are slowly stoned to death http://sacredscoop.com
That picture reminded me of a question I've been meaning to ask for a long time. Does anyone know why women in Taliban-run Afghanistan all wore light blue burkas? And did Afghan women wear light blue burkas before the Taliban? What's with light blue? In Saudi Arabia and every place else I've seen these head-to-toe face-covering get-ups, black seems to be mandatory.
The whole point, IMO, seems to be to make women identifiable and conspicuous as a class but utterly nonexistent and annihilated as individuals. Black also absorbs heat - in 120 degree temps, it would be murderous to have to wear that. It is mandatory to cover up to preserve "modesty" (i.e. deny that you are a sentient being worthy of rights), and to suffer as well. They can wax poetic about the five pillars of Islam, but in reality there's only one and it's shaped like a boot standing on a woman's neck.
I think this would be a much better article if this person had actually talked to a Muslim woman and tried to understand their loyalty to the current system.
The current system must offer them some advantages, or at least perceived ones, or they would be on her side.
On the face of it, it seems absurd that anyone would want to keep their heads in the 7th Century when the 21st has so much to offer in terms of greater opportunity and more interesting challenges.
At the same time, I can't help but notice that most American women seem pretty unhappy with their lot. The women on Free Republic who seem happiest, in fact, are the ones that have defied Feminism and stayed home to raise a family.
So maybe Islamic women are seeing this and feeling that perhaps being Westernized isn't such a good thing.
On the other hand, there does seem to be a happy medium in some places. Women in the Philippines, for example, pride themselves on getting educations, even against considerable odds, and yet many of them seem happy as domestic goddesses, putting priority on having a happy family.
I've noticed that people in the Philippines are much happier on the average than those in the US, despite the material deprivation common in the country.
So are we ahead or behind culturally? We have freedom, but is it being used as it should be?
These are important questions that the article's author brushes aside, and yet she could make a real contribution if she examined them.
D
The burqa is traditionally blue - nearly all burqa are blue. It was rarely worn in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban, but when it was it was blue.
What is worn in Saudi is normally the niqab, not the burqa, and there's no set colour for those though black is common.
Saudi Arabia isn't exactly chilly and nobody there seems to worry that black might be exceptionally uncomfortable for women. But still, while I can see why a lighter color makes more sense, why light BLUE? Somebody must have made the decision for some specific reason, since there's no way that they'd all have picked the same color if left to their own (or more likely their husbands') devices.
Makes me want to haul out a shotgun and blast them all to perdition, but seems to make liberal feminists want to join a harem.
Where's their spirit?
See below. Blue has a meaning.
The system for keeping women oppressed and virtual prisoners offers the same perceived advantage as the system which encourages men to blow themselves up: a ticket to Paradise, guaranteed by the idiot imams and ayatollahs. Considering that men are free to walk around and talk to people, travel, etc. and still are very susceptible to believing this crap, imagine how easy it is to get a woman to believe it, when she's never allowed out of the sight of her male relatives, and isn't allowed to communicate with anyone without said male relatives' permission.
Is there any place besides Afghanistan where blue is the norm? I don't recall ever seeing it before Taliban-controlled Afghanistan started making the news. AND why blue? Is it like blue jeans, that once upon a time it was the cheapest and most readily available dye?
According to who?
Some parts of India and Pakistan also use the burqa, and again, blue is common. As to why - there's differing theories. Some people say it was just a cheap and available dye, but the evil eye explanation that has been mentioned may have some truth to it - the main problem with it, is that the association of the evil eye with the colour blue is primarily based around Turkey and nobody seems to have explained how it spread to Afghanistan, if it is relevant.
The current system must offer them some advantages, or at least perceived ones, or they would be on her side.
On the face of it, it seems absurd that anyone would want to keep their heads in the 7th Century when the 21st has so much to offer in terms of greater opportunity and more interesting challenges.
At the same time, I can't help but notice that most American women seem pretty unhappy with their lot. The women on Free Republic who seem happiest, in fact, are the ones that have defied Feminism and stayed home to raise a family.
You're right. It's generally the women who are living out the roles that God has created for them who are the happiest. It's true that men have often taken advantage of women and that is what needs changed. A Muslim woman who can't be happy in that outfit won't be happy out of it.
It's a tradition and superstition, like red and green are for Christmas. I'm not saying it fights off anything, only that there is the belief that the color blue carries some importance. "Worry beads" that Muslims/Turks finger are often turquoise--you also see this among Spaniards of Moorish tradition. It's even seen among Mexicans..."Mal de Ojo"--
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