Hats off to Saudi Women
Last week in the May 10th Kuwait Times, Dr. Sami Alrabaa wrote a fascinating article on Saudi Women, Saudi Arabia and some shifts in press coverage in Saudi Arabia.
This is how the article starts:
Anti-Woman Culture
More and more Saudi women are speaking out against preachers in their country. Fatma Al-Faqih, a columnist at the daily Saudi Al-Watan accuses preachers (April 17) of “denigrating women” and “inciting discrimination against women.” “Day in day out, our preachers flood us with accusations against women and beg men to defend the virtues of society that women corrupt,” Al-Faqih writes. This “anti-woman culture”, Al-Faqih continues, causes women to feel mentally and psychologically inferior, “like a quarrelsome child who must be constantly supervised, intimidated, and punished into performing her duties.”
It is also unprecedented that the Saudi print media are allowing women to air their indignation and frustration. Al-Faqih also writes, “Women are good Muslims as men are. But our preachers insist on producing a distorted picture of women, which has nothing to do with true Islam. The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) never discriminated against women. He respected them. He valued their opinions and occasionally sought their advice. He treated them as full-fledged human beings. Our preachers however, depict women as spoilt minors who have got to be constantly instructed to behave themselves. They cannot be trusted.”
Al-Faqih also wonders, “Where is it written in the holy Quran and Hadeeth that women are not allowed to drive their own cars? Where is it stated that women are forbidden to travel alone, leave their houses, or travel alone with the family’s chauffeur? Where is it stated that women are forbidden to have a passport without permission from their male closest relatives, forbidden to go to school or university without permission, forbidden to take a job without permission, forbidden to open a bank account without permission, forbidden to name their own children without their men’s approval?”
Further, Al-Faqih complains, “Where is that divine law which does not allow women to sue their husbands for divorce? Where is it written that women’s voice is a sexual organ and hence she is not allowed to speak in public and express her concerns? Where is that sacred law that does not allow women to keep their own children after divorce? Where is it written in Islam that women are not allowed to vote or run for office?”
Al-Faqih concludes, “Are we in Saudi Arabia a special brand of Muslims? In other Muslim countries, women have become presidents (in Bangladesh for example), prime ministers (in Turkey and Pakistan), ministers in Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Kuwait and other Arab countries. In all Muslim countries, women have the right to vote and run for office. No, we are not a special brand of Muslims. It is our preachers who interpret Islam their own way.”
You can read the rest of the article by clicking HERE.
My comment: When I lived in Saudi Arabia, my eyes were opened. My Saudi Arabian women friends were SO smart, and they really knew their Quran. They also knew hadith, and they knew the weight of each hadith, which were strong and which were weak. They didn’t just memorize suura; they thought about them, they discussed them and analyzed them.
Through them, I understoon Islam in a whole new way, and understood the revolutionary thinking of the Prophet, who was kind to women, took council from women, and treated women fairly. In an age when female babies were routinely killed, he stood against the tide of tradition, and forbid the killing of female babies, and insisted on rights of inheiritance for females (and this in the 7th century).
And no one found it more ironic than the Saudi women that Saudi Arabia has become a worldwide symbol for repression of female rights. My Saudi sisters claim that in the birthplace of Islam, Islam has become distorted, a weapon used against women.
My Saudi women friends often told me I was not required to wear a scarf. My embassy told me the same thing, that it was a voluntary sign of submission to Islam. The embassy also told me to carry a scarf, and if accosted by the mutawa,(religious police, the “The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Defense Against Vice” or something like that) to put it on until he was out of view, and then to take it off again, that the scarf was not mandatory. The mutawa felt differently, and would boom out in loud, offended voices: “MADAME, COVER YOUR HAIR!”
I would comply. But the unfairness never failed to rouse my ire. Excuse me? My hair might cause YOU to have a lustful thought? You control YOURSELF and your thoughts, and let ME worry about my morality.
So my scarf – errr hat – is off to these Saudi women who have the bravery to write these well thought out position papers to the Saudi papers.
The interesting thing to me is that the Saudi press is printing the women’s complaints now. . . perhaps, insh’allah, some changes are in the air.
And a muse – So when a Saudi woman comes to Kuwait, for example, or to France – is she allowed to drive? We know it is illegal for her to drive in Saudi Arabia, but is it also immoral for her to drive in Saudi Arabia? Or is it immoral for her to drive anywhere? So like is it immoral for all us women to be driving anywhere?
Mother’s Day from a Child’s Eyes
More than one friend sent this to me, and thank you ALL!
GOD MADE MOMS
Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:
Why did God make mothers?
1. She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.
How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.
What ingredients are mothers made of ?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men’s bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.
Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We’re related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s moms like me.
What kind of little girl was your mom?
1. My Mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.
What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?
Why did your mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn’t have her thinking cap on.
Who’s the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because dad’s such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.
What’s the difference between moms & dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power ’cause that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend’s.
4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.
What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don’t do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.
What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she’s already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I’d diet, maybe blue.
If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I’d get rid of that.
2. I’d make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.
Big Girl Pants
I got an email this morning from a friend who learned I have taken on a leadership challenge.
“I could never do that. . .” she said.
She gave me a good laugh. We organized a group together, starting from scratch, in a previous life, and she was one of the very first to step up to the plate, to volunteer for a job I considered burdensome, but she has done it well for over three years now.
I grew up around the military. There were always these older women around, really together women, women who organized things, women who managed, women who were leaders. They were also totally intimidating women, and behind their backs we called them the “tough old birds,” not without admiration.
The turning point came for me in my early thirties, when I saw a job that needed doing, and I knew I could do it at least as well as it was being done, and probably better. I knew I had a lot of resources available to help me do the job, just needed some organizing. I took the project, did the job, and it all worked out great. I was not yet a tough old bird, but I knew I was now playing with the big girls.
The phrase I keep coming across now is “put on your big girl panties,” some add “and deal with it.” I’ve seen it in a couple ads, and in more than a couple blogs . . . it seems to be a phrase of the day. (Google it – you’ll see what I mean.) It means dealing with an situation that needs to be handled, even if unpleasant, even if you don’t want to. It means taking responsibility. It can mean you’ve taken a hit and have to keep going. Most of all, it means you’re at a higher level of performance than before, and you need to meet a new standard. I think it’s a hoot.
(It originates in toilet training, when a toddler goes from diapers to cloth pants, called “big-boy pants/ big-girl panties” and it means literally, you are now expected not to have any accidents, but to use the facilities just as big boys and big girls do.)
The elastic on my big girl panties is giving out. I’ve been wearing them for a while now. I have probably now reached the age when women are calling me tough old bird behind my back. When did that happen?
To all my faithful friends out there, friends who have been my friends for years and tens of years (you know who you are) I am proud of you, and more thankful for you that I can express. Aren’t there days when we wish we weren’t big girls? Aren’t there days when we just want to run and hide, and not take those responsibilities? Aren’t there times when you want to say “no! I can’t do that!”? You’ve helped me through all those days.
Thanks to your love and support, putting on big-girl panties hasn’t been so bad. And we’ve had a lot of laughs along the way. Thanks for being along for the ride.
Best Mother’s Day Story
In honor of the upcoming American Mother’s Day (I don’t know why we have it on a different day from the rest of the world) a friend sent this hysterical story, which I am sharing with you.
So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently
died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on
him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long
on this mat in our bathroom.
Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years
old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves
chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing
it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my
chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put
it right back in the drawer when he was done.
Last year on Mother’s Day, we were having the typical rush around
and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My
two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse
my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a
mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor
me and the amazing job that is motherhood.
We finally have the older one and and the baby loaded in the car and
I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the
corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my
chapstick very carefully to Jack’s . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my
eyes and said “chapped.” Now if you have a cat, you know that he is
right–their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn’t
seem to mind.
And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it
was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat’s behind or the hundredth.
And THAT is my favorite Mother’s Day moment ever because it reminds
us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little
creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they’ve been using
your chapstick on the cat’s butt.
MOC Bans Porno Film Sites
Today’s Kuwait Times:
Internet Porno Film Sites
The Ministry of Communication has closed down all new sites that advertise pornographic films. The ministry of Communication represented by Undersecretary Eng. Abdulaziz Al-Osaimi and his counterpart at the Ministry of Information achieved this new step. This move was done in order to have control over the sites, which are being followed by the Ministry of Information. Al-Osaimi has assigned administration director Nassar Al-Kandari to work on closing those sites from the Internet and ensuring that companies do not use other systems to re-open it. The ministry succeeded in coordinating with local internet companies to close all porno sites, but lately the ministry realized that there are new sites marketing through drama films to porno films.
My comments:
I truly hate porn. I hate it because it creates a fantasy world that real women can barely compete with. I bet if men spent half the time and attention on their wives and families that they spend on porn, there wouldn’t be so much divorce. And guys – those women are PAID. They’re ACTING. Most of them would rather be doing anything but what they are doing, but they do it for the MONEY. It’s about as real as the World Wide Wrestling Federation Matches, it’s all staging and airbrushing and making money off YOUR fantasies.
Rant over – reality strikes. How do you ban pornography?
First, how do you define pornography? When I was a student in political science, we spent a week of class time trying to come up with a definition that everyone could buy into. We never succeeded.
There is some pretty powerful erotic literature, erotic art out there, stuff I don’t find pornographic in the least. So what are the guidelines?
Second, WHO defines pornography?
Third, how on earth will the Ministry of Communication and the Ministry of Information keep up with all the new porn sites that keep popping up? These sites make people a LOT of money, they have the money to pay ingenious high tech guys to keep devising new ways to get their product to market.
And last, who is the poor porno-guy who has to watch all this garbage and enforce the ban?
And – is your internet phone still working? 😉
It’s about Fat, Not Weight
A new study tells us you can be normal weight, but still at high risk, depending on where you carry your weight. Women at highest risk carry more fat around their organs. From BBC Health News:
A test has been designed which can show if people of normal weight are at an increased risk of heart disease because they are carrying “hidden” fat.
Developed by South Korean researchers, it checks blood-flow via a cuff on the ankle or arm.
Professor Paul Stewart, an obesity specialist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, said: “The take-home message of this study is that having more fat around your the belly area puts you at increased risk of heart disease.
“it’s not so much about general obesity; it’s about middle-aged spread and where fat lies that’s the problem. . . . .
Writing in Clinical Endocrinology, the team say those with the poorest blood flow had more fat around their organs, and so were most at risk.
“This is one more test that can indicate risk.”
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: “This study confirms what we have known for some time; good heart health seems to depend more on our shape than our weight. ”
”Visceral’ fat inside our abdominal cavity – surrounding our intestines – increases our heart disease risk more than fatness in other parts of our body. “It’s possible in future that measures of waist circumference will be included to refine the heart disease risk assessment.
Read the entire article Here.
“Make This Case Go Away”
This is from today’s Kuwait Times.
MP Intervenes to save rapists
by Hanan Al-Saadoun
Kuwait: Two men accused of kidnap, rape and assault were let off the hook after pressure from a lawmaker and a senior police officer. A captain from the Traffic Department was on duty in Khaitan when he saw a parked car with an Asian maid in it and a man standing next to the car. The maid suddenly pointed to the officer and cried for help, so the captain rushed to the car and found another man inside with the maid.
The captain asked the man outside what the problem was. The main replied that this was a runaway maid and he was a detective. The captain asked for his ID but the man refused. The captain then realized that the man smelled of alcohol.
The men suddenly assaulted the captain and bit his hand, injuring him severely (emphasis added by blogger.) After the captain subdued both men, they confessed that they were drunk and that they had tried to rape the maid. The captain then tried to file a case at the Khaitan police station against the two men, but the MP intervened and tried to stop the captain from registering the case. The captain persisted and kept pushing to file a case for a week, until his superior intervened too and told him to “forget the incident.”
My comment: If I ever stop getting outraged when I read reports like this, God forbid, I will be dead.
First, the maid’s life is seriously damaged. Any victim can tell you that the terror of abduction, with or without rape, resonates through your life. When you are in a situation where you have no power, and are at the mercy of someone stronger or more powerful than you are, it is a life-changing event. And would her sponsor accept her back, even though it were no fault of her own? Would they not be afraid she might be diseased? They might even accuse her of inviting the assault – and this was an assault.
Second, these young men lied to the police, impersonated a police officer, resisted arrest and caused bodily harm to a senior police official. Did you notice – THEY CONFESSED.
Third, the police captain had the guts and integrity to persue filing this case against these wicked young men, inspite of pressures from above. WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO on you, brave one, for your integrity.
Last, kudos for Hanan al-Sadoun who does such a great job presenting so many of these outrageous stories in an objective manner, letting us fill in the details and express our outrage in our blogs. Brava, habeebti.
Evidently this air tight case will never get to court.
And what have these young men learned about accountability? That their name and wasta will make their despicable actions go away? What is the fitting punishment for what they have done? C’mon readers, check in on this one.
OK, OK, I’ll take a deep breath and stop now.
Saudi Dies in Court
As an ironic tie-in to an earlier blog article today about Kuwaiti women seeking legislations on Women’s Rights, here is a related article from today’s Kuwait Times 23 April 2007:
JEDDAH: An elderly Saudi man dropped dead in court after it banned him from stopping his three daughters from getting married, newspapers reported yesterday. The man apparently had a heart attack once the cassation court judge in Makkah told the three women, aged 36, 39 and 40, that they could marry over their father’s objections, Okaz reported.
The women, whose father had on several occasions turned down their requests to marry, can now marry “honest men” who follow their religious duties, the Islamic court ruled, according to Al-Madina newspapers.
Senior Citizens in Kuwait Taking Hospital Beds?
Tacked on to another article in yesterday’s Kuwait Times was this tiny bit of news, with much larger social implications:
“In other news, sources revealed that senior citizens have changed the rooms of public hospitals into old aged homes due to the low fees that are imposed on reserving a room at the hospital.
The rooms at public hospitals are worth KD 1 per day, and if the patient stays for two months, then he will pay only 500 fils per day.
Effective measures must be adopted by the Ministry of Health such as giving a determined time for each patient in order to enable hospitals to receive other patients.”
In a related article several months ago, a article in the same newspaper said that the hospitals were overrun with old people because people couldn’t take care of them at home, and it was much less shameful to say “my Mother is in the hospital” than to say “my mother is in a home for old people.”
It sounds to me like the solution is for the Kuwait government to open a state of the art “hospital” specializing in Gerontology, which in reality would be a retirement center for people unable to take care of their own physical needs, and whose families cannot meet their needs (believe me, after my father’s lengthy and debilitating illness, I know there is only so much a family can do), and they can still say that their parent(s) are in a hospital.
It would meet the need of “hospitalization,” would provide the older people with the intensive and personal services that they need, and would free the beds in traditional hospitals for the seriously ill and damaged citizens.
It’s only words.
Kuwait conference calls for document on women rights
In yesterday’s Kuwait Times, there was a tiny paragraph in the reporting about Personal Law in Kuwait pertaining to women that stated
“Among the loopholes of that must be corrected is the provision empowering a woman’s father to marry her to whoever he likes or divorce her without consulting or even informing her . . . “
Is this possible? Does this still happen? I thought in Islam, a woman had to agree to accept a man as husband, and had a right to have clauses put into her marriage contract? And a father can have his daughter divorced from her husband without her even knowing about it, much less agreeing to it?
Here is today’s reporting from the Kuwait Times on the recommendations for legal changes:
KUWAIT: Participants in the Conference on the “Kuwaiti Women in National Legislations” have recommended the preparation of a comprehensive national document to facilitate women participation in the country’s development aspects under the sponsorship of the legislative and executive authorities as well as the civic society institutions.
At the conclusion of the one-day conference, organised by the National Assembly’s women affairs committee, the participants demanded improvement of legislative performance, promotion of the existing legislations and completion of the legal system in an introduction for the rise of women’s rights in the society.
To read the rest of the article, with the recommendations made by the committee, click on Kuwait Times, here.
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