Tuesday, October 13, 2009

There, I've said it... (#1){finished}

Okay, I am 12 weeks post partum.
I have been going to the gym for three weeks...so you know the time has come to pull out the soap box.
This morning on the way home from the gym I was listening to NPR (d@mn that liberal med!a) and the article was about this woman in sudan who had been arrested for .... are you ready...???
WEARING PANTS!!
Yes folks ...she dared to wear pants. She was convicted and was sentenced to 40 floggings with a whip.
only thing was she was a famous person (her husband was a famous journalist).
So, she sued the gov't.
The conviction was upheld by a judge, who reduced her sentence to no floggings...but still being publicly shamed.
okay...
This was all legitimized by religious doctrine--supposedly a mUsl!m belief of being modest and not inciting public immorality or unrest by one's actions.
...let's go back in time to when a six foot tall Spaniard cathol!c red head took me --along with about 12 other college students (three j3ws and one muslim among us) to morocco to study art--
What I saw...and experienced was TERRIFYING.
I saw women walking around in TARPS with a piece of mesh to look through.
Women were not allowed to USE THE BATHROOM IN A PUBLIC PLACE!!!
WE had to pee at the hotel (which was accostomed to western womens' bladders).
WTF?
One of the nights we were treated to the belly dance show...obviously performed by an ar@b woman.
So, I surmised, that in this place one must either wear a tarp in public, or ...one might perform REALLY EROT!C dances for the public wearing a bathing suit adorned with jingle bells...ughhh...????
Needless to say this aspect of the culture was an abomination in my opinion.

Also in college my friend and dorm mate explained to me that actually the kor@n stressed being modest, that is why she chose (she was egyt!an and raised in the u.s.) to wear a little net over her hair.
To be modest. When I went to her religious celebration at the end of ramad@n I had to stand at the back b/c since my uterus was shedding blood I was considered to be dirty.
(God is laughing, folks)

There is no part of me that can understand how 1/2 of any given population can stand for this kind of treatment, this kind of lifestyle, institutionalized sex!sm disguised as religious mand@te--or how the other 1/2 could come up with it and enforce it.

Last year at school the ESL teacher tried to explain to me that one time she had worked among a Musl!m community teaching English and that the women were "really all very happy" and that underneath it all they wore cool clothes, and in their homes they wore what they wanted--as long as only family were in attendance.
Is that the point? Not to me...Not when another time I saw a poor woman explaining that wearing the tarp was not all that bad--only when the mesh piece messed up her ability to walk around--she sometimes fell down.
This woman also was abused by men in the street b/c she had to beg for money and food to feed her children since her husband had been killed.
again i ask...WTF?


I mean --in this NPR article it was explained that showing a wrist was a crime...
Do you mean to tell me that men have so little control over being horn! that a wrist in public might cause them to pitch a tent? ...what if there is a man among them who might have a feminine wrist...ooohhh..now there is conundrum.

I am not sure where I am going with this right now...b/c I am tired.
Maybe tomorrow, in the gym, where I work out among men, I might come up with the rest.

Until then, feel free to weigh in.

Okay, this morning in the wee hours when I was headed out to the gym I realized the rest of what I wanted to say about this.
Women are not a minority. We make up half of the population. Why in the world are women treated worse than animals all over the world. This is something I can never manage to reconcile in my head or heart. Is it hormones or what.
I mean why one day don't women in these places all plan on the same day..."okay tom. morning when it's time to put on your tarp, or time to get raped in a cage all day long, or time to get beat up, or time to sell my seven year old daughter to be a sex slave...or whatever...why don't the women just pick up the gun or machete or whatever in their house and say..."alright asshole...i have worn a tarp for the last day, or just go ahead and try to butcher my daughter's crotch and sew it up you (insert cuss word)--b/c trust me, i will blow you away, or chop you to bits (pick your poison)."
If they all did it at one time and on the same day...would this work? could they do it?

I wonder how many floggings I would get one a daily basis if i lived in one of these places and were subjected to this kind of cruelty (b/c that is what it is).

Okay--i'm off to nurse my baby...i wonder how you do that with a tarp on/??

God bless the liberal media. :)

1 comment:

Bethany said...

{git it girl!} What will it take? Truly? A transformative figure, a great leader, or the move of the Spirit, to change views and hearts... And on we move forward, while others are crushed the same as ever. To think I have to sweet talk my girls into wearing a dress! What would we do w/ out PANTS?! :) Hope your postpartum exercise regime is going well!

Spot on!

Spot is our family's chihuahua.  He is what we call, "an evil dictator/stuffed animal come to life".  Sometimes, after he has ...