yea, all them darned iraqis blew up our embassies, cruise ships and flying commercial airliners into buildings...
they probably just hire the readily available and extremely cheap labor from South Asia and turn them into drivers. I wouldnt drive either if I could get someone to do it for me for less than a $1 a day. it would definitely help getting rid of that road rage i get travelling to and from work. in that sense, they dont really need a drivers license. but, as mentioned above, its unfortunate that they are forbidden from getting one based on gender.
As I have said in other posts I think someone should be a stay-at-homer. Mom or dad is fine given the world we live in today. All things being equal and given a chance, I think it should be the wife that stays at home. But that's more of a religious thing than anything else. The world, how it is today, it is great to have a dad at home with the children. As far as your kiddos doing well in school and being well behaved, that comes from having loving parents that are there for them. That is not to say that a kid can grow up at kindercare and after-school programs while mommy and daddy work until 7 at night can't be well behaved and smart; they obviously can. But the ones that are well adjusted kids are the exception rather than the rule.
Whether or not it matters is arguable. I was reacting to this particular quote of yours: "The American government is completely ethnocentric and cannot fathom why some one would not want to live the way we do." My guess is the women in your life would agree with the "American government" assessment that women should be allowed to vote and drive (among other things). This is not simply the way the government feels, but the way the vast majority of Americans feel. When women have equal rights as men you get a bit more caring and compassion in the world.
A lot of deep stuff and not a lot of time to posts. Even though I'm a relativistic post-modernist I don't believe all cultures are equal. I don't like the Saudi culture and wouldn't want to live under it and especially have any women I cared about living under it. That said its there culture and as long as they aren't trying to make us live under their culture I think we should leave them be. As noted in the article most Saudis and others don't hate Americans as people but hate our geopolitical policies and find our holier than thou attitude exasperating. I think the best way to deal with that is to as much as possible leave other countries and cultures alone and let them sort their troubles out rather than sticking our noses into it. IMO our foreign policy is best solved through focussing on free and voluntary trade rather than trying to maintain a worldwide Pax Americana. If people like our values then that's good for them but if they don't we're not going to force them down their throats or lecture them about it. They just have to keep in mind that if they want our money then they have to deal us in an open manner and we will with them. In regard to women's lib being the cause for so many ills I think Chance isn't totally off base but I think some of the arguments are rather specious. While yes more people working leads to more money in the hands of families but at the same time it leads to greater productivity. Just because each family earning more doesn't automatically translate to inflation. Also if it was just a matter of having more money having two earners doesn't necessarily mean more money. In terms of real earnings many two earning families now earn as much or less than previous single earning families. On the other side there are many advantages to a two earner family where if one of the earners gets an extended illness or decides to back to school there is still another earner who can still help support the family. This is unlike the days when most women didn't work because if the husband couldn't work it was nearly impossible for a housewife to find work anywhere near what the husband was earning to keep the family going. In regards to raising children I agree that there is probably something there and that having neither parent at home most of the time probably negatively affects child rearing. To address that though we don't need women to stay home because men can stay home too. What I think might be a good situation is for parents to alternate when they stay home and now thanks to things like flex time and telecommunting that's becoming more of a reality.
LOL, this is a terrible argument based purely on the fact that this same tactic is employed by your own beloved Mr Bush. When was the last time, you saw Mr Bush surronded by a group of questioning Liberals? When was the last time you saw him not Droning to a group of hand selected neanderthals. Wasnt it during his campaign that he was making people sign loyalty waivers in order to just be able to attend a stop on his tour? Does this mean all those peoples idea's are irrelevent because of their positions in life? If they cant be the voice of the people because they are better off, then how can you say that Bush is the voice of Americans, when hes had as big a silver spoon as anyone, hiding him away from Wars, giving him Oil Companies to run, and baseball teams to own? Has he ever worked as hard as some of those ladies did? Im sure that my Mother, Sister or Wife all would answer the same. That they wouldn't want an Islamic Nation coming to America telling them how sh!tty their existance was, and asking why they wouldnt want to be more like an Arabic woman.
Fair point. But I think you can still say that that aspect of Saudi culture is wrong without embracing everthing American. There's plenty wrong with western culture -- but allowing women to vote isn't one of them. Again...comes down to whether you believe women are equal. If the answer is yes..then forbidding voting and driving, when you don't do it for men, is simply inconsistent. It simply cannot be reasonably justified.
How is my point even arguable? Wouldn't you agree that this particular article would have been more interesting if all points of view were offered? In the context of any gathering, things are much more accurate if all points of view are represented. For all I know, if all classes of women were represented they may have all voiced the exact same opinion. To me, that would have made the article more interesting. I never said their viewpoints were wrong, I would just like to hear them all. With respect to the women in your life, my question was essentially "Do they think women in a Muslim country should be allowed to vote and to drive?". With respect to that question I was arguing Agent27's comment that " The American government...". I think the vast majority of Americans would agree that women should have equal rights as men throughout the world and that viewpoint is not unique to the government. I was NOT arguing that we had the right to go in and change a country's culture.
bobrek, Those women, if anything, were on the 'liberal' end of society in Saudi, and the 'less fortunate' ones as you call them would not have nearly the same amount of exposure to all things Western (culture, clothes, cars, etc.) and are much more likely to be more conservative than these women from I assume Jeddah on the west coast of Saudi Arabia. If these are 'liberal' women by Saudi standards, then logic would tell us that others hold even stronger anti-Westernization views. BTW, this doesn't mean that the women were anti-American, it just means that they don't want to live like the women in the USA, which I understand is difficult for most Americans to comprehend. As for Chance's point, I do believe that men and women are different but equal.
America is still socially working through the Equal Rights and Equal responsibility things Their are still moments. .. and places. . where Women seem to want to be 'treated like a Lady' not necessarily as an Equal Chivarly etc. . . social situations... in the Muslim world they don't have this . .. . the structure is very well define there Rocket River . . .I'm not saying it is GOOD or Bad but it IS
I will again restate my position that in ANY discussion type of forum the more diverse the audience, the more interesting the discussion and subsequent reports. We would not have to rely on what we think the other participants would have said. Again, the entire audience may have said the exact same thing as these elite women did. That would have made the article more interesting. That is all I am saying. I am not doubting anything the women said or the author wrote. I am not saying we should or shouldn't impose our life style upon them. Again, I can not see how anyone can dispute that. If President Bush holds a "town meeting" and the only participants are die hard Republicans, I would not find that near as interesting as if he held the same meeting with all of the political spectrum in attendance.
My wife would say they are, without hesitation, then she would add a caveat... they are not allowed to be. Keep D&D Civil!!
Bobrek, you are not getting it. Dreamshake was mocking you for stating this opinion yet supporting a president who lives the opposite methodology every day.
The women spoke about being happy. They spoke about not wanting a driver's license. That is the thing about real freedom. They wouldn't have to have a driver's license, or do anything differently than they are now. They could continue to live their lives the exact same way they are now. But... If other women wanted to drive cars, work jobs, or anything else they ought to be allowed to. Any country that restricts that should be called backward, or unenlightened, sexist etc.
I am going to take an unusual position by agreeing with most of the "conservative" posters here (eg. bobrek). This article is really pointless -- another evidence that MSM isn't always better than some tabloid news source when reporting an event. If you had asked women in old China, who had their feet binded, what they thought about foot binding practice, many would have said there was nothing wrong with it. Because binded feet were considered "beautiful", without having done that girls would have had hard time finding husbands, despite the physical pain endured in the process of binding, the permanent deformation of feet, and the life-time limitation on mobility. If you had asked women who were "married" as concubines to rich men in old China whether they were happy, many would have told you yes because otherwise they might have ended up being the wives to not so well-off men. In a society where women are treated as second class citizens and are subject to many restrictions on their rights such as voting, driving, playing sports in public, freedom of choosing spouse (although a very recent clerical ruling seemed to allow it), which are enjoyed by their male counterparts, it does not matter if some women consider they are living "happy lives" -- the society is unenlightening at best, barbaric at worst. IMO, suppression of women's rights and freedom is worse than cruel punishment for convicted criminals, such as chopping off hands of thieves, because the former affects half of the population, which do no wrong in the first place. It's one thing for New Your Times to argue for the merits of non-intrusive approaches and non-interventionist foreign policies in the Middle East. The attempt to score a political point for "anti-war liberals" based on a staged event participated by "500 privileged elite women picked by the university" is nothing but a sign of shoddy journalism.
Take a look at how women fared in the Middle East: US "Allies" The Associated Press recently described Saudi Arabia as "a conservative kingdom that according to a strict interpretation of the Quran cuts off the hands of thieves and forces women to fully veil themselves in public." --"Muslim rage flares as U.S. strikes Iraq" Associated Press, March 24, 2003. "The Saudi religious police... use sticks to make sure women hide beneath their abayas, the long black cloaks. Women also have to use separate banks and schools and obtain written permission before traveling alone or going to a hospital. They must sit in the back seats of cars they are not allowed to drive." Maureen Dowd, "Cleopatra and Osama," New York Times, Nov. 18, 2001, p. wk 13. "In a three-hour Muslim cultural awareness class that is mandatory for all [US military] units at Ft. Dix... [The instructor] explained that Arab women have restrictions on behavior, dress and other personal displays. She then told them of a GI during the Persian Gulf War who had sex with a Muslim woman. 'He got shipped out of the country before anything bad could happen to him. She got beheaded,' Penner said." "Gulf-bound troops get primer on Islam," Associated Press April 9, 2003 "Saudi Arabia has always had rigid segregation of men and women in universities and elsewhere in public life, with male faculty members teaching female students only through one-way video. In Oman, Sultan Qaboos University built separate corridors and entrances for men and women when its campus was being constructed in the late 1980's but students have generally refused to divide themselves." --"Kuwaiti Universities Return to Separating Men and Women," Daniel del Castillo, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1-3-03, pp.A44-A46 In Kuwait, an Islamic-dominated parliament officially passed a bill in 1996 calling for the segregation of male and female students in higher education... The government gave Kuwait University five years "to develop existing buildings... to guarantee that male and female students do not mix... advocates of segregation also say that it improves the comfort level for women. "University students must talk and debate, but women are shy of speaking in front of men, and consequently they don't talk at all in class," said [a segregation advocate]. Many female students say that's nonsense. "What makes us shy is to grow up segregated from boys," says Khadija Ashkanani, a senior majoring in sociology. "When girls are segregated, their ideas are limited to what their families want, which is basically to have us stay home and produce babies." --"Kuwaiti Universities Return to Separating Men and Women," Daniel del Castillo, Chronicle of Higher Education, 1-3-03, pp.A44-A46. =========================================================== US "Enemies" "If American ground troops are allowed to storm across the desert from Saudi Arabia into Iraq, then American servicewomen will theoretically not be able to drive vehicles as long as they are in Saudi Arabia and will be advised to wear an abaya over their heads. As soon as they cross the border into enemy Iraq, they'll feel as if they are entering the free world: they can legally drive, uncover their heads, and even call men idiots." --Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, October 1, 2002 "Iraq's Little Secret." "Saddam ran a brutal dictatorship. [but] centuries of vicious discrimination against girls and women was ended by one stroke of the modernizing dictator's pen. I used to drive past the Mustansariya University on my way home from downtown Baghdad. It was miraculous -- I use the word advisedly -- it was nothing short of miraculous to see hundreds of girl-students thronging the campus, none in "burkhas" or "chador" -- the head- to-toe black cape that was, and is, essential dress for women in most of the Islamic world -- and almost all in skirts and blouses that would grace a Western university. The liberation of women -- that is half the population of Iraq, as for any other country -- has been the most dramatic achievement of Saddam's regime. To understand how dramatic just look across the Iraqi border at America's once-favorite Arab satrap, Saudi Arabia." --Mani Shankar Aiyar, Deputy Chief of Mission, Indian Embassy in Baghdad 1976-1978 Writing for United Press International, "India File: The Other Saddam" April 6, 2003. "A man can stop a woman on the street in Baghdad and ask for directions without causing a scandal. Men and women can pray at the mosque together, go to restaurants together, swim together, court together or quarrel together. Girls compete in after-school sports almost as often as boys, and Iraqi television broadcasts women's sports as well as men's. 'No one thinks that sports are just for men,' said Nadia Yasser, the captain of the Iraqi women's soccer team, 'It's true that my mother was a bit concerned at first when I took up soccer, but I insisted, and so she accepted it and just started praying for me.'" "More broadly, in a region where women are treated as doormats, Iraq offers an example of how an Arab country can adhere to Islam and yet provide women with opportunities. 'I look at women in Saudi Arabia, and I feel sorry for them,' said Thuha Farhook, a young woman doctor in Basra. 'They can't learn. They can't improve themselves.' At the Basra Maternity and Pediatrics Teaching Hospital, 25 of the 26 students in ob-gyn are women. Across town, 54 percent of Basra University's students are female." --Nicholas Kristof, New York Times October 1, 2002 "Iraq's Little Secret." [source: http://www.afn.org/~redstock/iraqiwomenp3.html ]
Just because i support a president and/or the government does not mean I agree with everything they do.
