Month: December 2004

Just How Backward Is Saudi Arabia?

Okay, there are sexist, misogynistic societies, and then there’s Saudi Arabia.

My wife and I got a hint of just how backward the country is many years ago when my wife gave driving lessons to several women from Saudi Arabia. Their families were scandalized enough to know that they were learning to drive, but this was compounded by the problem that they could not go to any commercial driving schools in the United States because they might have to interact with male instructors. So my wife made quite a bit of money teaching Saudi Arabian women to drive.

But you don’t realize just how far along the misogynistic scale that a society can still be until you read defenses of the system in Middle Eastern outlets, such as Arab News. Arab News’ Raid Qusti has an op-ed defending his view that efforts by Saudi women to vote are pointless and a waste of time,

We are not the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, or even Egypt. Our society is entirely different. Complete segregation of male and females in all aspects of our life is part of our culture, whether we like it or not.

The other factor we have to bear in mind is the conservative nature of Saudi Arabia. Saudi women do not appear in public, be it in the media or in public life. And when they participate in events it is segregated with women only allowed to attend. No cameras allowed.

Open all of our 11 Saudi dailies from cover to cover and you will not find a single photo of a Saudi woman. I believe that most Saudi females would not run for office, and restrictions from their families and social taboos would stop her from appearing before a camera and present her agenda. Getting a Saudi female to actually appear on television for a short interview and state her full name ? even if she has her face covered ? is an endless endeavor. Most would reject it. Both for personal reasons, because she does not want to appear in public, or for cultural reasons; that her husband or family would prevent her from doing so.

Social restrictions forbid women to appear in public. We, Saudi men, are not the ones who have come up with this culture. In fact, the majority of Saudi women want that. Whoever thinks that the majority of Saudi women want mixing and want to appear in the media or in the public eye is naïve or a fool, or both.

But it is what Quist has to say a couple paragraphs later that is most shocking (emphasis added),

I think Saudi women have more important things to concentrate on for the present. One of them is to insist their names be heard in public. Currently, the social norm is that uttering a female?s name in public is taboo. That is why all Saudi wedding cards that are distributed to male guests say, ?We would like to invite you to the marriage of the young man so and so to the daughter of so and so?. Her name is never mentioned. Her name being mentioned to men is a taboo.

This is a society that makes Medieval Europe look like “Herland”.

Source:

Why Women?s Voting Is Complicated. Raid Qusti, December 1, 2004.

Woman Who Impersonated Man Receives Suspended Sentence in Sexual Assault Case

For some reason Australia and New Zealand seem to produce a lot of bizarre cases like this. A woman who impersonated man and then carried on a sexual relationship with a minor received a suspended sentence recently despite being convicted of nine acts of sexually penetrating a child under 16 — which carried a potential jail term of 90 years according to the Herald Sun. And the kicker is that the judge cited “emotional distress” that the convicted sex offender might suffer as a reason for the light sentence.

The woman was 22, the girl was 15. The relationship lasted 2 and a half years, in which the minor apparently never realized that the “man” she was dating was, in fact, a woman. When police informed her of this, the girl had a restraining order taken out against the woman. According to the Herald Sun, “The nine charges related to one instance of oral sex and eight where a sex toy was involved.”

The woman was then convicted of all 9 charges, but was released on a suspended sentence and the Australian equivalent of parole. At sentencing, the judge noted that the woman consider herself to be a man and that serving time in a women’s prison would cause her “considerable emotional distress.”

As Australian victims rights advocate Noel McNamara put it in response to the sentence, “What about the victim’s considerable emotional distress?” McNamara urged prosecutors to appeal the sentence.

Source:

Woman posed as man to bed girl. Liam Houlihan, Herald Sun, December 1, 2004.

Wells College Students Sue to Prevent Admission of Men

Two students of women-only Wells College are suing the college to prevent it from admitting men until they graduate.

Freshman Lauren Searle-Lebel and sophomore Jennifer LeBarbera are suing the college claiming they enrolled in Wells College under the presumption that it would remain a woman’s college, and that by admitting men Wells College is breaching a contract it had with the women. They are seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent Wells College from admitting men until 2008.

The students’ lawyer, Peter Carmen, told the Associated Press,

We’re asking for very limited relief. We just watn the women who applied to, and were accepted, by a woman’s college to be able to graduate from a women’s college.

Ann Rollo, vice president for external relations for Wells College, told the Associated Press that the college was moving forward with plans to admit men,

It is the students’ choice to pursue legal actionbut we remain focused on moving forward. Students, faculty and staff are fully engaged to make this work.

Source:

Students sue Wells College to delay admission of men. Associated Press, November 30, 2004.

Students demand ban. Indiana Daily Students, December 1, 2004.

UN Investigating Sex Abuse Claims Against Congo Peacekeeping Force

In November the United Nations announced it was investigating as many as 150 allegations of sexual abuse carried out by the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo.

The actions followed a May 2004 announcement by the United Nations that peacekeepers were alleged to have committed about 30 cases of sexual abuse in the northeastern Congo town of Bunia.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said of the allegations,

I am afraid there is clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place. This is a shameful thing for the United Nations to have to say, and I am absolutely outraged by it.

There are close to 11,000 United Nations peacekeepers in the Congo. The United Nations cannot punish offending soldiers directly, but instead must return the soldiers to their country of origin and ask it to take action against the accused.

Sources:

UN: 150 Sex Abuse Charges in Congo Peacekeeping. Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, November 22, 2004.

UN Congo peacekeepers guilty of sex abuse. China Daily, November 20, 2004.

Amnesty International: Violence Against Women Is Factor in Spread of AIDS Epidemic

Amnesty International released a report in November, Women, HIV/AIDS and human rights, arguing that a failure of governments to tackle violence against women in AIDS-ravated regions of the world is contributing to the spread of that disease.

According to the report,

The increasing spread of HIV/AIDS among women and sexual violence are interlinked. If governments are serious in their fight against the disease they also have to deal with another worldwide ‘pandemic’: violence against women.

The report cites three specific traditional practices which Amnesty International says contribute to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. They are early marriage, in which very young girls are entered — often against their will — into marriage; wife inheritance, in which a wife is passed along to her husband’s brother in the event of the husband’s death; and female genital mutilation.

The report also notes that rape and violence against women are a major outcome of persistent wars in some parts of the world, especially Africa which has been hit hardest by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Sources:

Amnesty: Violence against women is spreading AIDS. Reuters, November 24, 2004.

Women, HIV/AIDS and human rights. Amnesty International, November 24, 2004.

The UN’s Money-For-Peace Scam

Via ScrappleFace.Com,

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan today vigorously denied allegations that he has overseen a complex, fraudulent scheme to pilfer billions of dollars from 191 nations under the guise of providing “global peace services.”

. . .

Mr. Annan brushed off suggestions that he should step down, and insisted he has fulfilled his role of fostering global peace by “holding meetings, eating in fine restaurants and speaking very softly in a charming accent.”