Saudi Students In US Seek Segregation By Gender On Facebook 353
Beetle B. writes "A 22,000-member group for Saudis studying in the US on the social networking website Facebook has been split into two groups, one for women and one for men. The split follows a request from the group's female members who wanted extra privacy. The separate page for Saudi women is a valid decision. We took it to fulfill the wishes of the Saudi women in the US. We have been contacted by a lot of women asking for their private group,' Majed Aleid, media chair of the 'Saudis in the US' group, told Arab News in a letter."
Re:You can't free someone who doesn't want to be f (Score:2, Informative)
Difference being, you are free to leave that denomination and many do. It is apostasy in Islam to leave...and the majority (read almost all) middle eastern countries have that particular infraction punishable by death.
Re:You can't free someone who doesn't want to be f (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty much every Western culture requires women to cover their breasts while men can leave theirs bare. I'm not sure of the anthropological history of this particular example, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had Judeo-Christian roots. All cultures have screwy social norms. Most members of that culture can't recognize them.
Yeah seriously, check out what the Chinese [reuters.com] used to do to girls.
If you want REALLY weird, check out the Mormons and their Magic Underwear [exmormon.org]. These freaks also practice "baptism by proxy", wherein they "baptize" dead people using a "stand-in" so that every "family member of a Mormon" gets a "Mormon Baptism"... turns out every few years, some German Mormon nutter gets it into their head to baptize Hitler [mrm.org], then they excommunicate him, then the cycle repeats.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that "consumption, storage, and transfusion" of blood is 100% verboten. They won't even pre-donate their own blood if they have to go in for a surgery where there may be extra blood needed.
As for the whole deal about cultures and what they will sexualize... I hereby direct you to Rule 34 [xkcd.com]. Or Rule 34. Or Rule 34 [tvtropes.org]. Rule 34 [google.com]. In other words, Rule 34 [encycloped...matica.com].
Clear?
I think some Turksih women in Germany would (Score:4, Informative)
not agree.
They Germans have been turning a blind eye to the immigration of "lesser' people for sometime. The highly insular societies built up with in Germany are little better than those from the countries they fled. As with many societies, those of us who were born here (I am not from/in Germany - just a Western Country as in the US) tend to think many things are automatic. Instead we what happens is many of these groups get marginalized by government policies that are there to supposedly help them but keep them isolated instead. This opens up opportunity for some in those groups to enforce the old ways.
Simply google Turkish Immigrants Germany and you can find many articles, some very recent on the problems faced by them, especially women. Even over there people turn away from the particularly awful problems while talking up all the good that has been done
Re:You can't free someone who doesn't want to be f (Score:4, Informative)
Last week I was talking to a customer and he explained how he, his wife, his brother-in-law and his wife, had left their southern baptist church because his brother-in-law's wife had the temerity to suggest that she could teach Sunday school - due to having assisted the male teacher, who had since left. It was "suggested" by the church that the brother-in-law should "control his woman"
The Southern Baptist Convention is more like a coalition of somewhat similarly-believing churches. Each member church is wholly autonomous, hires (and sometimes fires) their own pastor, elects their own Board of Deacons (which actually governs the church), and generally does whatever they want in whatever way they see fit. The whole SBC system is basically a federation of democratic republics with a very weak central government, the main purpose being to band together to support missionaries and some colleges, etc.
The Southern Baptist church I grew up in was the exact opposite of what you're describing. Specifically, my mom taught Sunday School for many years. Although we wore the traditional business-casual to business-formal clothes on Sunday morning, any other meetings or services you might go to were "come as you are", and in hot months you could just about guarantee that 90% of kids would be in shorts and t-shirts. The youth groups had summer camps where girls swam in bikinis if they wanted to, we went on ski trips, and one time we went on a national tour to perform a rock musical.
I don't consider myself a Southern Baptist anymore because of doctrinal differences, but they're certainly not collectively the way you describe that one particular church. Now, that church may very well be exactly like that, but that's because its own members choose to be. Other SBC churches would have very little patience with those artificial restrictions, and would in fact see them as ranking piety more importantly than an honest relationship with God.
Re:You can't free someone who doesn't want to be f (Score:4, Informative)
"Do you think women would be asking to wear a burka if it wasn't for pressure from men to wear them?"
Yes. In the conversations I've had with Muslim women in my neighborhood (not to say that we're real good friends or anything, but sometimes I'll be at the coffee shop or something and get to talking with folks), the consensus that I've heard is "It's not about the men, it's about us."
Re:You can't free someone who doesn't want to be f (Score:4, Informative)
This argument is the same one made by those trying to defend female circumcision. Or stoning people to death.
Just because they come from a different geographical location does not make them different from you or I. Repression is repression, zeitgeist be damned.
Re:You can't free someone who doesn't want to be f (Score:4, Informative)
"Right, because at no point in their life were they raised to believe that they should cover themselves."
Yeah, and you were probably raised to believe you should cover your genitals when you go to the grocery store. What are you getting at?
Is it something to the effect of "Muslim women are downtrodden and oppressed drones who can do nothing that a man does not allow?" Because that's a bunch of bullshit. There is a Muslim woman who wears the veil in my neighborhood...and is our city council representative. I don't think her man's telling her to do it.