When will the Bushies realize that such comments are CONDESCENDING and make one sound stupid?
Leonardo | Homepage | 09.28.05 - 1:45 pm | #

How are they condescending?
cicero | Homepage | 09.28.05 - 3:43 pm | #

I think they are condescending in the assumption that everyone in the world shares our same goals and values. Arabic/Muslim culture is vastly different from US culture. For instance, many Muslim women I have met like to wear the veil and freely choose to do so, in America and everywhere. This is incomprehensible to most Americans, including me, who despite my blogger name is female, but we are (mostly) not Muslim and have little understanding about their views on religion, gender, etc. Things are always more complicated than they seem. I learned this by making my own Hughes-like comments to an Iraqi woman and being brought to the wood shed. I think Hughes should listen more and learn if she is going to have success in her specific mission of winning hearts and minds. If her mission were not thus, I would be with you completely, Cicero.
Leonardo | Homepage | 09.29.05 - 6:59 pm | #

These are all good points. I was especially intrigued with the Saudi woman in the article who likens driving to oppression (being forced to run errands, pick up kids, etc).
I still can't help but think (and here's where my American arrogance comes inton play) that a lot of Saudi women are brainwashed. The same way many American women were brainwashed until the 60s. Of course, as a man I probably shouldn't even be commenting on such things since I don't know what it's like to be a woman in any society.
cicero | Homepage | 10.01.05 - 10:49 am | #

I think class also comes into play. I mean, hell, if you're rich and have a driver taking you around in a black Benzie then not be able to drive is not so bad. Look at Ladner's wife at AU: she loved having a driver. These sexist restrictions hit the poor and middle class, if there is a middle class in those countries, the hardest. There was a great Post article last month about Kenya, which is instituting a schocking level of Sharia law, that described how women can't take buses anymore because they mix with men, and they also can't take motorcycle taxis. SOL! PS a female friend of mine was at the KSA airport and said the women's bathroom has a dirt floor with a hole in the middle to do your business in, all together, while her male colleague said the men's room is marble and gold. So much for Muslim law intending to "respect" women!
Leonardo | Homepage | 10.02.05 - 8:23 pm | #