"But most Christians have decided to reform, to introduce new ways of looking at [the Bible] and to allow freedom of thought and speech."

Yep, Christian women are mostly safe from their families. It's the kids that have to watch out. Between Nigerian evangelicals accusing them of witchcraft and the kids being killed or mutilated by their parents, or parents here trying to cure their desperately sick children through prayer, it kind of makes ya wonder.

Yes, yes I know. The Nigerians are all new to this Christian thing so they can hardly have reformed yet, but it still seems to fit somehow.

I was raised Lutheran. Now I belong to the church of Those Not Ready To Accept Not Going On In Some Way Or Other. And we're pretty mellow.

It would be very interesting at that for us to start insisting that female circumcision is wrong. I feel bad for the first circumcised women to hear this message.

Oh, they've heard it. Accepting it and stopping the practice is another problem. Many women who have gone through it think this is truly necessary, and if it isn't done to their daughters the girls will be unclean and no man will marry them.

Sick, sad world.

Even the women who live in individual circus tents?

Somewhat offtopic (regional interest only)—

I'd heard of the Palm Islands in Dubai. But while poking around in the Persian Gulf tonight, I found this freakazoid development under construction.

How many really, really rich people in the world want to live in the Persian Gulf?

From an essay by Reginal Bretnor: "All cultures are most certainly not of equal value - and the more clearly we understand them, the more obvious that becomes..."

People who accept arguments such as "this is our custom" when referring to simple barbarism and brutality - these are people who are either hopelessly self-deceptive, or else who have never left their comfortable McMansion to visit the cultures in question.

> From an essay

Or a book by William A. Henry: "It is scarcely the same to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose."

As women are the majority of voters, I seriously doubt that I'm oppressing them. If anything, as a white man with a full-time job, I'd like to suggest that I'm one of the workhorses of the economy. Society depends on people like me playing by the rules, by doing things like going to work everyday and having a family.

To wit: Every couple months, there's a new article about how men won't commit, won't grow up, won't settle down, won't stop smoking weed and playing video games. Apparently, just enough of us are denying the wishes of our oppressors, that we must be shamed into obedience. But I digress.

A mainstream feminist disregard for the plight of women of color is not a new idea. I'd like to suggest that this is because feminism is but the political expression of penis envy on the part of upper-middle class white women. The most prestigious positions were unavailable to 99% of men and 100% of women, which hardly seems like much of a difference. Poor women, white and black, have always had to work. I doubt that they found it empowering.

Not only does feminism have little regard for anyone but it's own constituency of restless housewives and short-haired academics, but its embrace of cultural and moral relativism marks it as unprincipled in regard to everything except power. This willingness to tend and befriend the brown-skinned oppressor---instead of condemning him---is not about understanding, but about getting wet at the thought of domination by an exotic other who hasn't been emasculated by a century of nagging.

I don't feel the responsibility to send feminist missionaries to reform people on the other side of the earth. While I agree that what they do is horrible, I don't think the US is up to the task to fix it. We've got enough on our plates, and our own problems to deal with.

It isn't that I don't think what these cultures are doing is wrong, and if some charity wants to go help them I might donate $20, but honestly, we have our own problems to deal with.

"How many really, really rich people in the world want to live in the Persian Gulf?"

Quite a few, apparently. A lot of prime properties were sold to Western jet-setters & retirees before the economic crunch. I could never understand that. Isn't the first rule of real estate "location, location, location"? Look at the map. On one side of Dubai & Bahrain, you have Saudi Arabia, where all the women wear black body bags, public beheadings, stonings, and amputations are the #1 entertainment, and where Al Qaeda just sent a suicide bomber to try and assassinate a member of the royal family by detonating a bomb shoved up his ass (no, I'm not making that up). On the other side, you have Iran, where all the women wear black body bags, public beheadings, stonings, and amputations are the #1 entertainment, and where the ayatollahs are making atomic bombs when they're not busy slaughtering their own unarmed people in the streets. And this is the neighborhood that hordes of upper-class twits bought retirement properties in? Just because there's lots of sand & sunshine, & a fancy pad is cheaper than it would be in the south of France?

I went to Dubai once. It was nice, I guess, but I have no real desire to go back. We were visiting my uncle who was in Kuwait at the time, and figured, what the heck, let's see Dubai. I preferred Kuwait. It felt more authentic. Dubai is a giant shopping mall.

"It isn't that I don't think what these cultures are doing is wrong, and if some charity wants to go help them I might donate $20, but honestly, we have our own problems to deal with."

NicholeK - honestly, why do you get more worked up about GLOBAL warming (emphasis on global) then you do about women's privates getting sliced off?

Because Global Warming is one of -our- problems. We will be affected by it. We are causing it.

We are not causing FGM. We are not affected by it.

Selfish? Maybe. But we can't solve the whole world's problems. We have enough criminals mistreating each other here. Our criminals and victims may not be as exotic as African ones, but we have a lot going on here that we need to fix first.

It's like illegal immigration. It's very sad that people in other countries aren't doing so well, but we can't afford to save them all and bring them here and give them free health care.

Tyler - is your last name Durden, perchance?

> properties were sold to Western
> jet-setters & retirees before the
> economic crunch.

[emphasis mine]

Yeah. It's perhaps not weird that people thought they were going to get in on a hot real estate market in early hours... A lot of us had that feeling for a while. The weird part is that anyone thought that Dubai would ever be a fun place to hang out... As if in just a few years, the beach was going to be crawling with hot Jewish broads in bikinis carrying cocktails. Furthermore, we're told that the houses in the Palm projects are in fact built cheek-by-jowl and with no more elegance than you'd have found in a Vegas (or Ohio) subdivision built in the same period. And the Gulf is not an espcially interesting body of water if you don't live on such a freaky perch: Average depth 150 meters. Hot. Environmentally challenged.

Who needs it?

> We are not causing FGM. We are not
> affected by it.

You know what would have kept those 19 guys out of flight school (but not landing school) in 2001?

TAIL.

Yes, we're affected by it. To say nothing about the influence we feel from the dispositions of the women who've suffered it.

> Selfish? Maybe.

I hate it, hate it when people interview themselves. (Personal pique. Never mind...)

Not every 3rd world Muslim woman is a helpless victim of culture & Islamists. Take Rukhsana Kausar, for instance. In Kashmir, jihadis have a habit of going around to farmer's villages demanding money, food, lodging, and their daughters in marriage. You can read & see what happened when they came knocking on her door here:

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/01/farmers-daughter-is.html

If more women followed her example, the war against Islamic terrorists would be over much sooner.

"Even the women who live in individual circus tents?"

I don't know. Word gets around in lots of different ways. If they don't know, they may be better off then the women who do know and can't stop it, or those who do know but don't agree and don't want to stop it.

I also agree with NicoleK that we can't solve the whole world's problems. (Not to mention that the world doesn't seem to appreciate it when we try to. Go figure.)

Rooster: I'm not Tyler Durden, but I know who you're talking about.

> we can't solve the whole world's
> problems

If the problems from their incompetence could be kept within their own cultures, you might have a point to make...

(...In practical terms, in not ethical ones. I think we owe it to a lot of unborn women to put a stop to this, just as we put a stop to abject slavery.)

But here we are.

I'm reading a brilliant book. Military engagement with the Middle East is a big part of who we are as a nation. It's about 220 years too late to say we should just pay bribes and be done with it.

We can't solve the whole world's problems. That is the point. We can't solve the problems with force, and we can't solve the problems with money.

We can and do try to solve the world's problems with information and assistance, which has had limited success.

Sometimes I would like to just bring a big Monty Python foot down on certain areas of the world's geography and start over again from scratch.

Then I think of the individuals over there that feel the same way about this part of the world, and it brings me back to square one. We can't solve the whole world's problems if they believe WE are the problem.

> We can and do try to solve the
> world's problems with information
> and assistance

Weaponry is often helpful.

> We can't solve the whole world's
> problems if they believe WE are
> the problem.

The ain't the prom, and we ain't vying for a seat the King & Queen's court. We got a civilization to run here. We got needs.

Again, if humility could have worked, wouldn't you have expected it to do so after 8 years of Clinton and tepid response to the Cole?

FGM doesn't result in a loss of tail for potential terrorists, Crid. From what I understand, percieved tribal male sexual preference is one of the driving factors.

The problem is, how do you go about solving all the immorality in the world? I think you are seriously underestimating the amount of fucked-up-ness there is in the world. We've sent missionaries to Africa, they convert to Christianity, and promptly go around torturing child witches. We sent our ex-slaves to colonize Liberia and bring civilization and enlightment, and... yeah.

We simply do not have the money to engage our military in every country that has immoral laws. We could boycott them all, but we'd end up hurting ourselves more than we hurt them, unless we did it with a plan in place.

If all you're asking people to do is say that FGM is immoral, then hey, I'm on board. If you want us to actively spend our money and resources stopping it... I don't know about that. I think our resources, which are limited, are better spent fixing our own problems first.

Now if they come -here- and want to practice FGM on their minor daughters, I say lock 'em up and give the kids to CYS. (If an adult wants to mutilate her genitals, that is her business).

Your High School analogy can be taken further, Crid... this ain't High School, we can't just get away with shoving people in lockers because we have a letter on our jackets. We're not leaving after graduation, and going our separate ways to a place where the lockee will forget about us. We're stuck with the other countries and populations on the planet.

Interview myself? Never heard it put that way! ;)

"the courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali" ?

Maybe. Certainly a feminist, though, as her man-hate comes through clearly. Her GRANDMOTHER instigated her circumcision, as is the custom, while her FATHER objected. Still she blames only one sex for all of women's, and indeed all of the world's, problems: "Western feminism still defines the white man as the oppressor, but right now it's the brown man, the black man, the yellow man." Of course the relentless gender feminist Patt Morrison says nothing to disapprove!

That men have their own particular burdens in EVERY society, and that women's and men's lives are interdependent, is ignored; only women have problems, it would appear, which can be fixed in a vacuum while being irradiated with hate.

Funny how some people think that generating irrational hatred between the sexes is somehow beneficial. Oh, right. I get it now. It benefits THEM -- they are enriched, and empowered, and sometimes get a lot of publicity, to boot.

While they demonize men, these people belittle and diminish women -- casting them has weak, child-like beings without the agency, and responsibility, of full adults.

Given the manifest damage that radical feminism has done to Western society, developing cultures would do well to avoid Western feminism like the plague -- literally.

No humility here, honey. I'm all for making people stop doing what I don't want them to do, if I can. But I know they'll only stop it for as long as I'm in control and keeping an eye on them, and I have other things to do. Like go make some other asshole stop doing something else that I don't like. Along with doing my grocery shopping and laundry.

One gets distracted, you know. So many problems. Like slavery. We didn't really put a stop to it. We put a stop to big obvious slave ships, but it's still going on in other parts of the world. So much of this crap is going on in the same parts of the world.

And then there's piracy, youth violence, Balloon Boy, internet bickering...where will it end? Plus, I have just started reading "Leningrad, State of Siege" so a lot of my moral outrage is being focused on stuff that happened way before I was born.

And now I have shopping to do. At least that's something I have a say in.

> percieved tribal male sexual
> preference is one of the driving
> factors.

I maintain that if women in those cultures were being treated the way they should –including not having their genitalia mauled– young men wouldn't be so eager to fly into buildings.

And couple recent speeches by Hitchens have had a convincingly straightforward wording about this (paraphrase, you can go find one if you want): 'The cure for poverty is the emancipation of women.' So there are other good effects.

Internet bickering takes care of itself.

I've asked other feminists this question: Why are women's rights always the ones up for negotiation?

But they're not. All sorts of rights are negotiated when human rights issues are contested.

This statement is indicative of a trait that's common among feminists in the US. They always seem to be jockeying for victim status. It's tiresome.

>>>You know what would have kept those 19 guys out of flight school (but not landing school) in 2001?

TAIL.

Yes, we're affected by it. To say nothing about the influence we feel from the dispositions of the women who've suffered it.

It's as simple as tail? Will readily available liquor and reasonably priced Girls Gone Wild pay per view suffice? Seriously though, isn't the fundamentalist elements of islam responsible for terrorism in all its forms (planes to FGM)? Furthermore isn't repression of female sexuality a product of islam? So I guess we curb islam for the win-win scenario of less terrorism and more tail?

I understand that some countries in Asia are significantly gender imbalanced. This must mean that many millions of males are going without tail. Should we fear a fleet of Air China kamakaze attacks?

>>>Internet bickering takes care of itself.

LOL, good one. Maybe the middle east just needs more good sarcastic humor.......

"Western feminism still defines the white man as the oppressor, but right now it's the brown man, the black man, the yellow man."

The irony, as I see it, is that white men are most in a position to effect positive change on the problem. However, they are also in a position that to speak up on the subject is a path to career death. Women will have be the ones to effect positive change. I find it sad and unfortunate that too many women either will not take a stand on it or hold the view "the white man as the oppressor".

Because Global Warming is one of -our- problems. We will be affected by it. We are causing it.

Nicole - Global Warming is not happening.

So you are wrong three times. We won't be affected by it, we aren't causing it, and it is not a problem.

Here's how you battle the cultural excuse-making:

Islamist: "It is our custom to kill our daughters who dishonor us!"

Me: "Yeah, well, it's our custom to put your ass on trial for murder."

> It's as simple as tail?

Didn't say tail was simple... The complexity of dealing with woman at their best (erotically and otherwise) it's what's missing from these guys' lives...

OK, then, Crid, what do you propose we -do-?

Should we send doctors with information packets about how harmful FGM is? Should we give them all free cable, and flood the airwaves with anti-FGM messages? Should we go to Africa and shoot everyone who cuts a child's labia? Should we boycott all products from countries that have legal FGM?

Would you be cool with a tax hike to pay for all these programs? Would you be cool with the economic fallout from boycotting all immoral countries? Would you be cool with the increase in gas prices?

We have our own laws and our own police forces who need to enforce them. Let's focus our money and resources on fixing American first. There's plenty of child abuse here, I promise you. Let's enforce our own laws before we go around policing the rest of the world.

It's like the stewardess says... put your own oxygen mask on before helping your neighbor with his.

> what do you propose we -do-?

1. See the world as it is, eschewing obfuscations.

2. Acknowledge that as the planet's central repository for decency, genius and fortitude, we have responsibilities for which other nations (Hi, Europe!) will be unable to offer sensible counsel, and unwilling to offer helpful assistance.

3. Recognize that far too many of the technological blessings of our modernity can be transported to primitive cultures without and of the legal, ethical, and social righteousness which brought them into being. (The piloting of airliners comes to mind.)

4. Other things to be named later.

Thanks for asking!

without ANY of...

How much for better commenting software, Amy? Something that lets people come back in two hours and fix typos?

>>>Didn't say tail was simple... The complexity of dealing with woman at their best (erotically and otherwise) it's what's missing from these guys' lives...

I don't necessarily disagree with your premise about tail's properties to pacify, however, shouldn't the gender imbalance in parts of Asia be creating many millions of guys ready to rumble?

"Tail is not simple"...... Understatement of the year....

OK, Crid, say we've "accepted respobsibility" for maintaining moraility in the world. Again, what do we DO? How are we going to enforce it? I'd like to hear your plan for ending FGM in Africa.

And should we end male genital mutilation here at home?

> Again, what do we DO?

Quit screeching, I answered you the first time. Second, I didn't imply that we needed to panic or take over the whole ball of wax, only that it was silly to say we ought take no interest in horrors happening elsewhere: We can't be isolated from them anymore. Third, who said I had a plan for ending FGM in Africa? Fourth, just wait a couple weeks. Amy has a whole squadron of little guys who show up whenever she posts something even mildly critical of male circumcision; they write long, eloquent comments with links to essays and phone numbers to committee chairmen and all the rest.... THOSE are the droids you're looking for.

"I don't necessarily disagree with your premise about tail's properties to pacify, however, shouldn't the gender imbalance in parts of Asia be creating many millions of guys ready to rumble?"

It does. That's why China makes me nervous....how many more million young men than women over there?

And, regarding tail, yes, I think that sexual frustration plays a big part in the general restlessness of Muslim youth. Want to actually get laid? Not with one, but 70 girls? Go blow yourself up, i.e. become a "martyr" and that'll be your reward.

It is a dirty little secret that most Muslim boys' first sexual partners are other Muslim boys.

I think Other Beth is right. The manipulation of sex ratios is one of those nightmares that a truly feminist culture in the United States should be screaming about.

the other Beth said...
It is a dirty little secret that most Muslim boys' first sexual partners are other Muslim boys.

You can provide proof of this I'm sure.

Crid, there is no call to be rude.

@gwallan: Well I haven't been an eyewitness, if that's what you want as proof. But our team of interpreters in Afghanistan gave us a pretty initimate glimpse into their culture and lifestyle. We also had alot of business and social interactions with other Afghans from all different regions of the country and some Pakistanis too.

> no call to be rude.

I know, but it felt like you were getting all snooty. When the world comes to me for marching orders, I'll be ready with them.

Pricklypear--I was disturbed by your quote until the twist at the end. What a thoughtful, humane comment. Comment of the day!

Quoting:

We can't solve the whole world's problems. That is the point. We can't solve the problems with force, and we can't solve the problems with money.

We can and do try to solve the world's problems with information and assistance, which has had limited success.

Sometimes I would like to just bring a big Monty Python foot down on certain areas of the world's geography and start over again from scratch.

Then I think of the individuals over there that feel the same way about this part of the world, and it brings me back to square one. We can't solve the whole world's problems if they believe WE are the problem.

Posted by: Pricklypear at October 18, 2009 12:24 PM

@the other Beth...

So you have anecdodal evidence only? I can claim very similar sources. A good friend runs a charity devoted to refugees from that region who now live in my town. Several thousand of them as a matter of fact.

Homosexuality is a crime punishable by execution in many muslim nations. Is there a record of numerous boys being executed for this reason in those places?

@gwallan: Yes, anecdotal evidence only...of course I haven't visited all Muslim nations and interviewed all Muslim young men. But from the ones with whom I did have regular dealings and conversation I was told that it is an extremely common occurrence and that even they themselves engaged in this.

I realize that homosexuality is a crime punishable by execution by Muslim nations--hence the "dirty little secret." It's one of those things that Islam turns a blind eye to, so to speak, sort of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Many do it, but it's not talked about publicly, because of the possible consequences.

I'd be interested (really) in hearing what your friend has to share on the subject based on conversations with the refugees he's had. And if I may, I applaud his efforts with the charity. The people there have such a great need and it seems an overwhelmingly big challenge to try and meet it. My remarks weren't met to slam young Muslim boys at all--simply to say that the collective sexual frustration plays a big part in their lives. The girls are kept away from the boys to prevent pre-marital hanky-panky and the boys turn to...other boys.

@the other Beth...

Yes indeed your remarks were viewed as slamming muslim boys. They were viewed as both racist and sexist in nature and, furthermore, unneccessary in the context.

I would suggest that the dynamic would be little different to that existing in our own single sex schools and that girls also would be as likely as boys to "turn to...other girls".

The other side of this coin was reported by Toy Soldier from Canadian accounts.

Ok, gwallan, let me try this one more time. Following that, I'm done with this thread.

It is unfortunate that you viewed my remarks as "slamming" young Muslim men. I can assure you that is not how they were intended, at all, but the fact that you took them as such, even after further explanation, leads me to believe that you'd probably be offended no matter what I said.

Racism and sexism are forms of discrimination based on a belief that a race or gender, respectively, is superior to another. How in the heck do you extrapolate that from *any* of my comments? I was simply commenting on a fact (albeit based on anecdotal evidence gathered by me, not a group of "scientists") from another culture...is it racist/sexist to simply state that many African nations practice female circumcision? or that Jewish people and many in the US practice male circumcision? I am not following your logic at all, sorry.

Your point about same sex schools in our country is irrelevant; as a CULTURE we don't segregate our boys from girls even close to the extent it is practiced in Muslim nations. All-girl schools--the few of them left these days--have regular mixers, social opportunities, etc. with local boys. They certainly are allowed to "date", at least to some extent. And, from conversations I've had with a few girlfriends who have attended all female schools, there was a fair amount of girl on girl action in that environment.

I'll leave you with this final thought: I have an enormous amount of compassion for the people of Afghanistan--they are rugged and beautiful, proud but unfortunately very poor, and often uneducated. If I could have taken home every little child I saw I would have. Especially the ones missing limbs or parts of limbs from the mines that are everywhere. At least once a week we'd read about kids getting killed or maimed from an old mine--and that was just around the capital area. It breaks my heart that they don't allow adoption from that country; the number of orphans is staggering. I'll say it again, the work your friend is doing is awesome and my hat's off to him for his efforts.

I wasn't able to pull up the link you posted, because my computer won't cooperate, but I'd be interested to read your summary of it, if you have the time. Also, I don't know if your friend's charity has a website, but I'd be interested in that as well. Thanks.