How Western Technology Helps Muslim Men Keep Their Women Down
You can be stuck in the Dark Ages in myriad ways and still take advantage of all the modern advances of Western society, as Muslims have been finding for a number of decades.
Men in Muslim majority countries are finding it far easier to control their women thanks to advances like the "wife tracker" or "digital leash," Isabel Debre writes at Care2.com:
the Saudi government has introduced an electronic tracking system that alerts male guardians when a woman strays too far from home.The "wife tracker" or "digital leash" as some refer to it, reduces women to the legal status of a minor, and is just the latest restriction on the movement of women -- and of the women's movement -- in a culture ruled by harsh sharia law.
As I reflect on a remarkable year of political uprisings and grassroots movements across the globe, I can't help but think about the troubling status quo for women and girls who still struggle for basic freedoms.
In Saudi Arabia, women and girls can't currently vote, date, marry for love, use contraceptives, ride bicycles, talk to men on the phone, sing or dance in public. Unless chaperoned by a mahram (male guardian), girls -- covered in black abayas -- are carted around behind tinted windows to special women-only gyms, boutiques, malls, schools, and restaurants (where they eat in the "family section," apart from single men). The Mutawwa'in, the religious police, fine or even imprison dissenters. Victims of domestic violence and rape are often punished with lashes. Isolation is so intense that some feel that society is split between "two different species."
Just below the surface, desperation percolates. A study at King Saud University reported that out of 100 suicide cases, 96 involved women--many women, wrestling with restrictions on work, travel, and school, attempt suicide to escape Saudi Arabia's strict society. The Saudi authorities actually instituted the SMS tracking system when one Saudi woman tried to flee to Sweden -- the kind of escape most Western women take for granted. Male guardians monitor the women in their custody -- wives, daughters, sisters -- for any attempts to cross the border. They receive a text message alerting them of their female's activity.
Debre is using the right language here -- "their female." Because women, in Muslim society, are possessions of men with few rights and miserable lives.
As a feminist I'd love to help, but right now our big concern is punishing american companies for discriminating against women by failing to give them raises and bonuses they themselves never requested
lujlp at January 8, 2013 8:04 AM
We need to screw with the GPS in their area. Just a little.
Cousin Dave at January 8, 2013 9:51 AM
Crap. I can't even trust that Latitude is giving me current information. I'd like to know what devices they're using.
MonicaP at January 8, 2013 1:40 PM
"Because women, in Muslim society, are possessions of men with miserable lives."
I would actually like to see hard data on this. How happy to women rate themselves in say Saudi Arabia and why. Not because I doubt how badly women are treated, but continue to be staggered by how many people are wired to find pleasures in social cohesion and religion over and above our western liberal concerns with individuality and autonomy. I would wager than in the more benign half of the muslim sexist shithole distribution, the arrangement might provide some tradeoffs that some women experience as positive. I work at a US University with tons of muslims and the women uniformly wear that abaya and such just as they would in SA. Women, of course, are more likely to be religious in every religion.
Brian at January 8, 2013 2:28 PM
Sadly I have a friend whose husband does this here in the US.
DebbieCT at January 8, 2013 3:52 PM
>Sadly I have a friend whose husband does this here in the US.
I've got some male friends whose wives use the digital leash on them. Here. In the U.S.
Meloni at January 8, 2013 4:00 PM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/01/how-western-tec.html#comment-3546519">comment from MeloniWow - how, DebbieCT?
Amy Alkon
at January 8, 2013 4:02 PM
Every phone is basically a gps transponder
lujlp at January 8, 2013 4:27 PM
How much longer before they begin microchipping women and girls in these countries like dogs? It's incredibly easy to transfer the owner's name on these chips from father to husband or brother, it took me 3 minutes online when I adopted my cat.
Zoogie2 at January 8, 2013 6:21 PM
I just finished a biography of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. During his trip to Mecca, his caravan was joined by a number of Wahabist Muslims, the same sect in power today in Saudi Arabia. Even back then, the Wahabists weren't liked by the others, being rather too extreme. They were good fighters, though.
jefe at January 8, 2013 7:34 PM
Brian-
Once on vacation in Germany I met a wealthy Saudi young woman in the hotel and hung out a bit, there not being a lot of young folks there.
She mostly lived in England where she did what she wanted (sounded like her folks were rather progressive). I asked if she minded going back and having to be veiled and such, and she shrugged and said, "It's a small price to pay for a life of such privilege".
NicoleK at January 9, 2013 1:20 AM
For her, how great is the price for those who dont have the funds to live 99.99% of their lives out from under the heel of the religious asshats running her country?
lujlp at January 9, 2013 6:46 PM
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