But at least modesty cultures are very respectful of women.

Just kidding.

Sometimes it is just stares. As I am walking down the street, I see him coming across me. He is several metres when I am already cringing. I lower my stare, or look away.

I want to close my manteau – the medium-length, light jacket worn by some Iranian women instead of chador – to avoid his snooping glare, but it’s too late. As I walk past him, I feel his piercing eyes looking for my breasts under my thick cloak, sizing up my figure with acute intensity. Riveted to my body, they follow me up until I feel them burning my back as he is already behind me. There isn’t even the slightest pretence of hiding: the ogling is unabashed, both nonchalant and full of aplomb.

Every so often, there are sounds. As he walks by, he turns his head towards me and slams his tongue against his palate. Or kisses the air loudly. There are so many shades of whistling, hissing, smacking, licking, puffing that I am amazed at the capacities of the human mouth. Sometimes it comes from behind me: a hiss directly in my ear. Sometimes it’s a last-second move as we walk past each other, like a snake suddenly sticking out its tongue. Every time, it is the same hideous expression of unhindered lust sending shivers through my spine.

Oftentimes, it is words too. Fortunately, my Persian is not good enough to grasp the profanity thrown in my face. Or maybe I don’t want to know anyway.

Yeh he’s probably not saying “welcome to Iran, I hope you have a pleasant walk.”

Sexual harassment in public places is a reality of every day in Iran. At first, I thought my foreign looks and my somewhat liberal style (vivid colours, open manteau, scarf thrust to the back of my head) made me a target. But when I opened up to friends, I realised this is a ubiquitous reality for young women of all styles and backgrounds.

“Growing in a Muslim country where the hijab is not mandatory, I have always been told: the hijab is there to protect women from men’s desire, because our body is ‘awra’ (intimate parts of the body that should be covered) that can spread ‘fitna’ (chaos) among men,” says Sahar, a 26-year old non-Iranian who has been studying in Tehran for a year. “But then I came to Iran, where hijab is mandatory, and I am still harassed in the streets. Men aggressively stare at me, talk to me, call me names. I feel naked, and worthless.”

Intelligent design – in which one sex hates the other sex and won’t leave it alone. What a way to live.

For women, walking in the street can become an excruciating, fearful experience.

“I feel deprived of one of my favourite things in Iran: walking alone,” says Sahar. “Every day, when I leave home, I wish for one thing: to be left alone. Because of this, I started taking cabs, even for a five-minute ride, just to avoid these encounters.”

…

The hunting happens everywhere in broad daylight, with the tacit approval of all – including the very authorities supposed to protect women. There is no risk in this hunt.

The feeling of incapacitation and helplessness for women is overwhelming. “It gives you a feeling of powerlessness because it seems that, since they aren’t physically attacking you, you don’t have a right to do anything to them,” says Lucille.

I remember that feeling so well in Paris as a teenager. I would tell them to leave me alone and it did no good – it was so frustrating and infuriating – as if I had no right to myself, no right to walk around, no right to be left alone, no right to tell men to stop intruding on me.

My sense is also that these daily interactions have become so habitual that most women don’t bother to bring it up, unless there is a special instance of outright groping for instance.

“Should we disappear? Should women just disappear?” asks Sahar.

This is a feeling many women have shared with me: the desire to become invisible, to suppress one’s physical being in order to avoid the intrusive, defiling daily looks, hisses, words and gropes.

Just to be able to move about in the world unmolested.

But then what about Charlotte Proudman, eh? Humorless feminazi? Tiresome PC pain in the ass? Shrill angry demanding witch?

Barbara Ellen at Comment is Free says no.

With wonderful inevitability, human rights barrister Charlotte Proudman has been accused of overreacting to solicitor Alexander Carter-Silk commenting on her photograph on LinkedIn. For those who aren’t aware, Carter-Silk wrote to Proudman: “I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture”, awarding her best photo he’d seen on LinkedIn (Carter-Silk says he was remarking on the quality of the photo).

Proudman responded that his remarks were “unacceptable and misogynistic”, then shared their interaction on Twitter, remarking that men were using LinkedIn like Tinder. For this, she has been castigated for not being able to take a compliment, branded a “feminazi” and told that she has committed career suicide. And yet, if we remember, it’s Ms Proudman who’s supposed to have overreacted.

Look…Carter-Silk (was there ever such an apt name?) said himself he was probably being horrendously politically incorrect, so why are people jumping all over his target? You know, if I say “this is probably a horrendously cruel thing to say” that doesn’t mean I get to go on to complete the sentence with “but you are boring and smelly and no fun.” Starting a sentence with an admission that what you’re about to say is shitty is not a way of giving yourself permission to go ahead and say it. If you start a sentence with a warning that should be a sign that you should stop, not that the recipient should brace herself, much less that she should laugh merrily and ask if you want to fuck.

Ellen makes a related point.

Carter-Silk signals that he’s entirely cognisant that these kinds of remarks should not really be made, yet still he makes them, all the time grimly clutching what he fondly imagines to be some sexist version of a get-out-of-jail-free card. But then, as some feminazis out there might be groaning sourly by now – what’s new?

Many women would recognise this kind of behaviour as a form of “cheeky chappie chauvinism”, where some men style themselves as wicked, naughty, devilish, refusing to be tamed, not playing by the rules (or whatever they tell themselves as they’re squirting on the Lynx). But conversely they’re not above a bit of nifty linguistic arse covering should it prove necessary.

Basically, it’s an evolution from sexism proper, as in, the sexism still happens, the inappropriateness is still there, the women are still having to deal with it, but the man slyly references it, in an attempt to destabilise and neutralise any potential objection.

It’s so infuriating – thinking that neutralizes the potential objection. “Hi, I’m about to say something shitty. Get ready! And because I’ve admitted it, you don’t get to say it’s shitty.” No; why would that be the case?

One supposes the woman is meant to be either disarmed or confused – and it must come as a grave disappointment when, like Charlotte Proudman, she turns out to be neither.

The fact that some men do this is one thing. The inference that women are too dumb to have noticed them doing it is a whole new stratosphere of insult to anyone’s intelligence.

Well, you know, women are just part-time agents.

An ad for a real estate company in a suburb of Seattle:

Who ya gonna hire? Huh? Some dumb broad with a buncha kids who tie her up? Or two manly men who are professionals? Some sloppy part-time female “agent” in jeans or two well-groomed full time PROFESSIONALS who stand up straight and aren’t surrounded by children?

The choice is yours.

The company apologized for the ad once people pointed out the subtle hard-to-see problems with it.

Amanda Marcotte notices some online misogyny so that we don’t have to.

David Futrelle of We Hunted the Mammoth alerts me to the fact that some drunk MRAs recorded their bizarre sexual fantasies about myself and Jessica Valenti and, for some reason, felt it appropriate to put it on the internet:

https://youtu.be/WfimcqjWHIQ

I watched the video. It’s even more pathetic than it sounds from Amanda’s description. It’s just some highly unpleasant guys making a big point of how unpleasant they are. There’s some laughter but it sounds forced. The “humor” is that they tell Jessica Valenti that no, she can’t give them a blow job. Ha ha…ha? Why is that funny? When she obviously wouldn’t want to and never said she did want to? It wouldn’t be funny for me to make a video telling Bill Gates no, he can’t give me a billion dollars. It would just be weird and pathetic. It’s the same with the sad guys in Paul Elam’s living room.

Maajid also defended Charlie Hebdo against new accusations of “Islamophobia” in a public Facebook post:

New Charlie Hebdo cartoons about Aylan Kurdi are causing online “Islamophobia” outrage:

Fellow Muslims, please, if you don’t get satire just *ask* someone before assuming an intelligent left-wing satirical magazine isn’t … satire.

Taste is always in the eye of the beholder. But these cartoons are a damning indictment on our anti-refugee sentiment.

The McDonald’s image is a searing critique of heartless European consumerism in the face of one of the worst human tragedies of our times.

The image about Christians walking on water while Muslims drown is (so obviously) critiquing hypocritical European Christian “love”.

Fellow Muslims, not everything and everyone are against us, every time. But if we keep assuming they are by reacting like this, they will surely become so.

Maajid Nawaz has been extracting the Michael from Max Blumenthal on Twitter:

maajid nawaz ‏@MaajidNawaz Sep 13
maajid nawaz retweeted Max Blumenthal
A non-Muslim regressive-lefty calling me (a Muslim) an Islamophobe. But… isn’t that ‘cultural appropriation’?

Max Blumenthal ‏@MaxBlumenthal
.@HarvardIOP is hosting two of the most belligerent Islamophobes for a panel on “Islam & the future of tolerance”

Seriously. What is Max Blumenthal doing calling Maajid Nawaz – who is a Muslim! – an “Islamophobe”? Maajid is a liberal critic of reactionary Islamists; that hardly makes him a hater of Islam. Does Blumenthal think the only authentic Muslim is a murderous (male) reactionary misogynist theocrat? If so, he’s much more of an Islam-hater than Maajid is.

Via Scott Benson (no relation) on Twitter:

Quite striking, isn’t it.

Malibu. The beach. Millionaires’ McMansions built directly ON the beach. Millionaires trying to convince everyone that they own the beach.

Many celebrities and multimillionaires own sprawling Malibu homes overlooking the Pacific, including actors Robert Redford and Angelina Jolie, the rapper Dr Dre, the director Rob Reiner and media mogul David Geffen. In an effort to protect their privacy, some homeowners have now taken matters into their own hands by employing security guards to patrol the sands in front of their houses.

Twice in the past few weeks, members of the public have been asked to leave Malibu’s Escondido Beach by a uniformed security guard who wrongly claimed they were on private property and threatened them with a fine for trespassing.

So members of the public should start asking the uniformed security guards to leave the beach, and calling the cops if they refuse to comply.

“There’s 27 miles of beach in Malibu – it’s one of the few public spaces we have in LA County – and out of those 27, 20 are blocked by private development,” says Jenny Price, an environmental writer and co-creator of a popular app which tells the public how to access specific beaches. “Those 20 miles have for decades been treated as a private riviera … It’s the most egregious example of privatisation of public land in Los Angeles.”

People do that here too. There’s a park in Alki in West Seattle that runs along the beach for miles and then abruptly hits a sign saying private property past this point DO NOT PUT A TOE HERE. But it’s beach – I don’t think they can own the beach, any more than they can own Puget Sound.

The state’s earliest laws dictate that the area between the water line and the mean high tide line is public land. To put it simply: wet sand equals public beach. In theory, anyone could walk the 1,100 miles of California’s coast and never set foot on private property.

Of late, however, wealthy homeowners have taken to erecting their own “No trespassing” signs and putting out traffic cones to discourage people from parking their cars. The hiring of private security guards is the newest skirmish in a long-running battle.

It’s like the battle over footpaths in the UK, and before that, the enclosure of the commons. It’s also like the battle over cattle grazing on public land here in the US.

According to Price, the problem stems from the City of Malibu’s disinclination to stand up to homeowners. Price recently sent a folder of photographic evidence to the council detailing illegal no-parking signs along the Malibu coastal roads.

“They said, ‘Oh no, those are on private property. We can’t do anything about them. We consider them requests.’ These are signs that say the vehicle will be towed! … What you’re seeing in Malibu is the wealthy and powerful who have the money to fight [for their interests].”

And the sense of entitlement to proceed.

Geffen’s mansion is notorious locally for having a set of fake garage doors painted on to a patch of wall adjoining the road. When Aaron Crow, a 42-year-old software engineer, parked his car in this spot last month, he was given a $53 ticket for obstructing access – despite there being no official parking restrictions in place and, ultimately, no garage in place for which access was required. He is now contesting the ticket.

But Price says the situation is slowly getting better. The 1976 Coastal Act codified common-law public access and is more frequently enforced now that the public are increasingly aware of what is happening. In July, following a decade-long legal fight, a public walkway opened up giving access to a 1.5-mile stretch of sand known as “Billionaire’s Beach”.

Geffen had spent years fighting against the path, which had been promised by the previous owners in 1983 in exchange for planning permission. Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has even suggested staging a Sand Aid concert to continue the fight for beach access. “It’s about taking back the beach,” Lopez wrote in a recent article, “no matter how expensive the legal fight may be.”

Malibu for the people!

Are we the baddies?

Update: try this one. H/t Bernard.

Oy.

What is Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim’s view of Sharia? A piece by Cem Say from 2006 explores the subject.

Islamic law, the Sharia, has a bad reputation – especially in the West, but also among many secular Muslims. It stands for the oppression of women, contempt for human rights, and backwardness. Abdullah An-Naim, Professor of Law at Emory University in Atlanta, USA and anything but a fundamentalist, understands the concept of Sharia quite differently. Sharia, he says, is positive and has a future.

According to An-Naim, the legal doctrines of the Sharia in their original form, which go back to the seventh century, are simply incompatible with the realities of life in the 21st century.

Yes. So then why hang on to the Sharia? Why change the substance but keep the name? Why not just move on?

Sudanese-born An-Naim is strictly against the concept of an Islamic state as currently practiced in Iran and Afghanistan. It contradicts Islamic tradition, he claims.

An-Naim, therefore, supports secularism, in which a neutral state makes the laws for all citizens, while leaving enough room for them to lead their lives according to the rules of their own religion. A Muslim businessman, for instance, could thereby conduct his business without charging interest – even when the state doesn’t prohibit interest in general.

But that’s an easy example. Why choose the easy example to illustrate the point when it’s the hard ones that make the point so very dubious? Never mind charging interest or not charging interest, what about inheritance laws that allot women half? What about laws on “adultery”? What about stoning? What about rape and the requirement for four male witnesses? What about allowing up to four wives for men but no more than one husband for women?

Abdullah An-Naim was first introduced to these ideas as a 22-year-old law student in his native Sudan. At the time, he was a follower of the Islamic reform movement under Mahmoud Mohamed Taha. In 1986, after Taha was executed for his divergent views, An-Naim left his country as a political refugee.

Since then, he has continued to work in the USA on developing Taha’s theories – “without implicating anyone in Sudan,” he is quick to add, as the Islamic reform movement is still heavily persecuted in the African country. Adhering to such views could result in the death penalty, although An-Naim hopes that the situation will gradually improve. He does not feel isolated in his ideas and even finds support within the Islamic world.

Reform is good. Will the new center for the study of Islamic Law and Civilization at Yale be about reform and reformists? When the funding comes from a Saudi tycoon? I don’t know, but it seems unlikely.

The Yale Daily News:

Abdallah Kamel, chief executive of a banking and real estate company based in Saudi Arabia, donated $10 million to the Yale Law School to create a center for the study of Islamic Law and Civilization, YLS Dean Robert Post and University President Peter Salovey announced Thursday.

Why does Yale Law School want a a center for the study of Islamic Law? I could see a history or sociology department being interested in that, but why a law school? Does Yale teach Christian law?

Also…based in Saudi Arabia. I don’t consider Saudi Arabia a very useful paradigm for the study of law. They behead people for “insulting Islam.” They want to give Raif Badawi 1000 lashes for “insulting Islam.”

Also…Saudi Arabia has been lavishing oil money in secular democracies to set up Wahhabi madrassas which will churn out a new generation of Islamist fanatics. Has Yale looked under the cover at all?

Maybe Abdallah Kamel is an anomaly in Saudia Arabia, a liberal secular intellectual with an open mind. Except if he were that, why would he be funding a center for Islamic law? Religious law is not a good and benign thing, it’s something to fear.

NBC News has more:

For two decades, Harvard Law School has had its own Islamic legal studies program, established with support from the Saudi king.

Abdullahi An-Na’im, who teaches Islamic law at Emory Law School, said he considers the Islamic legal studies program at Harvard a disappointment because few faculty members took an interest and it has been treated as an isolated entity at the law school. He said it remains to be seen how seriously the Yale faculty will take Islamic law as a field of human jurisprudence.

It’s a field of theocratic jurisprudence. Secular democracies have secular law, not religious law. History departments and political science departments have an interest in religious systems of law, but it’s not clear to me why a secular law school should.

Kronman said Yale aims to have the best program of its kind in the United States, if not the world, and one objective is to ensure the center’s work is integrated into the life of the law school.

Islamic law, or Shariah, carries weight in the legal code of most Muslim countries. Movements to expand its influence, including in areas of the West, have been controversial in part because some interpretations have been used to justify intolerance and harsh punishments.

Kronman said Islamic law is all the more deserving of intellectual attention because many people have views of the subject that are not very well informed.

“It’s the responsibility of universities to teach and instruct and that obligation applies with particular force where an issue or a subject tends to be viewed in an incomplete or inadequate or even caricatured way,” Kronman said. “There the responsibility to teach and enlighten is even stronger.”

So Sharia is actually a completely benign system of laws? Then why is Saudi Arabia the way it is?

The Industrial Workers of the World, aka the Wobblies, had the power fist back in the teens of the 20th century.

See what they did there?

It’s not appropriation for any left-wing movement to use the fist. What would be appropriation would be for right-wing movements to use it, or for WalMart or CocaCola to use it for advertising, as I’m sure they have.