Amnesty International Deutschland:
From Eduard Nazarski, director of Amnesty International in the Netherlands:
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The scandal is that there isn’t a scandal
Mar 27th, 2015 11:12 am | By Ophelia BensonNick Cohen has a piece in the Spectator about Margot Wallström and Saudi Arabia. Hey guess what I just wrote a column for Free Inquiry about? That same subject! It’s a good subject. The more people who write and do cartoons about it the better. That’s part of what Nick says – the subject is being neglected.
The backlash followed the pattern set by Rushdie, the Danish cartoons and Hebdo. Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador and stopped issuing visas to Swedish businessmen. The United Arab Emirates joined it. The Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, which represents 56 Muslim-majority states, accused Sweden of failing to respect the world’s ‘rich and varied ethical standards’ — standards so rich and varied, apparently, they include the flogging of bloggers and encouragement of paedophiles. Meanwhile, the Gulf Co-operation Council condemned her ‘unaccept-able interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’, and I wouldn’t bet against anti-Swedish riots following soon.
Yet there is no ‘Wallström affair’.
Outside Sweden, the western media has barely covered the story, and Sweden’s EU allies have shown no inclination whatsoever to support her. A small Scandinavian nation faces sanctions, accusations of Islamophobia and maybe worse to come, and everyone stays silent. As so often, the scandal is that there isn’t a scandal.
The Western media did cover it a little – that’s how I heard of it. But it should be a bigger story, yes.
Sweden is the world’s 12th largest arms exporter — quite an achievement for a country of just nine million people. Its exports to Saudi Arabia total $1.3 billion. Business leaders and civil servants are also aware that other Muslim-majority countries may follow Saudi Arabia’s lead. During the ‘cartoon crisis’ — a phrase I still can’t write without snorting with incredulity — Danish companies faced global attacks and the French supermarket chain Carrefour took Danish goods off the shelves to appease Muslim customers. A co-ordinated campaign by Muslim nations against Sweden is not a fanciful notion. There is talk that Sweden may lose its chance to gain a seat on the UN Security Council in 2017 because of Wallström.
To put it as mildly as I can, the Swedish establishment has gone wild. Thirty chief executives signed a letter saying that breaking the arms trade agreement ‘would jeopardise Sweden’s reputation as a trade and co-operation partner’. No less a figure than His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf himself hauled Wallström in at the weekend to tell her that he wanted a compromise. Saudi Arabia has successfully turned criticism of its brutal version of Islam into an attack on all Muslims, regardless of whether they are Wahhabis or not, and Wallström and her colleagues are clearly unnerved by accusations of Islamophobia. The signs are that she will fold under the pressure, particularly when the rest of liberal Europe shows no interest in supporting her.
I will be so livid if that happens. Prepare to make a big stink.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Not a freestanding choice
Mar 27th, 2015 10:33 am | By Ophelia BensonYasmin Alibhai-Brown notes and laments a retreat from progressive values among Muslims.
The hijab, jilbab, burqa and niqab are visible signs of this retreat from progressive values.
This article will divide people. Women I respect and like wear hijabs and jilbabs to articulate their faith and identity. Others do so to follow their dreams, to go into higher education or jobs. And an increasing number are making a political statement. I am not assuming that the coverings all represent simple oppression. What I am saying is that many women who take up the veil, in any of its forms, do so without delving fully into its implications, significance or history. Their choice, even if independently made, may not be fully examined.
The claim that it’s a “choice” and that that fact preempts everything else that could be said about it is very peculiar given the existence of so many places where it’s not only not a choice, it’s enforced with violence, including lethal violence.
Huda Shaarawi set up the Egyptian women’s union in the early 1920s. One day in 1923, as she disembarked from a train in Cairo, she threw off her veil and claimed her right to be visible. Educated Iranian women started feminist magazines and campaigned against the veil around the same time. These pioneers have been written out of history or are dismissed as western stooges by some contemporary Muslim intellectuals.
After the transformative 60s, Muslim feminists resumed the fight for equality. European rule was over. It was time. The Moroccan academic Fatema Mernissi, Egypt’s Nawal El Saadawi and the Pakistani scholar Riffat Hassan all argued for female emancipation. They rightly saw the veil as a a tool and symbol of oppression and subservience. Mernissi’s Beyond the Veil ( 1975) is a classic text. So too El Saadawi’s The Hidden Face of Eve (1975).
Mona Eltahawy’s Headscarves and Hymens can now be added to that list.
But do those who choose to veil think of women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and even the west, who are prosecuted, flogged, tortured or killed for not complying? This is not a freestanding choice – it can’t be. Although we hear from vocal British hijabis and niqabis, those who are forced cannot speak out. A fully burqaed woman once turned up at my house, a graduate, covered in cuts, burns, bruises and bites. Do we know how many wounded, veiled women walk around hidden among us?
The burqa has many uses.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Hand them over, Chuck
Mar 26th, 2015 5:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonWo! Here’s one bit of good news amid all the horrors and fatuities – Priss Choss can’t keep his bullying letters to government ministers a secret after all.
The UK supreme court has cleared the way for the publication of secret letters written by Prince Charles to British government ministers, declaring that an attempt by the state to keep them concealed was unlawful.
The verdict – the culmination of a 10-year legal fight by the Guardian – is a significant blow for the government, which has been battling to protect the Prince of Wales from scrutiny over his “particularly frank” interventions on public policy.
In 2012, Dominic Grieve, then attorney general, said the correspondence contained the prince’s “most deeply held personal views and beliefs” and disclosure might undermine his “position of political neutrality”, which he might not easily be able to recover when king.
Interesting argument, isn’t it – the priss has been the opposite of politically neutral, so that has to be kept secret, so that people will think he’s politically neutral, even though he isn’t.
The 27 letters were sent between Charles and ministers in seven government departments in 2004 and 2005. Five of the seven judges in the supreme court ruled in favour of the Guardian’s case to see the letters. The verdict was delivered on Thursday by Lord Neuberger, the president of the court.
The judges concluded that Grieve did not have the legal power to veto a freedom of information tribunal, which had decided the memos should be published.
Cameron doesn’t see it the way I do. His government might redact parts of the letters. He thinks the royals should be meddling with government, because after all, they are the royals.
Cameron said: “This is a disappointing judgment and we will now consider how to release these letters. This is about the principle that senior members of the royal family are able to express their views to government confidentially. I think most people would agree this is fair enough.”
Not a bit of it. What’s fair about it? What’s “fair” about inheriting a right to whisper in the government’s ear?
In 2012, the tribunal ruled that the correspondence between the prince and ministers in Tony Blair’s government should be made public. The tribunal said it was in the public interest “for there to be transparency as to how and when Prince Charles seeks to influence government”.
Grieve overruled the tribunal, arguing that publication of the letters between September 2004 and April 2005 would seriously damage the Prince of Wales’s kingship.
All the more reason to make them public, you fucking fool. “Oh no, you mustn’t see the letters, because if you did, you wouldn’t want him as king at any price.” “Oh well then, you’re right, keep them hidden.” Yeah that’s not how this works.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
More from the war on cartoonists
Mar 26th, 2015 5:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonSpeaking of cartoons, and cartoonists…two cartoonists in Turkey have been sentenced to 11 months in prison for a cartoon about Erdoğan.
A senior Council of Europe (CoE) official has expressed concern over an increase in the number of criminal cases for alleged insults against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, condemning the recent sentencing of two Turkish cartoonists, Bahadır Baruter and Özer Aydoğan.
“I am very concerned about reports from Turkey indicating that there is an increase in the number of criminal cases for alleged insults against the president of the Turkish Republic. In this connection, I condemn the recent sentencing of cartoonists Bahadır Baruter and Özer Aydoğan,” CoE Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks said in a written statement March 26.
If anyone is supposed to be wide open to satire and mockery, it’s people who have real power over others, like oh say heads of state for example.
“This sentence is misguided and, along with a pattern of criminal prosecutions, sends a chilling message to media professionals and all those who want to exercise their right to free expression. I urge the authorities to decriminalize defamation, including by repealing the offence of insulting the president of the Republic, in order to restore a more serene climate in which freedom of expression can be safely exercised.”
Baruter and Aydoğan, cartoonists for the popular satirical weekly Penguen, were sentenced to 11 months in prison over a satirical piece on free speech, in which they were convicted of including a hidden gesture which was said to “insult” Erdoğan. In the cartoon, Erdoğan is seen asking whether officials at the new presidential palace in Ankara have prepared “any journalists to slaughter,” referring to ritual sacrifice in Islam, to mark his inauguration.
A popular satirical weekly, eh? Why does that sound familiar…
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
One of 7 million copies
Mar 26th, 2015 5:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere is Chris Moos in the very act of showing “brandishing” the cover of the January 14 Charlie Hebdo.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
In all fairness
Mar 26th, 2015 1:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonGeorge Zimmerman, the guy who shot Trayvon Martin to death, says he’s a great guy but Obama’s a baddy. Or something.
Zimmerman lashed out in a 13-minute video posted online Monday by his lawyer. He said with the Justice Department investigation behind him, he finally felt he could speak out “without fear of retaliation” by the president.
Dude. You’re the one who followed Trayvon Martin for no reason, not Obama.
In the video, Zimmerman compared his ideals to those of Anne Frank, saying, “I still believe that people are truly good at heart, as Anne Frank has said, and I will put myself in any position to help another human in any way I can.”
So he’s saying that Trayvon Martin wasn’t another human? Because he can’t think he put himself in a position to help Trayvon Martin, now can he.
At any rate, he’s cool with it. He’s glad he “survived” and he doesn’t feel guilty that Trayvon didn’t, that is, that Trayvon died of being shot by him.
He said he would only feel guilty for Martin’s death if he thought he could have saved both Martin’s life and his own that night.
“Only in a true life or death scenario can you have mental clearness to know that you cannot feel guilty for surviving,” he said. “Had I had a fraction of the thought that I could have done something differently, acted differently so that both of us who survived, then I would have heavier weight on my shoulders. That sense in the back of my mind but in all fairness you cannot as a human feel guilty for living, for surviving.”
You can if you’ve killed someone for no reason. Sure you can.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Join us or else
Mar 26th, 2015 1:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonA blog post from Feminist Freethinkers of New York.
Today I was approached by a highly placed individual in one of the ever-mounting number of secular coalitions. He wished for Reasonable New York and specifically Feminist Freethinkers to join their coalition.
RNY has chosen not to join any national coalitions as we are simply a local group whose main mission is to help promote the local member organizations.
I thought perhaps Feminist Freethinkers might benefit from such a relationship. But I did my research and realized that it was not a good fit for us. I tried to explain this to him and all hell broke loose.
First he insulted FFNY exclaiming that we didn’t really “do anything”. Then he went on to defend his organization ending with this choice line:
“I’m starting to believe that the reason the secular movement doesn’t have more women is the women. Prove me wrong.”
Golly – a highly placed individual in one of the ever-mounting number of secular coalitions turns out to be one of the people who spend all their time verbally attacking (feminist) women? You’d think they would have better filters than that.
I replied: “If you thought this approach would work you are dead wrong. It is offensive and ignorant. And it will be shared I can assure you.” To which he sent me an “Ethical fuck you.”
He spoke frequently of the “rage” and infighting within the movement and was clueless how he was contributing to it!
Good grief. Way to coalition-build.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Revealed at debate on campus shock-horror
Mar 26th, 2015 12:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore pusillanimous bullshit from university students shocked at the existence of cartoons that mention Mohammed. It’s the University of Manchester this time, which is extra annoying on so many levels…
First the headline
Charlie Hebdo cover revealed at debate on campus
Omigod you don’t mean it?!! The cover of a satirical weekly newspaper “revealed” at a debate on campus??!? Oh my god everyone run for cover, climb the trees, launch the lifeboats, pass the brandy – whatever shall we do?????
The subhead:
In a debate over free speech on campus, the controversial front cover of the memorial edition of Charlie Hebdo, depicting the prophet Muhammad, was revealed unannounced
Oh oh oh oh. The anguish, the terror, the sharp pain in the temples. There we were, having a safe warm cuddly happy debate about free speech on campus, and then somebody “revealed” something unannounced!
Then the photo, via the Free Speech and Secular Society:
Oh look, you can’t see the terrifying cover. What a relief!
The special edition of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo which depicts the prophet Muhammad on the cover was put on display during a debate organized by the Free Speech and Secular Society (FSS) in the Zochonis Building on Wednesday 18th March.
Students’ Union Executive members participated in the event but were unable to stop a guest speaker from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) from showing the paper to the public. In February, the Students’ Union had forbade the public display of that particular edition of Charlie Hebdo inside the Union building.
Oh had it? Why? Why did the Students’ Union do that? Why did the Students’ Union of the University of Manchester forbid the public display of that particular edition of Charlie Hebdo inside the Union building? The cover with the image of “Mohammed” weeping and holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign, under the headline “Tout est pardonné”? Why did they forbid that instead of welcoming it? What is the matter with them?
Notice also that they apparently would have stopped the guest speaker if they could have, the way that news program stopped Caroline Fourest days after the slaughter.
Chris Moos, who founded the Atheists society at the LSE, brandished the newspaper with the controversial depiction of the prophet on the cover during the event last Wednesday. He then said: “This is Charlie Hebdo. This is the cover that was covered up. Let’s just think about that. What on earth is offensive in this image? I really would like to know. Can anyone give me a good answer?”
It’s a good question. I would like to know too.
Notice the censoriousness of “brandished.”
Tension built up in the main lecture room of the Zochonis Building as panelists and members of the public alike joined a debate that was running smoothly and quietly until then.
Yeah, that pesky guy from LSE ended all that smoothness and quietude by introducing something that actually matters. How dare he.
Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical newspaper which is known for being a secular publication featuring cartoons, reports and jokes which deal with a broad range of topics. The newspaper’s offices were the target of a terrorist attack led by Muslim extremists in January 2015 which led to the death of 12 people.
That’s a very periphrastic way of putting it. Two Islamist men forced their way into the Charlie Hebdo offices and shot 12 people to death. That’s what happened.
As was reported by The Mancunion in February, the Students’ Union censored the exhibition of Charlie Hebdo to students at the Refreshers’ Fair, after the Free Speech and Secular Society informed the Union that it was going to have a copy of the paper on its stand for students who wished to see this historical edition. The Union said that the image could be made available to those who asked for it, though the open presence of the publication would be banned. The occurrence at the debate last Wednesday defied the embargo.
The ban is disgusting. The embargo is disgusting.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Allons enfants
Mar 26th, 2015 10:14 am | By Ophelia BensonWeston High School in Montreal has its own branch of Amnesty International. It posted some photos a couple of days ago.
Kids today, eh?
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Anti-slavery activists in prison
Mar 25th, 2015 6:05 pm | By Ophelia BensonBiram Dah Abeid, Brahim Bilal, Djiby Sow have been sentenced to two years in prison. Lawyers are appealing the conviction and a number of other anti-slavery activists have been released. We are working with the IRA Mauritanie to develop the next steps for they campaign the meantime please continue to SIGN and SHARE the petition calling for Biram and the IRA Mauritanie activists’ release.
Biram Dah Abeid is a leading anti-slavery activist in Mauritania, the country with the highest prevalence of slavery in the world1. The organisation he founded, the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement2 has fought for the freedom of countless men, women and children.
Mauritania fully outlawed slavery in 2007 but has systematically failed to end it in practice. It has fallen to activists like Biram to fight for people’s’ freedom and they face regular harassment and harsh treatment in their campaigning.
As you read this Biram and his fellow activists are sitting in a prison cell for their work to end slavery in Mauritania — and we need your help to secure justice. A huge wave of international pressure now could force the Mauritanian government to prioritize ending slavery and stop the harassment of anti-slavery activists.
Please call on the Mauritanian government to free Biram Dah Abeid and his fellow anti-slavery activists.
H/t Kausik
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
You’re wearing that?
Mar 25th, 2015 11:13 am | By Ophelia BensonHelen Lewis has been following the NUS Women’s conference, including the brouhaha about the jazz hands item. She has some questions about some of the votes.
The conference also voted to renew the no-platform on radical feminist Julie Bindel, for (among other things) reiterating her belief that “bisexuality doesn’t exist as a sexual identity, thus erasing bisexual individuals’ identities and experiences” and having “criticised women who wear the niqab in her article for the Daily Mail . . . [by] refusing to believe that Muslim women have made their own decision to wear the niqab she denies Muslim women agency”.
Oh really? What about Muslim women who criticize women who wear the niqab? Are they too denying Muslim women agency? Or are they just disagreeing with what said women do with their agency? I’ve just written a review of Mona Eltahawy’s new book for Free Inquiry; she’s very critical of the niqab and even critical of wearing hijab, even though she wore one herself for nine years. She’s also critical of simplistic non-arguments that it’s a “choice.” I wonder if the NUS Women will no-platform Mona.
If “the NUS Women’s’ Officers and members of the NUS Women’s committee shall not offer a platform to any transphobic speaker, biphobic or Islamophobic speaker”, who decides what qualifies as Islamophobia? It’s true that criticism of Islam can function as a cover for racism, but equally, religious beliefs and practices must not be accepted unquestioningly in a free, secular society. Only this week, Maryam Namazie – who was raised in a Muslim family but is now an atheist and secularist – pulled out of a talk at an Irish university after it was suggested that a discussion on apostasy would “upset” Muslim students.
Precisely.
There were many eminently sensible motions debated, including ones on childcare provision, support for rape survivors and better access to affordable housing. But it was this motion which really caught my eye:
This is an astonishingly conservative motion to be passed by a society which is otherwise so much at pains to stress the variety and fluidity of gender – for example, the conference has also resolved to “refrain from the use of ‘sisters’ and any other binary terms throughout the campaign”.
It is indeed. It’s as if they take manufactured rules about who gets to wear what to be not manufactured at all but biological. I wear jeans – black ones when I’m being “professional” – and I don’t consider that to be cross-dressing.
Cross-dressing is always an exploration of queer identity – because it makes obvious the fact that gender is a performance. The motion suggests that as long as the cross-dressing is not done for “shock value”, it is OK. But the whole point of cross-dressing is shock value. It is jarring to see categories we assume to be stable so obviously undermined and that makes it attractive to experimental, iconoclastic people. It’s why performing artists from kd lang to Conchita Wurst have made gender non-conformity part of their artistic expression.
When I was at university, we had cross-dressing nights of the type now deemed repressive by the NUS. The atmosphere always seemed (at least to me), very queer-friendly; because even the manliest men were being shown quite how much of their gender role was a performance. I’m not claiming that it magically cured homophobia, but it did suggest that people were open to the idea that the unspoken gender conformity of “real life” was, objectively, really weird. If you can accept that there’s no real reason women wear skirts and men wear ties, that gets you closer to acknowledging there’s no real reason that women are expected to be carers and men are expected to be cabinet ministers.
There is one reason women are expected to wear skirts, and that’s ease of access. Remember that whole thing about taking upskirt photos on buses? And how it turned out that’s not illegal? Yeah. That’s why skirts. Do NUS Women really want to codify that? I can’t see why.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The very young ones they give to madrassas
Mar 25th, 2015 10:15 am | By Ophelia BensonMore hideous news from the Boko Haram front.
About 500 children aged 11 and under are missing from a Nigerian town recaptured from militants, a former resident of Damasak has told the BBC.
A trader in the north-eastern town told Reuters news agency that Boko Haram fighters took the children with them when they fled.
Five hundred.
The senator representing the north of Borno state, Maina Maaji Lawan, told the BBC’s Nigeria correspondent, Will Ross, that the case in Damasak was typical and many hundreds of children were missing.
He said: “The very young ones they give to madrassas [Islamic schools]… and male ones between 16 and 25, they conscript them and they indoctrinate them as supply channels for their horrible missions.”
Boko Haram caused international outrage in April 2014 after it abducted more than 200 girls from a boarding school in Chibok town in north-eastern Nigeria’s Borno state.
The group’s leader Abubakar Shekau has said the girls have been married off.
That’s another euphemism, like “fracas.” The girls have been enslaved. They’re not “married,” they’re enslaved. They’re not wives, they’re slaves. Kidnapping is not marriage.
Damasak businessman Malam Ali, whose brother is among those missing, told the BBC Hausa Service that young boys had been put in a madrassa by Boko Haram when they took over the town.
Following the recapture of the town, those boys had not been accounted for, he said.
Our correspondent says the conflict has torn many families apart.
So that’s life in Damasak right now.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The abuse contained the strongest expletives
Mar 25th, 2015 9:57 am | By Ophelia BensonThe BBC has finally sacked Jeremy Clarkson, and it tells us (up to a point) what the “fracas” was. (Note, by the way, the self-serving word. People do love to do that – use the passive voice with no agent [“what happened” “what was said”] and mild words in place of accurate ones. “Fracas” – it sounds like 18th century gents quarreling over ale in Sam Johnson’s sitting room. “Fracas” is cozy for “that time I punched and shouted at and threatened someone.” The word is “assault” at the very least.) (I’m well aware that millions of people must have already said all that. I wanted to say it anyway.)
In a statement from BBC Director General Tony Hall we’ve learned exactly what took place on that night in a North Yorkshire hotel.
A report has been published with blow-by-blow details of what happened in the now infamous “fracas” between Mr Clarkson and one [of] his producers, Oisin Tymon.
This is one time (and not the only time) when the famous BBC scare quotes are well chosen.
The scene is the patio of a hotel in North Yorkshire on the evening of a long day of shooting and travel.
- The physical attack lasted around 30 seconds and was only halted by the intervention of a witness.
- Mr Tymon did not retaliate.
- The verbal abuse was directed at Mr Tymon more than once – both during the attack and subsequently inside the hotel.
- The abuse contained the strongest expletives and threats to sack him.
- The abuse was at such volume it could be heard in the dining room and the shouting was audible in a hotel bedroom.
The “strongest epithets” – well there’s only one really. It’s that one that we’re always told is in no way denigrating of women, because it’s what men call other men. Clarkson repeatedly called Tymon a cunt.
I suspect that Jeremy Clarkson isn’t a very nice man.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Tonight’s song
Mar 25th, 2015 9:21 am | By Ophelia BensonA perfect Jesus and Mo today – “perfect” in the egocentric sense of “exactly what I’m thinking about myself right this second”…but also in the more usual sense.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The reason women even exist
Mar 24th, 2015 3:02 pm | By Ophelia BensonExplaining what women are for. (Some guy shared this link as he was trolling on Twitter, and I saw it.)
The Word of God (Hebrews 4:12-13) does not flatter women (nor men). He tells it like it is, and it is often not the way people think it is (Isaiah 55:8; Romans 1:18). Women are not the same as men. Some, it seems, have not noticed this simple fact. But, the reality is, the Creator made two different kinds of human beings, one male and one female, and He expects them to behave accordingly (e.g. Deuteronomy 22:5). The male was made out of the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). The female was made out of the male’s rib (Genesis 2:21-23). The male is the glory of God, but the female is the glory of man (1 Corinthians 11:7). They are similar, but not the same.
The reason women even exist is not so that they can be independent entities. The reason they exist is so that they can help men.
For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. (1 Corinthians 11:8-9)
The Lord created the woman for the man’s sake. As it is written,
And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” (Genesis 2:18)
So, that’s what she’s for. That’s all she’s for. She’s not here to decide for herself what she wants to be for, and what she wants to do with her life. A man’s sweater can’t be an independent entity, can it? And neither can his hamburger? Or his car? So neither can a woman.
Amen.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Saudi Arabia is “a beacon of light”
Mar 24th, 2015 2:47 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh, that’s how you want to play it, Saudi Arabia? It might backfire. I certainly hope it does.
Adam Taylor at the Washington Post blog.
You know how Margot Wallström was going to give a talk at the Arab League, a talk that included some praise for the idea of women’s rights, and how Saudi Arabia blocked her from giving that talk and recalled its ambassador and generally threw a huge tantrum.
The feud has sparked an intense domestic debate, with Sweden’s king even stepping in. Part of this is because of the considerable economic pressure Saudi Arabia is able to put on Sweden (Sweden exported $1.3 billion to Saudi Arabia last year). But perhaps even more powerful has been the rhetorical pressure — Saudi Arabia has succeeded in making the argument not about human rights, but about Islam.
From the start of the disagreement with Sweden, Saudi officials have emphasized that the attack isn’t just on their sovereignty, but on the entire concept of sharia law, which forms the basis of the Saudi legal system. For example, the Council of Senior Scholars, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority, dismissed Wallstrom’s comments as criticism of the Islamic legal system. “The Kingdom is proud of its Islamic laws, which protects human rights, dignity and private property,” said Sheik Fahad bin Saad al-Majed, secretary general of the council, according to Arab News. He added that Saudi Arabia was “a beacon of light” for Muslims around the world.
You want to go that way? You’re sure? You want to tie all of Islam to what you do with it? You want to make it all or nothing like that? You want to tell the world that Islam=Sauda Arabia and Saudi Arabia=Islam?
This framing caught on internationally, as well. “The ministers have voiced their condemnation and astonishment at the issuance of such statements that are incompatible with the fact that the Constitution of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based on sharia,” Arab League foreign ministers said in a joint statement. “Sharia has guaranteed human rights and preserved people’s lives, possessions, honor and dignity.”
But it hasn’t, especially not women’s rights and gay rights and freedom of religion and the rights of foreign workers…There’s a very long list of the rights it has trampled into the dust as opposed to “guaranteeing.” If that’s the Sharia version of guaranteeing human rights, then Islam is a vision of hell.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation also released a statement, saying Sweden needed to “not claim moral authority to pass one-sided judgments and moral categorizations of others.”
So anything goes? Apartheid is fine, genocide is fine, Boko Haram is fine, nobody can say anything to anyone?
I say that’s bullshit. Wallström on the other hand has been back-pedaling, which is very unfortunate.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Silly or trolling: pick one
Mar 24th, 2015 2:19 pm | By Ophelia BensonGreat. Another mobbing. NUS Women, the National Union of Students Women, are apparently having a conference and they tweeted a ludicrous and embarrassing tweet, so…of course they’re being Twitter-mobbed, because it’s Tuesday.
First the ludicrous tweet.
Well jazz hands trigger my anxiety, so could we do a square dance instead? But wait, square dances trigger some people, so maybe we could meditate for 2 minutes instead? Yes that should work, and I can’t see any possible downside at all.
Ok fine, it’s a silly suggestion, but Twitter mobs are overkill for silliness. The hashtag is mob-city.
We can’t have any nice things!
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
A reassessment
Mar 24th, 2015 12:37 pm | By Ophelia BensonDeep rifts? Between the US administration and Netanyahu?
The White House issued a passionate call for eventual Palestinian statehood on Monday as it stepped up criticism of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, for appearing to question a two-state solution to Middle East peace.
“An occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end,” Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, told a conference of liberal activists in Washington. “Israel cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely,” he added.
…
“A ‘one-state solution’ would effectively end Israel’s nature as a Jewish and democratic state,” he added. “Unilateral annexation of the West Bank territories would be both wrong and illegal. The United States would never support it, and it’s unlikely Israel’s other friends would either. It would only contribute to Israel’s isolation.”
The United States will not take the floor at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday as it debates human rights violations committed in the Palestinian territories, a US spokesman told Reuters.
The step is unprecedented at the 47-member state forum, where Washington has unfailingly defended Israel since US President Barack Obama became president in 2009.
The decision not to appear follows signals that the Obama administration is undertaking a “reassessment” of relations with the Jewish state.
Not before time.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Even after adjusting for factors such as
Mar 24th, 2015 12:19 pm | By Ophelia BensonJeez, you’d think at least nursing would pay women as much as men. But no.
Even though nine out of 10 nurses are women, men in the profession earn higher salaries, and the pay gap has remained constant over the past quarter century, a study finds.
The typical salary gap has consistently been about $5,000 even after adjusting for factors such as experience, education, work hours, clinical specialty, and marital and parental status, according to a report in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association.
Well boo.
Muench and colleagues used two large U.S. data sets to examine earnings over time. One, the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, provided responses from nearly 88,000 participants from 1988 to 2008. The other, the American Community Survey, offered responses from nearly 206,000 registered nurses from 2001 to 2013.
Every year, each of the data sets found men earned more than women; the unadjusted pay gap ranged from $10,243 to $11,306 in one survey and from $9,163 to $9,961 in the other.
*blinks*
While the study didn’t address the reasons for persistent gaps in pay, it’s possible that men are better at negotiating raises and promotions or that they are less likely than women to take extended breaks from the labor force to care for young children or aging parents, said Patricia Davidson, dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland.
Um…hello? To repeat, with emphasis added –
The typical salary gap has consistently been about $5,000 even after adjusting for factors such as experience, education, work hours, clinical specialty, and marital and parental status
Next up –
It’s also possible that the study exposed a gender difference in career choices, rather than a genuine lack of equal pay for equal work, said Linda Aiken, a nursing and health policy researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.
Again…
The typical salary gap has consistently been about $5,000 even after adjusting for factors such as experience, education, work hours, clinical specialty, and marital and parental status
Are the words “even after adjusting” simply invisible to some people? Is this a new disorder, should we call it Sommers Syndrome?
H/t Janet Factor
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Tip Jar
