Thursday, February 22, 2007
Dangerous Women
"'They must think I'm dangerous,' I muttered. The bellman didn't smile. 'They think all woman are dangerous.'"(p.2) Reading the prologue of Nine Parts of Desire, it was hard to believe that this hotel went to such great measures to make sure a woman was following the rules. Dangerous was not a word that I thought would be used to describe women in the Middle East. Men could have up to four wives because it was unfit for a woman to live alone and she would not be able to survive. It is also believed in those countries that women are ruled by their emotions which is a reason they need to always be under a man's thumb. So how can a woman that is always ruled, protected, by a man possibly be dangerous. "But out on the streets, among the ordinary people I really wanted to meet, most men only spoke to women to whom they were related. To them, being approached by a lone woman reporter was either an occasion for embarrassment or an opportunity to test the widely held assumption that all Western women are whores."(p.6) Women are now so dangerous that the men only talk to ones they are related to. Why are the lone women reporters compared to a whore? The men of these countries believe that women who talk to them with a man not by their side must indeed be a whore for if she wasn't she would have a man at her side. Women should be allowed to talk to a man without having the assumption that she is a whore and also should be allowed to stay in a hotel room alone. Allow women to have rights for it would be a huge step to become Westernized. -ak
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3 comments:
When you said, “Why are the lone women reporters compared to a whore?” I don’t think it is simply because they don’t have a man with them. In America, if you a woman approaches men she does not know and happens to be wearing revealing clothing, she would probably be may be considered a prostitute. In Saudi Arabia, a woman reporter would fit this profile almost perfectly. She would be a woman talking to men that she doesn’t know and she would be wearing revealing clothing (to Saudi Arabian standards).
Another thing you said was, “Allow women to have rights for it would be a huge step to become Westernized.” I agree that women’s rights would be a step closer to westernization. However, how do we know if Saudi Arabia wants to become westernized? From the video, Road to 9/11, we learned that westernization was not something that everyone agreed with. -mg
The way that the people think in this part of the world and the way that we think are totally different. A woman is suppose to be covered and wearing certain clothing over their and if they are without a man and wearing some sort of revealing clothing over there, than of course people are going to think things about her around that nature. It's the way that they think, the way they live and it's completely normally under these circumstances, that they are going to make the assumptions and judgements that they are.
LB
you say "So how can a woman that is always ruled, protected, by a man possibly be dangerous." It's not because they are physically dangerous, its because Islamic extremists believe that women incite certain feelings that are dangerous and unholy. They see alot of problems as the result of women. This is one of the major problems with arguing for womens rights and not for pushing the american way. What we see as a supression of womens rights, ( I agree with this) to them it isn't opression, its there way of life. They see it as different than the west and they don't like how our society holds women closer to equality. But if we are to judge this one aspect of their society as a negative thing, then we would have to look at every aspect. From there, every indivudual can form an opinion whether they think middle easterner society is wrong or that it may just be different. And in a society as ours thats become more and more liberal, alot of people think we should accept everything. So therefore it would be intolerant and hypocritical to argue against their different ways. MW
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