Jezebel
arabian nights
Posts Tagged “
Saudi Arabia
”
arabian nights
leftovers
Cliques Push Brand-Obsessed Teens • Queen Of Hip Hop Soul Starts Foundation For Girls
Tween Clique books link popularity/boys with brand name items. Prepare for disappointment, 7th graders of America! • Texas graverobbing teens and one adult make bong out of child's skull. • Professional British wedding planner doesn't believe in marriage. • People spend almost $2,000 a year on "pissed-off purchases," one women suggest couples kiss instead. Uh, okay. • Columnist Kathleen Parker says we should "save the males," oooh because they can lift heavy things? • Reporters without Borders asks Iran nicely to stop harassing "cyber-feminists." • Meanwhile in the Mid-East, Saudi women campaign against inconvenient late-night weddings. • Pro women's boxing comes to Japan. • An antidepressant may help teens with IBS. • Being breast-fed may lower a woman's breast cancer risk. • Penelope Cruz is set to become a stunning blonde. • Mary J. Blige starts foundation to help girls with careers and self-confidence.
chit chat
Race Relations: What's So Wrong About A Rich White Woman Interested In "Africa"?
A few weeks ago, Latoya Peterson, editor of the blog Racialicious, emailed me to proffer compliments over the success of the site and talk about Jezebel's coverage of racial issues, which, she explained, she wasn't particularly thrilled with. After a few email exchanges, I called her, and we talked for what seemed like hours. We did the same the following day. And, (if I remember correctly) a few days later. Although I didn't always agree with her assessment of our content and the intentions behind it, I found her and her commentary to be intelligent, charming, sensitive and, of course enlightening... so much so that I decided to recreate part of our conversation over email so that commenters could weigh in. After the jump, Latoya and I discuss reader complaints, accusations of colonialism, coverage of Third World countries, and how to deal with issues of "the patriarchy" abroad without being patronizing. More »
Driven Crazy
Because of the bad quality of the roads in Saudi Arabia and the dangers of traveling on them, staggering numbers of female teachers are dying in the country, just from trying to commute to work. Religious laws prevent female teachers from living in the frequently rural and isolated villages where they are placed to teach. Long commutes mean that female teachers are dying at "alarming" rates. [MSNBC]
leftovers
Barbie Goes Green; Berlin Sets Up Stalker Center
• From Anya Hindmarch to Barbie, the trend of "Green" handbags has officially run its course. • Prep author naturally turns to Laura Bush for new book. • Juno is on top of the DVD-sales charts, those Hills ads work! • Did you know that we ascribe gender stereotypes to women and men? Groundbreaking! • Norman Mailer's former mistress dishes on sex life for 50 pages. • Lovers too poor to wed cozy up on bridge in Cairo. • India to increase penalties in aborting female fetuses. • Berlin set up a walk-in clinic to help stalkers. • Saudis are slow to accept working women. • Reflecting on meals can curb overeating. • Two fatal accidents at Indian weddings leave 43 dead.
Human Rights Watch has declared Saudi Arabia's treatment of women to be a "denial of fundamental rights." Saudi women (in case you haven't heard) are legally obligated to have a male guardian to make decisions for them, travel with them, and are banned from driving, giving them about as much personal freedom as a 9-year-old. The Saudi government, HRW says, resists reforms in order to maintain male control over women and sacrifices basic human rights in the process. While there have been some reforms put into place with King Abdullah (women over 45 are allowed to travel alone) most of them are ignored when put into practice. [Guardian]
leftovers
Brigitte Bardot Is A Racist; Churchgoing Girls Are Apple Polishers
• Sure, yesterday was Black Day, but it was also Cake and Cunnilingus Day! • A blind man stabbed his fiancee for not wearing her engagement ring. • Mothers experience less eating problems than their drunk and childless peers.• The "D.C. Madam" was found guilty of prostitutin'. • Famous Muslim-hater, Brigitte Bardot, is on trial again for racist slurs. • The girls involved in a playground beatdown of a 10-year-old girl may face expulsion from school. • Gay couples are having trouble obtaining divorces. • Saudi female students and housewives plan Olympic dreams with controversial basketball team. • Social Darwinism? Girls who attend church religiously, are (possibly) harder workers.
arabian nights
Saudi Women Now Permitted To Stay At Hotels, Drive By Themselves
A new hotel has opened its doors in Saudi Arabia, and it is managed, staffed and designed for females only. The Luthan Hotel & Spa, owned by 20 Saudi princesses and businesswomen, is meant to be a luxury respite for women, who until recently were not allowed to stay by themselves in coed hotels (the law was relaxed in 2008, but in practice, few hotels allow women to register solo, says Reuters). Though the Luthan Hotel is in one of the more conservative countries in the world, it sounds like it was decorated by a bordello madam: the rooms are reportedly "delicately adorned with incense candles, rose-red fabrics and bas-reliefs of cherubs." Luthan executive director Lorraine Coutinho boasts, "Inside this physical structure, we are all women. We even have bell-women. We are women-owned, women-managed and women-run, from our IT engineer to our electrical engineer," More »
gender trouble
International Women's Day Gets Little International Love
What did you do for International Women's Day on Saturday? According to Carolyn Byerly of WIMN's Voices, you probably did nothing, since IWD was so roundly ignored by the media this year. "My own hometown newspaper Washington Post had not a single op-ed piece today, nor national or local news," laments Byerly. "IWD doesn't exist here in the nation's capital, as far as this agenda-setting paper is concerned." The first national women's day was observed in 1909 in New York after the Socialist Party of America designated the day to honor striking garment workers; the day went international in 1911 when Copenhagen socialists adopted March 8 as a day for women's rights advocatin'. Perhaps it is the pinko taint of IWD that keeps some women away — it certainly ruffled the feathers of insane conservative and anti-ERA agitator Phyllis Schlafly! More »
bothered & bewildered
Saudi Woman Sentenced To Death For "Bewitching" People
Can you imagine living in a country where your Craft-inspired Wiccan dabbling could get you killed? For Saudi women, it's a reality: Fawza Falih has been sentenced to execution based on witnesses' testimony that she "bewitched" them, says CBS News. Falih was also convicted based on her own confession, but that admission was extracted under extreme pressure from Saudi religious police. Plus: Falih is illiterate, and she later retracted her written confession — she was unable to read the document she signed. More »
Flower Power
Saudi Arabia has banned red roses for Valentine's Day! According to Reuters, "The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items colored scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolizing love, newspapers said." Saudi authorities are trying to muzzle anything encouraging premarital relations between men and women, which are strictly forbidden by Saudi law. Well they're not allowed to look at roses, apparently, but uh, at least Saudi women are going to be allowed to drive soon! [Reuters]
Saudi Arabia has banned red roses for Valentine's Day! According to Reuters, "The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items colored scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolizing love, newspapers said." Saudi authorities are trying to muzzle anything encouraging premarital relations between men and women, which are strictly forbidden by Saudi law. Well they're not allowed to look at roses, apparently, but uh, at least Saudi women are going to be allowed to drive soon! [Reuters]
Milestones
Great news out of Saudi Arabia: The government is going to lift its ban on female drivers. The law dates back to 1932 and has faced increasing opposition. In addition, women may now stay in a hotel by themselves, without a male guardian. Progress! [Telegraph, Reuters]
Great news out of Saudi Arabia: The government is going to lift its ban on female drivers. The law dates back to 1932 and has faced increasing opposition. In addition, women may now stay in a hotel by themselves, without a male guardian. Progress! [Telegraph, Reuters]
great expectations
Some Women Make Choices Their Peers (And Parents) Just Don't Understand
We all do stuff our moms and dads just don't understand. (Princess Diana's mother called her a whore for "messing around with effing Muslim men.") But how different is your life from the one your parents imagined for you? For American women who have married Saudis, things are tough, reports Jeffrey Fleishman of the Los Angeles Times. Lori Baker met her husband at Ohio State University in 1982. They fell in love, she converted to Islam, they have two sons. But she's sacrificed family and friends. "My mother and father were just devastated at my conversion," she says. Her husband's family wasn't thrilled he was marrying an American, but just wanted him to come home after living in the States for years. "The feeling was, 'If you have to bring her with you, go ahead,'" Ms. Baker explains. But, she adds, "My husband is the man of my dreams, and I decided to go wherever that took us." She and other American wives are always fully covered in public. "When I first got here, I felt naked without my head scarf," Ms. Baker says. Now she feels comfortable in her abaya: "Nobody knows me. They can't see me, and if you're covered, they respect you. Sometimes without a covered face it's like walking down Main Street wearing a bikini." More »
material worlds
Girls of Riyadh Is Saudi Arabia's Gossip Girl
Girls of Riyadh, a novel by writer Rajaa Alsanea about four posh girlfriends whose romantic foibles are posted to a Yahoo group, is causing a major stir in Alsanea's native Saudi Arabia. According to Forbes, the "chick-lit" novel was initially banned when it debuted in 2005 because of the relatively salacious (in Saudi terms) behavior of the book's heroines. (They receive text messages from suitors, they conduct covert operations through online dating profiles, and consider relationships with men from Muslim sects different from their own.) Although the ban on Girls of Riyadh has since been lifted, the most appalling thing about the book is not that it was banned in the first place (though the suppression of free speech is certainly disturbing) — it's the heroines' Western-like obsession with luxury goods. More »
blood for oil
Saudi Rape Victim Pardoned Due To "Psychological Effects"
The Saudi gang-rape survivor who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail was pardoned today by King Abdullah. (The 19-year-old victim was charged because she got into a car with a man to whom she was not related — not because she was raped — violating Saudi Arabia's strict laws concerning sexual segregation.) A Justice Minister told the Saudi Arabian newspaper al-Jazirah: ''The king always looks into alleviating the suffering of the citizens when he becomes sure that these verdicts will leave psychological effects on the convicted people, though he is convinced and sure that the verdicts were fair." More »
blood for oil
Justice Minister Claims Saudi Rape Victim Confessed To Extramarital Affair
The Saudi woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail after being gang raped has confessed to an affair, says the Saudi justice minister. Original reports said that the rape victim was given the 200 lashes punishment because she was caught riding in a car with a man to whom she was not related. Now the Saudi Justice minister claims that the victim, "confessed to doing what God has forbidden...The charged girl is a married woman who confessed to having an affair with the man she was caught with." There are also reports that the female victim's male companion and alleged lover were raped by the same group of men. More »
blood for oil
Saudi Rape Victim: "You Could Say She's A Crushed Human Being"
The Saudi government is defending its Supreme Judicial Council's decision to sentence a gang-raped woman to 200 lashes and six months in prison. The woman was sentenced because she was riding in a car with a man she wasn't related to, not because she was raped. Now, the lawyer is representing the woman and speaking out against her sentence, is facing a possible disbarment by the government for his actions on her behalf. "From now on people will be apprehensive to appeal fearing they might be punished or have their sentences doubled," Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem said. "That's exactly what's happened to the rape victim, who only wanted justice." More »
broadsides
Audrina Balks Trend, Hearts J.B.'s Belching
- When it comes to choosing Mr. Right, women are more interested in a guy with good manners than good looks. Whatever, we like a hottie who can burp the alphabet. Can we get a 'true dat', Audrina? [Daily Express]
- Ninety-five percent of women have "issues" with their period. For women with more than the average "Ugh, you mean I have to run out and spend $6 on tampons again?" annoyance with their cycle — like severe cramps, diarrhea, and suicidal-PMS — CNN offers up the latest treatment methods. [CNN]
- The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence wants water births to be an option for all expectant mothers since they are the safest form of pain-relief during labor. Sidebar! Is birthing a baby in a pool just as funny as farting in a hot tub? Doubt it. [The Independent]
