Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World
While women can be mistreated by individuals in any society, Islam, at least extreme Islam, sanctifies the systemic abuse of all women.
“A man loves first his son, then his camel, and then his wife”
Arab Proverb
This book, written in 1995 by Jan Goodwin, describes the sometimes gruesome position many women find themselves in just by living in many predominantly Muslim countries. It lays out a theory wherein the rising popularity of militant, extreme, Fundamentalist Islam is the main reason for the deterioration of the rights of Muslim women, as these Islamists increase they’re power base at the expense of women’s rights. Goodwin goes on to say that there is little or no basis in the Koran (the Islamic Holy Book) for the deteriorating position of women in many Muslim countries. The scope of women’s disenfranchisement varies from mild to severe from country to country as Goodwin addresses conditions in the ten countries she visited. It also varies according to the beliefs of branch of Islam to which the woman’s family belongs, Fundamentalist being the most oppressive. She also describes how this creeping tide of militant fundamentalist Islam in a danger to mainstream Islam and moderate Muslims. Though life in moderate or mainstream Muslim societies is very hard on most women it borders on slavery under extreme societies.
“There is no fun in Islam”
Ayatollah Khomeini
In the Peoples Islamic Republic of Iran, Khomeini lowered the marriage age for females from eighteen to thirteen (ya hear that Jerry Lee), but permitted girls as young as nine, even seven in some cases to be married if a physician signs a certificate agreeing to their sexual maturity. (pedophilia heaven). However, to the Ayatollah’s credit, he drew the line at seven, stating that it is forbidden to have sex with girls under seven!
“If a man and woman are alone in one place, the third person present is the devil”
Prophet Mohammad
“Under the law as it stands in Pakistan, women who have been raped can be charged with adultery or fornication. The proof required for zina (sex outside of wedlock including rape) is that there be four Muslim adult males of “good repute” present who can attest to the act of sexual penetration. No male witnesses of good repute, of course, are likely to stand and watch a rape in progress without trying to stop it. And because of this requirement it becomes impossible to punish the rapists. Instead the victim is prosecuted. Her legal complaint of rape is considered a confession of illicit sexual intercourse.”
“The majority of Muslim women find their lives controlled by their closest male relative. They are the daughters whose future marriage partners continue to be determined by their fathers. They are the brides who must be virgins on their wedding nights in a culture where, if they are not, honor killings are common and often carried out by the girls own brothers”
Muslim Irony
Fundamentalists restrict women from working, leaving the house unescorted and unveiled, being clergy, driving, reading the Koran, marrying an infidel, going to school after the sixth grade if at all and more.
The Irony of this treatment is in this Quote: “Such restrictions on women are necessary. They are to protect women’s honor and they are also a symbol of our enormous respect for women”
CONCLUSION
This book and several others like it document the ugly, onerous, abhorrent living conditions perpetrated on many Muslim women by Muslim men in the name of Islam. In fairness, The Author has on numerous occasion stated there is no basis for this treatment in the tenets of Islam. In Islam, especially the fundamentalist version religion is power. The Clergy gain power by elevating their male adherents, as do the adherents, over the females. They also gain power by espousing enmity toward a common enemy as Khomeni did toward the U.S. This is the politics of Theocrats. (The last three sentences are my observations)
As for the book, I highly recommend it. It’s 358 pages is well written, easy to read, compelling and chuck full of insights. The author, Jan Goodwin, did a tremendous amount of research, visiting and living in some ten countries, interviewing hundreds of, sometimes shy and reluctant, women to publish this very comprehensive book. Many of these women gave interviews, even though it endangered them. A couple observations I came away with is that the exception of Saudi Arabia, the holy seat of Islam, the quality of women’s living conditions increased with the wealth of the country or in large countries the area. Also it seemed to me that for the average Muslim male, appearances took precedence over the welfare of his womenfolk.
There are so many other things I would like to bring out, like how many Muslim women are malnourished by getting only leftovers, while doing three times the work of her counterpart but you really need to read the book.
Short-sighted Blowjob
Here’s a video that made me laugh.
If you’re still in the mood for videos, here’s another. A brand new trailer on my popular book LEGS. Check the video and the book out at eXtasy Books
Kim Jung Il and Dubya
It’s been a year since my first post, An Open Letter to President Bush–a satire from a supposedly disgruntled supporter.
I thought the essay was incredibly appropriate to some recent events of the administration so I decided to repeat it. Here is An Open Letter to President Bush
An Open Letter to President Bush
Dear President Bush, I know that you don’t take kindly to criticism but I think you might have made a teensy weensy mistake when you invaded Iraq. I hate to admit it but it even looks like the French may have been right for once. I know that you and Dick, being former oil men, had our best interests at heart, when you went after that Golden Goose—Oil. You even thought that the oil would pay for our aggression. At least that’s what Rumsfield said. Come to think of it so did Wolfowitz, but I’m afraid your little war only made oil scarcer and now I can’t afford to go no place. It’s too bad Dick wasn’t right when he said the Iraqis were going to throw flowers at us as liberators. He must have been thinking of them newsreels they used to show in the theaters at the end of World War II. Course then we really were liberators. It’s too bad you were wrong when you declared an end to hostilities four years ago, I feel real bad for them fine American boys that ain’t comin back. It’s too bad you were wrong when you told the Reverend Pat Robertson that there weren’t going to be any casualties in Iraq. Funny how so many people keep sayin that there weren’t no terrorists there before we got there. Imagine that?
Another thing is I’m real sorry that WMD thing didn’t pan out for you the way you wanted. They surely had us fooled, didn’t they? Maybe that’ll teach em not to fool us anymore. I hear Iran and North Korea have WMD too. Do you think they is trying to fool us too? I guess they was too strong for us to attack them, seeing as how much trouble we are having with them terrorists in Iraq. I was sure glad to hear the Vice President tell us how the insurgency is in the last throes. It’s good to hear the straight scoop instead of what the papers and TV is always telling us. You’d think they was Al Jezeera or something the way they is always showing our boys getting blown up or something. By the way, Mr. President I really don’t understand why you kept that Mr. Rumsfield around for so long. He seemed to make more mistakes than you. I hear tell he wanted to go into Iraq with only sixty thousand troops. Even I know better than that. Even with the troop strength we got it seems like we got just enough to go in and rout the terrorists in a town by not enough to stay there and occupy it so they don’t come back. Howevr, I understand that if you have more troops there it’s just more targets for the terrorists and it makes the people more unhappy. Of course if we had even less troops there would be even less targets. It seems like the Iraqis and all the Muslims for that matter don’t understand the good you are doing there. What I don’t understand is why you don’t tell them. All them bad clerics is stirring up the young hot heads and we don’t say nutin to em. That’s bad PR. Sorry but it is. I call a spade a spade. It also seems that we don’t send more troops there cause there ain’t no more troops to send. Can’t figure out why that’s the case when your daddy had four times as many troops for Desert Storm. Boy did he kick @ss, huh? Is it true that he says that he didn’t go all the way to Baghdad because it was a powder keg and it might start a civil war and he didn’t want our military to get bogged down there? Well I guess you showed your daddy up, right? We ain’t bogged down and in four years there ain’t no civil war, only civil strife, but it sure is costing a lot of money. I hear half a trillion dollars. I ain’t so good with math but someone told me that’s over two thousand dollars per American or ten thousand per average household. If’n I had that money I could afford gas to go somewhere.
Anyway, it sure is a shame how your second idea isn’t working out either, you know the Democracy thing. I guess them Shia’s are bound and determined to have an Islamic State, you know like that other Axis of Evil, Iran, where the women all dress like nuns. They must be really religious, huh? I hear they’re making trouble for us in Iraq too and so is Syria. You really need to work on your PR with these people. Be less threatening and more flexible. That’s probably why North Korea is so afraid of you, You name them and the two Iras as “Axis of Evil” and then you attack Iraq. Kim Jung Il must be waiting for the other shoe to drop. You must know him pretty good because your always talking about him like you’re on a first name basis. Why else would you disrespect him by not using his title. So since you know him so good, what would happen if you said Kim, or Jung, or Il, whichever is his first name, hey Kim, I’ve got an idea. Your country is in dreadful shape with crop failures and all kinds of bad things and you’re worried that I covet your country. However, you know that I’m a Christian—I’m not supposed to covet another man’s country. Yet, you do need help and our country is bountiful, despite some teeny weensy mistakes I have made, so I’m in a position to help. You know, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Now you’re building WMD. Bombs right? That worries us. Plus you have a million man army, which makes me jealous. Wait, I didn’t say that. I don’t covet your army. I would just like to borrow a half million or so of them. I could really make it worth your while. You see a couple years ago I made an error in judgment, you know a pottery thing, oh never mind, anyway I kinda got us into a war. It seemed easy enough at first but no matter what we tried it only got worse. You know, that 2 ½ thing, typical Government project where it costs twice as much as it was supposed too and takes twice as long as it was supposed to and accomplishes half of what it was supposed to. Only this war is worse. It is costing ten times what is was supposed to and ten times as long and has accomplished nothing, so I could really use your help. Here’s what I can do. You join my coalition of the willing and send five hundred, no make that seven hundred thousand troops to Iraq and I will guaranty the safety of North Korea, buy two nuclear weapons from you a year, pay your troops for you, give you fifty billion dollars a year foreign aid, give you your choice of my daughters for marriage and put your country in the Axis of Good.
You see Mr. President a little PR could go a long way toward extricating you from this messy situation.
Your faithful servant, Humpty Dumpty
Silly Things 