Saudi Arabia is so lovingly protective of women. One might think they are so lovingly protective that it is smothering, but still, it’s a nice gesture.
A Saudi court has sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for challenging a ban on women driving in the conservative Muslim kingdom.
Ten lashes. That doesn’t seem all that protective, when you think about it. Lashes hurt. Lashes do damage. Lashes aren’t something states should be doing to their citizens (or to visitors, either). If women get whipped by the protective state for driving a car, what exactly is it they’re being protected from?
Well don’t be silly: from penises, of course. Except the ones on their chauffeurs, those who have them. Chauffeurs all have special penises that change their essence for the duration of a drive, despite appearing exactly the same as usual (they learned this trick from St Augustine a long long time ago, and it’s been handed down through generations of chauffeurs ever since).
Women are protected from penises by being forbidden to drive, because when you drive a car, penises have this way of getting in through apertures and little hidden cracks and holes (the way weevils do) and then they can git you. Men are immune, but women of course are horribly susceptible, like the poor little tsarevitch, who bled if you looked at him funny. So women have to be protected. If a woman breaks the rule that protects her from the penises, she has to be whipped because the penises are way way way worse than plain old tissue damage.
Under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic laws, women require a male guardian’s
permission to work, travel abroad or even undergo some medical surgeries. They are not allowed to drive.
Because of penises. It’s not just cars; the apertures and little hidden cracks and holes are in all the places where women could work and in operating rooms and of course they’re all over Abroad.
While there is no written law banning women from driving, Saudi law requires
citizens to use locally issued licences while in the country. Such licences are
not issued to women, making it effectively illegal for them to drive.
Ok so they’re not whipped for breaking a law, they’re whipped for driving without a license. Big stinking deal – it’s still for their own protection, so get over it.
GAAAARGGGHHHHH!
It’s instances like this where I really wish someone would go into places like this where those in power do fucked up shit like this and tell them “YOU DON”T GET TO DO THIS TO ANYONE. ANYMORE! EVER!!”
I’m tired of countries where the dictatorship is a family business, where some god (or that god’s duly appointed earthly representatives/enforcers) is in control (or even consulted). I’m tired of women being subjugated. I’m tired of people like Tom Martin pretending that they are “victims” and vilifying people who actually are victims. I’m tired of humans treating each other like crap, and treating animals and the environment even worse.
Could we stop now.
Please?
War is peace, work is play, I’m hitting you because I love you, God’s sending you to hell because He loves you…
The good news is, King Abdullah has just said women will be granted the right to vote in local elections, and stand for office in the Shura council. In four years though, not now. And definitely not in the election this Thursday.
He says ‘we refuse to marginalise women in all roles which comply with Sharia’.
The oddity of the implication that driving a car is less compliant with Sharia than voting or holding public office is only to be expected when the most basically sensible reforms have to wriggle through cracks in a wall of privilege-buttressing theology. Maybe flying penises can get into cars, but not into government offices?
These women are so brave. I’m truly excited at what’s happening in Saudi Arabia. I’m hoping and hoping we might see the country’s women pull their government kicking and screaming into the century of the fruitbat within our lifetimes. However, I fear that granting women the right to vote might be a reform in name only for many years. There’s no law against women driving – if only someone would issue them licenses. In four years women will be able to legally vote – but will they be permitted in polling stations? Will they need permission from their male guardians to make their choice? Could a woman’s vote be counted as half that of a man’s, like her testimony in court?
I’m sure the Saudis (and others) have learned a great deal about how to deny people the vote without actually coming right out and saying they can’t vote, from the post-Reconstruction South.
Good thing all cultures are equal, and everyone is the same except for holidays, headgear, and cuisine, else this would be quite disturbing.
No, you got this totally wrong.
This is women leaching off their husbands, making them pay for a chauffeur because they are even too lazy to drive, let alone to have a job, according the scientific study I once read some guy talking about on the internet.
Case closed.
It makes me sick that those people are our “friends”.
@Ophelia Benson: So true. And of course, women can’t drive to polling stations, if they live at an inconvenient distance…
But I don’t want to minimise it. It’s such an important step, even if it takes a long time and more battles to fight before it can be fully implemented.
That’s odd; my penis isn’t very dangerous at all, unless I’m wearing those pants and forget to shake extra before zipping up again. And I’m even one of those swarthy Mediterranean types that are supposed to be all jacked up at all times.
Perhaps I’m not eating the right things.
Muslim women do not rape themselves, they do not throw acid on themselves, or cause any of the other things muslim men do to them.
Conclusion: the problem is muslim men not women. And I do mean muslim men. When most men or I see women’s ankles or even their full naked bodies, we’re not tempted in the slightest to rape. It’s obvious that muslim men can’t be trusted to control themselves, it’s not the women.
Solution: Instead of forcing muslim women to cover up, all muslim men should be forced to cover their eyes. Make them wear blinders and not be allowed to look at women. That will stop the domestic abuse and give women more freedom since it is they who will have to work or drive.
.
Giliel:
They are not “our” friends. They are the “friends” (of convenience, only) of the people that own this country. Never conflate the two.
I refuse to use the term “our” and “we” when discussing the actions of the United States Government and the sociopathic elites which control it.
P Smith- I agree that men are the problem, and its a problem that’s been created and made worse by their religious law. Men are seen as uncontrollable beasts, which is pretty shitty. They aren’t taught that they need to control themselves! And when they don’t, its always the womens fault.
On the whole, I doubt most Muslim men are like this, but it is an accepted part of the culture when they are abusive.
As if there weren’t enough reasons to oppose the death penalty, ceding the moral high ground to be able to complain about horrible situations like this is just the fucking cherry on top…
http://freethoughtblogs.com/cuttlefish/2011/09/27/just-where-is-that-moral-high-ground/
Where’s Tom to tell us that forcing men to force women to force men to drive them around is in the name of the “whoriarchy?”
@Brother Yam
Maybe Tom’s out in London somewhere asking people for pound coins for a made up MRA charity, then bombarding them with stupid pointless questions when they decline, for science!
The west will get leverage over Saudi Arabia. Their population is increasing. They started growing grain in a strategic move in the late 1970’s. Their aquifers are “fossil” aquifers. They are not replenished. Saudi Arabia has enough water for only 12 years.
For now, the US has plenty of water and food. But do you realize almost all the corn crop of Texas failed this year? Smart farmers mowed down their weak corn and planted milo and millet for animal feed and managed to make some money. Texas is not a major corn growing state, mostly just truck farming for the corn on the cob and canning markets, but it’s still a pretty big failure. If it doesn’t rain soon salad greens are going to be a lot more expensive this winter. Many farms depend on their winter salad crops for survival. If that jet stream doesn’t change direction soon you’ll have no salad. California is maxed out and can’t take up the slack
Fresh water is going to be a more important resource than oil within twenty years. Ten years if thorium reactors come online.
And WTF is up with Saudi Arabia? They’ve been sitting on a gold mine and done almost nothing to improve their wealth. Make me the king in the 1940s and give me a long lifespan and I would have set up a bunch basic literacy schools. Of course, all the early lessons would have been about how great it was it was king. I would have built container ports so we could import milled and cut fabric from the US and UK. I would have built sewing factories where Saudi women could work at just above sweatshop wages. This would give women a little economic influence. I’d even make sure management promoted the smartest sewing techs to management in the second stage of factories. To get male managers who would do this I’d probably have to hire some outsiders, but I’d promote any Saudi man who seemed to get it. By the time the third tier factories came around. maybe these Saudi guys wouldn’t mind sharing power with a woman.
By the early 2000’s there’s a good chance your computer your computer was assembled by a Saudi woman. Women drive, women run for whatever few elected offices there are. There are no canings for not being accompanied by a male family member. If Singapore can succeed (though I’d hate to live there) Saudi can succeed.
That picture – and seeing any woman so marginalized, so oppressed, that she cannot even show her face in public without fear of being beaten or raped or killed – just breaks my heart. And for that reason, nothing infuriates me more than the scum who defend these veils of tears as a valid expression of “culture.”