The same Saudi Arabian clerics who two months ago said it was okay for men to marry 10-year-old girls are now trying to ban ALL women from appearing in print and TV media.
In a letter to new Information Minister Abdul Aziz al-Khoja the clerics called images of women in popular newspapers and magazines "obscene," and decried music and dancing on television. Images of women on television, said the clerics, are "a sign of growing 'deviant thought,'" whatever that means.
The letter said the country was trying to "westernize" Saudi women by "reducing their rights to a question of removing veils, wearing makeup and mixing with men ... There is no doubt that this is religiously impermissible." We wonder what images the media will use to replace the ones of women. Is there a long waiting list of male models in Saudi Arabia waiting to get their big break?
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Amazing Anchorwomen
Rachel Maddow. This funny, out Rhodes Scholar is being credited with bringing young people back to TV news, possibly due to her super-close friendship with former Air America co-worker Chuck D.
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Elizabeth Vargas. Vargas won accolades for criticizing an imbalance in media coverage between missing white women and women of color. And she can learn from her mistakes: after taking heat for soft-balling president Bush, she's developed a majorly intimidating cold-eyed glare that we practice daily.
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Candy Crowley. This multitasker makes her own documentaries and served up killer coverage of the 2008 elections. Plus she's Anderson Cooper's best friend, and we kinda want to sit around and eat nachos and be bitchy with them.
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Naamua Delaney. Delaney's break-neck fast, super comprehensive online coverage of the elections kept us informed, and her outfits kept us envious.
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Campbell Brown. Her hilarious "Free Sarah" campaign (to protest the GOP's denying journalists access to Sarah Palin) smashed any lingering doubt that she deserved her own show.
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Katie Couric. Sure, she's struggled a little in her new lead anchor role, but Katie redeemed herself with her strong, unblinking (heh) election interviews.
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Gwen Ifill. Although her moderation of the 2004 VP debates were met with near-universal acclaim, controversy arose in 2008 when some worried that her forthcoming book on Obama could taint her impartiality. Gwen's response? "The proof is in the pudding." We love Gwen. And pudding.
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María Elena Salinas. Univision's lead anchor, Salinas' under-publicized but incredibly thorough interviews and opinion pieces actually inspired people to get out and vote. Oh, and she loooooves to party.
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Team Jessica Yellin/Dana Bash. Despite Yellin's weird hologrammery on election night, we're always impressed by her co-coverage of the Capitol Hill with Bash, and not just because "Bash and Yellin" sound like an awesome drunken wrestling duo.
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Christiane Amanpour. With too many awards, honors, and distinctions to count, Amanpour has no problem keeping cool while literally dodging bullets or interviewing despots... all while looking unbelievably gorgeous and wearing cool jewelry.
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Saudi women lack a variety of basic rights, including the ability to drive cars. And even Arab women who come to the U.S. find it difficult to take advantage of their relaxed rights. In Dearborn, Mich., which has the largest Arab-American population in the U.S., many worry about whether they're following the lifestyle of a good Muslim woman by going out unaccompanied by a male or listening to the radio.
There may be hope in sight. Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz earlier this month appointed the first woman to a ministerial post. And Arab females both here and in the Middle East are starting to have a say in what goes on in their culture -- on blogs. Some, like blogger Saudi Eve, are even as bold as to write about romance and religion. A whole list of others, some in English and other in Arabic, can be found here.
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Monday 18 May
By junorsgv
that whole region is crazy. i think the whole world would be much better off if they just didn't exist. they don't believe in equal rights, and they have this my beliefs are better than yours mentality. the fighting will never end.
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Monday 27 April
By Devonshire Is
A Sharia culture is a broken beyond repair culture. To treat one half of it's citizens as property and oppress them and reduce them stifles real growth as a society. They have stopped their clocks centuries ago and the ONLY thing keeping these relics alive is something older than their crusty beliefs and values: OIL. Fear breeds oppression. This remarkable display of oppression is demonstrative of deep seated fear and misunderstanding of their women.
Monday 27 April
By jailergirl
One could say the same about Christianity
Wednesday 27 May
By marie
It would be better if they didn't exist! Unfortunately they do and they want a war of all wars-why not give it to them?
Monday 27 April
By HIMI
The U.S. needs to find an alternate fuel source soon because Saudi Arabia is the next country to go off the deep end.
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Monday 27 April
By joe
we'll never be able to "fix it all" or change how the world works...okay, so some of the parts of the world(a damn lot of it in the east) view women as property...it's wrong. it's not like war can fix it all....and if bush were still prez, glad he didn't get that idea
Monday 27 April
By Can You Believe
Well NOW! Hmmmm....and you people actually "worry" about CHRISTIAN "values!!" American conservatives are NOT extreme...but Muslim clerics ARE....I DARE you to prove that sentence wrong! All you liberals out there...you keep getting away with BS in the U.S., trying to take away Christians' rights. How WOULD you like it if the Muslims took over and declared "Sharia Law" here?? You just don't know how good you have it, to have "freedom." Better think twice about what you're trying to do to America...it could very well backfire on ALL of us. It's happening in England, it CAN happen here.
Wednesday 27 May
By marie
Or the US should help them self-destroy. Sounds good to me; given the fact that they enjoy destroying others.
Monday 27 April
By cherries1111
i have never heard of such men hating women soo much. I mean really they need to get with the picture. Do they just hate seeing womens hair and bodies that much? lets just make this a cock fest!! they must like looking at men more, must just get off to that instead. I mean holy crap, what is the problem here? women cant have the same rights because they have breasts, pretty hair and a vagina for bearing children? these so called men are the stupidest uneducated bastards i have ever heard of.
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Monday 27 April
By Jane
Cherries,
You have it all wrong! It's not that they hate women but they have dirty minds and think that all women are as evil-minded as they are. Instead of controlling their own sexual thoughts, they punish women by depriving them of basic human rights. In muslim countries, ass women are treated as slaves and/or property. I purchased a book - the Koran and originally, women had rights, owned property, etc., but somehow, centuries ago, muslims changed the laws to suit themselves and make women their slaves. The Koran is full of contradictions on each page. If you don't want to buy a book of the Koran, go to the library and read it. It will open your eyes.
Monday 27 April
By Mari
Hi Cherries,
I don't think they hate women so much as fear them. It's not much different than the way Christianity treats women (no women priests, against the rules for priests to have a physical relationship with a woman, etc.). They fear women having any sort of power, for some reason.
Monday 27 April
By mibriana
Mari,
Christianity as a whole does not ban women from preaching. I attend a non denominational christian church and my pastor is a woman. your thinking about catholics
Monday 27 April
By LK Clark
Sorry Mari, but you're wrong.
Catholics don't fear women, men and women give up married life to devote themselves to the church. I agree that I don't understand barring women from being priests, but Protestant faiths have women as ministers and pastors, etc.
Oppression of women is always a factor in cultures that limit individual rights.
Wednesday 29 April
By shadowofangels
It is there inability to calm their sexual appetites that has caused them to blame women and to find women shameful/sinful. It is there lust, not that of the women that are shameful. And one must question a legal system that allows a "man" to kidnap and rape children and then be allowed to legally marry them as sane!
Monday 27 April
By Sam
whatever Saudi wants to do with their women- we cannot stop them. It is up to those countries to evolve, but we can certainly try and influence them through goodwill embassadors and such. It really is not any of our buisness. That said- I have a HUGE problem with those cultures coming to the US and imposing THEIR culture on us. Example- I went to a middle eastern restraunt last week and they had a room set aside for JUST men! To me-that is just not right. If you don't like it here- LEAVE. DONT try and push your way of life on us.
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Monday 27 April
By ActiveSenior
Please list the name of the resturant and it's location. It is against the law for any public entity, such as a resturant, to set aside rooms that are gender based. As an example, there was a resturant in Hoboken, NJ that barred women in the bar area. Women were allowed in the dining room only. The restaurant was held accountable to discrimination and was forced to allow anyone to patronize the bar.
Tuesday 28 April
By Naomi
I was at a McDonald's a few weeks ago and into the restaurant came what I'm assuming were Arabs. The man had his turban and some kind of long robe on, and following his heels were three women all wearing the exact same long robe, veil, all black, with only their eyes showing. They neither looked left nor right as they lined up behind the man as I guess he gave everyone's order, and yet when they left, they had not eatin anything, they just left. I really don't understand why, but seeing them spooked me, I guess it's because they lookied so out of place here. Why is it that Michingan has the highest population of these people? What's so different about Michingan?
Wednesday 27 May
By Marie
I agree with you that "whatever they want to do in their culture is up to them," ideology. It's up to the women to gather enough strength and come together as a group & say they won't put up with it. My concern is when they try to push their views on other people in other countries. You know if they were all to go to "paradise" or really hell for once & for all. No one would miss them. Bye-bye...America cannot fix them & really shouldn't try to "fix" them.
Monday 27 April
By Chelsea
I think it's extreme to want the destruction of the Muslim faith. Not every participant of the religion is so misogynistic. It's important to realize that every religion and group has extremists who take interpreting too far to where they label men as superior or what not. Tolerance is key in many aspects of life, like this. Name calling and bashing only serves to vindicate them why they do not want their women to act like Westerners.
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Monday 27 April
By Mark Hubbard
It would simply be a whole lot easier to destroy Suadi Arabia and it's male influenced muslim BS as to have to put up with the moaners and complainers who bitch, bitch ,bitch and pretend like all of their yaking is going to bring about social reform for women or anyone else who happens to live in oppression.
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