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What it's really like to be a woman in Saudi Arabia
LA Times ^ | June 6, 2007 | Megan K. Stack

Posted on 06/07/2007 8:14:46 AM PDT by van_erwin

Crossing the cafe, I felt the hard stares of Saudi men. A few of them stopped talking as I walked by and watched me pass. Them, too, I ignored. Finally, coffee in hand, I sank into the sumptuous lap of an overstuffed armchair.

"Excuse me," hissed the voice in my ear. "You can't sit here." The man from the counter had appeared at my elbow. He was glaring.

"Excuse me?" I blinked a few times.

"Emmm," he drew his discomfort into a long syllable, his brows knitted. "You cannot stay here."

"What? Uh … why?"

Then he said it: "Men only."

He didn't tell me what I would learn later: Starbucks had another, unmarked door around back that led to a smaller espresso bar, and a handful of tables smothered by curtains. That was the "family" section. As a woman, that's where I belonged. I had no right to mix with male customers or sit in plain view of passing shoppers. Like the segregated South of a bygone United States, today's Saudi Arabia shunts half the population into separate, inferior and usually invisible spaces.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: islam; jimcrow; starbucks; women
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1 posted on 06/07/2007 8:14:49 AM PDT by van_erwin
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To: van_erwin

So What. Still not enough to raise the ire of the woman’s movement.


2 posted on 06/07/2007 8:17:15 AM PDT by TrailofTears (."We mock loyalty and are shocked at finding traitors in our midst." CS Lewis)
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To: van_erwin

Great article.

I wonder if they even see the irony.

Liberals do everything they can to destroy the Judeo-Christian culture of the West that gave them (especially women) freedom and liberty - and then complain about what is going to replace it.

Regards,

2banana


3 posted on 06/07/2007 8:17:15 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: 2banana

Momma always said, “Stupid is as stupid does...”


4 posted on 06/07/2007 8:19:13 AM PDT by GourmetDan
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To: van_erwin

What’s it like to be Paris Hilton in America?


5 posted on 06/07/2007 8:19:21 AM PDT by dragonblustar
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To: van_erwin

bttt


6 posted on 06/07/2007 8:20:07 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: van_erwin

Kinda like apartheid.... only acceptable to liberals.


7 posted on 06/07/2007 8:21:23 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: 2banana
Liberals do everything they can to destroy the Judeo-Christian culture of the West that gave them (especially women) freedom and liberty

That statement would cause feminists to shout you down. According to what I've read, it's the Judeo-Christian culture of the West that has led the way to oppression and male and white domination of our culture, and that the only way to free women is to destroy the Judeo-Christian patriarchical societal model.

8 posted on 06/07/2007 8:30:05 AM PDT by RonF
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To: RonF
That statement would cause feminists to shout you down.

According to what I've read, it's the Judeo-Christian culture of the West that has led the way to oppression and male and white domination of our culture, and that the only way to free women is to destroy the Judeo-Christian patriarchical societal model.

They may get what they want, but they won't want what they get.

9 posted on 06/07/2007 8:32:54 AM PDT by Disambiguator
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To: van_erwin

So, that’s their rules


10 posted on 06/07/2007 8:35:42 AM PDT by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
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To: stuartcr

I think the point is that they want very much to expand those rules beyond their borders. There is also the blatant fact that their rules are stupid, and inferior to our own. Yes, inferior.


11 posted on 06/07/2007 8:38:47 AM PDT by cdcdawg
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To: van_erwin

Wait. Isn’t this what Marriott Corp. is doing with it’s women’s only floors and lounges?


12 posted on 06/07/2007 8:41:00 AM PDT by trimom
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To: cdcdawg

Lots of stupid rules end up changing...not too long ago, the same could be said for ethnic people in this country.


13 posted on 06/07/2007 8:46:57 AM PDT by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
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To: van_erwin
More quaint manifestations of the Religion of Peace that feminists and the Left (almost redundant) in the west can’t seem to get enough of, or at least feminists and the Left act like they have such a distaste for themselves and the culture of the west they live in that when they move to protect the speech and “diversity” of non-western cultures (who is to say which is superior?) that they are really saying they want to destroy what we have here and adopt something else.

Little do they realize how horrible life can be outside the liberty-oriented west. If they think women and minorities are ‘oppressed’ here, then just wait until they bring the culture of ‘there’ here, which they are doing when they support flooding this country with millions of people from foreign lands, languages and cultures.

14 posted on 06/07/2007 8:53:55 AM PDT by theBuckwheat
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To: 2banana

The radical fems are not so much opposed to discrimination per se; rather, they oppose application to them of any standards of conduct, such as Judeo-Christian moral teachings’ that would intervere with their “right” to enjoy the rut at any age, at any time and with any one without moral pangs or conseques, including any “product” of intercourse, such as a child. Thus, to kill the child becomes a legitimate “choice” so that it will not interfere with their continued pleasure seeking. They have completely redefined morality to be aligned with pleasure and they assert that whatever interferes with an individual’s pleasure or happiness is evil (immoral). Of course this means that there is really no basis to condemn anyone’s conduct of any kind if it brings them pleasure. So if Muslim men are pleased to not have to suffer the presence of women or are pleased to “circumcise” them or stone them for adultry, what basis do the radical fems have to condemn them? As a result, they are silent when these things occur.


15 posted on 06/07/2007 8:58:18 AM PDT by BienHoa69-70 RVN
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To: BienHoa69-70 RVN

need to read closer: change conseques to consequences


16 posted on 06/07/2007 9:00:06 AM PDT by BienHoa69-70 RVN
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To: 2banana

Your summary is right on target.


17 posted on 06/07/2007 9:02:28 AM PDT by lilylangtree (Veni, Vidi, Vici)
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To: RonF

Double standards in action again!


18 posted on 06/07/2007 9:06:08 AM PDT by Vanders9
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To: trimom

The big fad now is women’s gyms. I guess there are so many guys working out in most gyms and women don’t like to be stared at while they are working out.

I lived in SA for 5 years, and unmarried persons (Male and Female) could not be out together. Many restaurants had separate areas for women or families. Most restaurants did not have separate areas, except the fast food or coffee shops.


19 posted on 06/07/2007 9:06:39 AM PDT by GeorgefromGeorgia
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To: trimom

No no no no....stupid patriarchal stooge! Marriott is creating wimmin friendly spaces, refuges from inherently oppressive men.

It is completely differant from Sexist Men only clubs and rooms. DOH!
/sarc off


20 posted on 06/07/2007 9:08:30 AM PDT by Vanders9
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