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Friday, December 21, 2012

How Jewish and Muslim Women Are Treated

Nadene Goldfoot
Iranian women are stoned to death for adultery. They have to follow sharia laws, meaning only their face and hands can be exposed, so they wear something like a tent.  If they don't they will receive 70 lashes or a 2 month prison sentence.  Khomeini had curtailed all the rights in 1962 these women had won when the Shah was in power.  They were married off at age 9, which has been upped to age 13 after some protests.  If you're married you can't attend school.  Sports and beaches are gender segregated which isn't too bad, but they'll never have a judge Judy (who is Jewish, by the way) because women can't be judges.  That's because their whole judicial system is Sharia law and only men know about that.  My mother and I cried when the Shah had to divorce his beautiful first wife who could not give him children.  He married a 2nd to gain children.  It was sad, as he seemed so in love with her.  The law then couldn't help him.

 Syrian women are kidnapped, arrested,  tortured, raped and murdered by the Bashar al-Assad regime. It became a repressive police state in 1963.  "Personal status laws and the penal code contain provisions that discriminate against women and girls, particularly in marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance."  Syrians have also kidnapped and raped poor Iraqi girls, who were refugees living in Syria and then put them in their illegal sex trade.

Saudi Arabian women are just chattel.  They are practicing gender apartheid in many places. They came in 130th out of 134 countries for gender parity.  Women  haven't been allowed to vote or run for any office but will gain voting rights in 2015, said the king.  They are not allowed to drive a car.  Women cannot go out without a male chaperone.  They can work but must be driven there by a male.

Circumcision on women was practiced in the days of Egypt's Pharoahs.  Then the Romans in 25 BCE copied the procedure.  It's evidently a practice still happening in many countries.  According to a hadith reported by Bukhari, Mohammad married A'isha, a 6 year old Jewish girl who was very pretty, and consummated that marriage when she was 9 when he was already 50 something. One wonders if she were circumcised first.   Today we call that pedophilia, while it was common back then in the 7th century CE.

The UN finally did something worthwhile by approving a resolution Thursday which calls for a global ban on female genital mutilation.  This is a practice that has centuries of history coming from the belief that circumcising girls controls women's sexuality and will make them more fertile.  70 million girls aged 10 and up and women had this inflicted on them by 2010 quoted the UN, but another report from the World Health Organization states that it  has  happened to 100-140 million of which 92 million are in Africa.

  Every day at least 6,000 girls were circumcised.  Though more common in Africa, there are Middle East countries where several of the 3 major practices are done.  It is known to exist in northern Saudi Arabia, southern Jordan, northern Iraq (Kurdistan), and Nicholas Birch  claims there is circumstantial evidence for its existence in Syria, western Iran, and southern Turkey. It is also practiced in Indonesia, but largely symbolically by pricking the clitoral hood or clitoris until it bleeds.

On the other side of the coin, Jewish women have status. American Jewish females are referred to jokingly as Jewish American Princesses.  Golda Meier ( 1898-1978) was Prime Minister at age 71 in 1969. She was the world's 3rd woman to attain this.    Israel came in 11 out of 59 developed countries for women in the workplace being equal.  The Sergeants in the IDF often are women.  Deborah, who was Rebekah's nurse way back in 1150 BCE, married to Lapidoth, roused the Israelite tribes to revolt under Barak against the Canaanite king Jabin of Hazor and Sisera, his ally and commander.  The Israelites were victorious.  Ever since then, Jewish women have been listened to and revered.  No Jewish man would think of wanting their women circumcised.  No Jewish woman would allow it to happen.

Whereas men, wherever or whoever they are, do not lose sexual pleasure from being circumcised.  It was part of the covenant with G-d, and Jews do it on the males at the age of 8 days, and Muslims do it at age 13 years.  Many others not of these two faiths do it  for sanitary reasons in a hospital shortly after birth. It's healthier.  If they turned out to be any sexier they'd have to be locked up.  Women who have this destructive procedure done to them do become sexually impotent.  They lose all feeling.  That's the point of why they do it to them.  Then the men don't have to worry about infidelity.

Resource: http://www.honestreporting.ca/hrc-letter-published-in-calgary-herald-says-israel-a-beacon-for-rights-of-women-not-its-serial-abuser#.UNTFSuRLXqH
Oregonian newspaper, 12/21/12 page A9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_rights_in_Iran
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-syria
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/middle-east/syria-a-tale-of-five-women/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j4V8uOt9Ng
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/meir.html
The Truth about Muhammad by Robert Spencer

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