Perhaps the good prince would get the message
if he were raped and flogged.

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This article epitomizes feminism’s ever-present leadership gap.

If feminism’s not going to ‘lead the way’ in demanding women’s rights, who on earth else does the author think will? Hollywood? Santa Claus? Goodthinking men?

The author contends feminists are speaking out globally about this latest Saudi affront, but the fact remains that as this story churned through the MSM, neither NOW nor FMF released even a short statement on their websites.

With Western feminism’s standard-bearers exhibiting such a gross failure of leadership, what, exactly do they expect from the ‘pseudo-liberal’ males the author criticizes as bystanders?

Surely, the author is not suggesting that men's participation will save the day by legitimizing otherwise frivolous female issues?

As noted previously, men are historically, biologically, whatever…adept at forming teams, accumulating power through violence, and using that power to maximize their own sexual advantage by dominating women. Saudi torture of women is just one example of this process, which women, historically, have enabled.

Islam codifies and promotes this behavior, therefore, Islam is a legitimate topic of discourse, as is the oil issue. Saudi brutality stems from Islamic doctrine, just as Western governments’ acceptance of Saudi brutality stems from Western corporate oil greed.

Sympathetic ‘pseudo-liberal’ feminist men notwithstanding, no real change can happen until women figure out how to organize -- without endless bickering over theory – in sufficient capacity to address power networks that are largely organized by, of and for male advantage over women. If they were not, women would be equally represented, and this article would be discussing something else.

Women will have to take responsibility for condemning unacceptable practices such as this most recent Saudi Moslem atrocity, for the simple reason that it’s women who are impacted by it. Men really have no dog in the fight, so it's not going to be as interesting to them as, say, whether insurance companies cover Viagra. That’s just how leadership works.

We can dream all day about utopias where women and men work together to share power; and wait by our hope-chests for a nice, enlightened man to ride in on a white horse and make all the bad men behave. Indeed, Western cultural tradition holds that this already happened some 2,007 years ago – and yet the same social problems appear to have endured the ages.

Second wave feminism emerged because nice, enlightened ‘60s male liberals decided gender equality really wasn't their problem. If, as the author suggests, third wave feminism’s still holding out for Mr. Right to 'help' solve those same issues, they’re in for a long wait, indeed.

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The Saud family, installed by the UK as hereditary dictators (that's what kings are) of Arabia, have promoted their radical fundamentalist Wahhabi version of Islam in their country and abroad, using money derived from our oil purchases. The US claims to promote democracy but maintains a cozy relationship with one of the most corrupt, repressive and unjust governments on earth, the mother of terrorism. If moderate Islam is to flourish, improving the lot of women, the Saud family must be deposed.

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Not to get too far off topic, but Saudi Arabia is what the US is likely to be like in the not so distant future. A mega-wealthy oligarchy runs everything in an uneasy coalition with a state-sponsored fundamentalist religion. The bargain made between the two: the religious leaders get to enforce their obnoxious, authoritarian, misogynistic beliefs on the masses, while the rulers are exempt from the religion's rules, as long as they don't flaunt their decadence. Terror is exported and dissent of any sort is ruthlessly supressed. Unless current trends change radically, this is the future for the US. And don't think for a minute that if fundamentalist Christians, as opposed to fundamentalist Moslems, were in charge of the US populace that women wouldn't be flogged for "inducing" men to rape them.

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Blaming the victim and cruel and unusual punishments are not feminist issues, they are human rights issues. Of course women should be protesting this horrendous miscarriage of justice, but so should every other thinking, feeling himan being.

If this situation were taking place, for example, in Iran, the Bush administration would be up in arms, carrying on about how Muslim countries are barbaric and evil and perpetuate crimes against their own people. But Saudi Arabia is a Bush ally, so there's very little opposition from the US government, and certainly no outright condemnation.

Of course, hypocrisy is characteristic of the Bush administration, so their silent complicity is to be expected. But where is the outrage in congress or the media? There has been very little coverage compared to the seriousness of this woman's impending torture - and can anyone really deny that 200 lashes is torture? It's hard to imagine that anyone could survive this punishment and go on to be imprisoned. It's also hard to imagine what it's like for her to be facing this.

Posters who are arguing about whether or not women should be leading the way or if men should even consider it to be important or if women's issues are trivial are sidestepping the point. We - the entire human race - are all in this together. If a woman in Saudi Arabia can be severely punished for being raped (or more accurately for being in a car with a man prior to being raped), if a black man can be shot in the US for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and reaching for his wallet, if a child in a third world country can be sold into sexual slavery while the authorities close their eyes to it, if workers all over the world can be exploited and abused, it hurts everyone everywhere.

Government oppression, authoritarian excesses, and misuse of power are creeping more and more into the US way of life. If we are willing to look the other way when the unthinkable happens, whether we are male or female, feminists or humanists, pretending that it's not OUR issues at stake, how far are we willing to go when it begins happening in our own lives?

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promotes hatred, control, murder and devaluation of non-believers. Whether it's Judaism, Christianity or Islam, the major religions are about power and control and the diminution of women. Christ would have a fit with Christianity (particularly the evangelists and Catholics) as Mary Magdalene, his wife, was his most trusted ally - not "the little woman who must walk behind and be a breeder. Of course, Christ is dead, so good luck!

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He is wearing a suit and tie! But his mind is still as it was.... stupid and dense and unenlightened...no matter how much he prays and praises. Look at those jowels... always a sign of a debauched individual. (Too much oil...)

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I don't get it; didn't we invade Iraq in part or the latest Bush reason was to save the Iraqis from a tyrannical dictator who torture, maimed, and killed his own citizens. Do we now have a battle plan to invade Saudi Arabia? Sign me up; I want to kill the royal family and their Supreme Court justices myself.
What - what’s that you say man. No way; a double standard by the Bush administration. Oh I forgot the money. Money speaks louder that the cries of a woman being gang rapped and then beaten by the law of the land. Money is all it always about. Seems like Mrs. Bush is very silent on this issue along with her daughters. Could they be profiting too? Dang the whole dang family is all about the money. I wonder if they will be able to spend it in hell?

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My husband worked in Saudi Arabia for two years. That place is scary. I never went there as he said it was no country for women. This horrendous sentence against this young woman (perpetrated by a jealous ex-suitor) is BARBARIC. To his everlasting credit, her husband is fighting this sentence as hard as he can.

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On March 11, 2002, fire struck a girls’ school in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The religious police locked the schoolgirls inside the inferno rather than let them escape without their head-to-toe cloak. The firemen were prevented from entering the school for fear that the girls would be seen without their covering. Fourteen young girls were burned to death and dozens more were injured.
Is this treatment Islamic?
To answer this question, a comparison will be made between the fine treatment that the Prophet Muhammad reportedly accorded to His first wife Khadija and the treatment of women that evolved under Sharia (Islamic Law).
We are told that Khadija was the best born, a rich businesswoman who employed Muhammad, proposed marriage to him when he was 25 years of age. She was 15 years his senior and twice a widow. For the 25 years of their marriage, the Prophet remained monogamous. Khadija was the one person to whom He turned for advice. She was the first convert to Islam.
The difference between the Prophet’s treatment of Khadija and the treatment of women under Sharia Law is stark.
The Quran subordinates women to men [see, for example, Verses 2:228 (Chapter 2, Verse 228], 4:34, and 18:46). It decrees that one man is equal to two women when bearing witness in a legal setting (2:282), that a male’s share in inheritance is equal to that of two females (4:11), that a man can have up to four wives simultaneously, on condition of equitable treatment (4:3), that a husband can divorce his wife without giving reason, though the Prophet reportedly discouraged divorce.
Allowing the Muslim male to marry four wives simultaneously and divorce any one of them without giving cause is synonymous with unlimited polygamy.
Additionally, Shii clerics interpret Verses 4:4 and 4:24 as if men are allowed a temporary marriage contract, called Mut’a, for which a payment to the woman is made for her temporary companionship.
Sunni Ulama sanction the Misyar marriage. Here, the couple lives apart; the woman relinquishes her right to have financial support and accepts the man’s visits in her family house. Misyar has been sanctioned by the Islamic Jurisprudence Assembly on April 12, 2006 and by the Grand Muftis of Saudi Arabia and Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo.
Misyar and Mut’a marriages represent sanctioned adultery.
The Prophetic Sunna (sayings and acts attributed to the Prophet) contains Traditions unflattering to Women too. Al-Bukhari attributed to the Prophet saying that most of those who are in hell are women, that women’s lack of intelligence is the reason why a woman’s testimony in an Islamic court of law is equal to half that of the Muslim male, and that the reason why Muslim women are prohibited from praying and fasting during menstruation is due to them being deficient in religious belief. Al-Nasai attributed to the Prophet saying: People who entrust the management of their affairs to a woman will fail.
Sharia Law is not applied uniformly in Muslim countries. In Saudi Arabia, Sharia means, among others, strict segregation of the sexes at work, schools, hospitals, shops, public parks, elevators, let alone guardianship by the male in the family. Al-Bukhari’s attributions became a common popular Saudi proverb: “women are light on brains and religion.”
Saudi Sharia eliminates the potential political opposition of one half of the population to the government.
By contrast, in Muslim non-Arab Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey, Sharia means that women can be presidents and prime ministers.
Harmonizing Sharia with the Sunna is critical. Tenth century Ulama turned the Sunna into a source of Sharia equal to the Quran.
In June 2006, Turkey formed a committee of thirty-five scholars to study the removal of Prophetic attributions that encourage violence against women.
http://journals.aol.com/eeh100/daring-opinion/

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