The Ayatollah Under the Bed(sheets) - By Karim Sadjadpour. In the early years of the Iranian Revolution, an obscure cleric named Ayatollah Gilani became a sensation on state television by contemplating bizarre hypotheticals at the intersection of Islamic law and sexuality. One of his most outlandish scenarios -- still mocked by Iranians three decades later -- went like this: Imagine you are a young man sleeping in your bedroom.
In the bedroom directly below, your aunt lies asleep. Now imagine that an earthquake happens that collapses your floor, causing you to fall directly on top of her. Such tales of random ribaldry may sound anomalous in the seemingly austere, asexual Islamic Republic of Iran. Perhaps it's not entirely surprising that Iran's Shiite fundamentalists -- not unlike their evangelical Christian, Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, and Sunni Muslim counterparts -- spend an inordinate amount of time pondering sexuality. That's a mistake. To paraphrase the late U.S. The majority of the population is young.… Young people by nature are horny.
Military court hears evidence in Egyptian “virginity tests” case. February 27, 2012 by Shahira Amin A Cairo military court on Sunday heard witness testimony in a case against a soldier who allegedly performed “virginity tests” on seven female protesters on 10 March 2011. 22-year-old Samira Ibrahim filed a lawsuit against the military doctor whom she accuses of conducting the tests on her and six other female detainees near Tahrir Square. In December, Ibrahim won an earlier case against the Supreme Council of the Armed Force (SCAF) when a Cairo Administrative Court ruled that virginity checks should not take place again in military prisons. According to human rights lawyer Hossam Bahgat the landmark ruling was the first of its kind against the military and was “the first crack in the SCAF’s impunity.” In this second case, the defendant has denied performing the tests, insisting that he had simply asked the detainees if they were virgins rather than subjecting them to physical tests.
The court adjourned until 11 March when a verdict is expected. Who'd be a Woman in Egypt? On : Wednesday, 13 Jun, 2012 Egypt Unwrapped Recent attacks on female protesters in Tahrir Square have focussed attention on one of Egypt’s ugliest issues. Egyptian demonstrators shout slogans against former President Hosni Mubarak and members of former regime in Cairo's Tahrir Square Trying to find a woman in Egypt who has not been sexually harassed is like attempting to track down a British person who has never heard of The Beatles. A spurious comparison, perhaps, but an instructive one. Whether it the daily nuisance of unwanted heckling from a group of young men, or an outright assault or sexual attack, most woman in Egypt have their own tale to tell. Sherine Thabet is one of them. A much-citied NGO report from 2008 revealed that 83 per cent of Egyptian women and 98 per cent of foreign females had experience some form of harassment in Egypt at one time or another. Like every social ill, the causes are difficult to pinpoint.
“I would not blame it on any one thing,” she said. Alastair Beach. Egypt: Military Impunity for Violence Against Women. (New York) – The March 11 acquittal of the only military officer charged in the “virginity tests” trial is a blow for any hopes of accountability for the abuses women have experienced at the hands of the Egyptian military over the past year, Human Rights Watch said today. The military has failed to investigate and punish credible claims of other instances of violence by its members against women, including the beating and torture of women demonstrators by military officers on March 9 and December 16, 2011. The investigation and trial in the case, in which female protesters who had been detained testified that a military doctor subjected them to “virginity testing,” underscore the lack of independence of the military justice system in trying such cases, Human Rights Watch said.
On the afternoon of March 9, 2011, military officers destroyed a tent camp belonging to demonstrators in Tahrir Square's central garden, and arrested at least 190 demonstrators. The Virginity Tests Trial. Who Cares How Many Women Are in Parliament? - By Joshua Foust and Melinda Haring. Last month The Economist published its annual infographic about the dearth of women in parliaments around the world. Not surprisingly, some of the most-developed countries -- Sweden, Germany, New Zealand -- top the charts. (Also present are two African countries, Rwanda and South Africa, that have mandated parliamentary quotas for women.) Equitable representation of women in politics and government is an ideal promoted by every development organization and to which every Western government aspires.
Though women comprise over 50 percent of the world's population, they are underrepresented as political leaders and elected officials. The National Democratic Institute puts it plainly: "Democracy cannot truly deliver for all of its citizens if half of the population remains underrepresented in the political arena. " There's a problem with this argument, though: There's no evidence to support it. In Cuba, women MPs comprise 45 percent of the parliament. ALEXANDER PROKOPENKO/AFP/Getty Images. To Be a Woman in Pakistan: Six Stories of Abuse, Shame, and Survival - Zara Jamal - International. Interviews with a handful of the country's 88 million women and girls Brides-to-be wait during a mass wedding ceremony in Karachi. Reuters According to a 2011 poll of experts by the Thomson Reuters Foundation Poll, Pakistan is the third most dangerous country for women in the world.
It cited the more than 1,000 women and girls murdered in "honor killings" every year and reported that 90 percent of Pakistani women suffer from domestic violence. Westerners usually associate the plight of Pakistani women with religious oppression, but the reality is far more complicated. A certain mentality is deeply ingrained in strictly patriarchal societies like Pakistan. Poor and uneducated women must struggle daily for basic rights, recognition, and respect. Quietly, slowly, in piecemeal legal reforms, female empowerment is coming in Pakistan. These women have consented to share the stories and photos so that the world might better understand the challenges they face. Ayesha, age 18 Rehana, age 37. In a Baghdad E.R., Women's Psychological Wounds Go Untreated. I had been working at a trauma center in Baghdad for some time when an opportunity came up to transfer back to my old job — at a maternity hospital in Sadr City.
But I backed out at the last minute. I knew the transfer would be good for me: I’d be far away from the stress and drama of the E.R., where I had spent a lot of time. I told myself that getting away would let me process what I had seen and experienced. But I wondered if I had gotten so used to chaos that I wouldn’t function in a peaceful, stable environment. When the transfer offer came, I was responsible for this hospital’s female medical ward. During one of my E.R. shifts, a 16-year-old girl was brought in by her aunt and brother, who were both terrified. I’ve also seen quite a few women who’ve burned themselves. These women are especially at risk in a health care system in which overworked doctors like me focus only on saving their lives; healing their invisible wounds is another story.
Kuwait: Court Victory for Women’s Rights. (Beirut) –A court decision on April 22, 2012, cancelling a ministerial order barring women from entry-level jobs at the Justice Ministry is an important victory against legally-sanctioned discrimination in Kuwait, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch urged the Kuwaiti government to act on the decision, to guarantee women equal access to all public jobs, and to amend or repeal gender-based discriminatory provisions from all its legislation. In July 2011, the Justice Ministry announced in local newspapers that it would accept applicants for “entry level legal researcher” – a first step to becoming a prosecutor. The advertisement specified that the positions were only open to male candidates, without providing any rationale for the restriction.
“This important ruling reaffirms the principles of equality between men and women that are guaranteed in Kuwait’s constitution and international laws,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. Status of Women in 'Reformist' Morocco. Just three years ago, a teenager from Western Sahara (which has long been occupied by Morocco) left a human rights meeting, at which point she was accosted, as she reveals in a YouTube video, by six plainclothes Moroccan policemen. They pushed her into a waiting vehicle, blindfolded, and handcuffed her. And then they raped and sodomized her with truncheons, in the presence of high ranking Moroccan officers. Once that was done, they told her she would be killed if she decided to talk about her treatment at their hands. Several months later, on August 27th, yet another teenage human rights activist, Nguia el-Haouassi, found herself abducted by Moroccan police, stripped naked, and subjected to what was called “physical and psychological torture.”
Most notably, according to the victim, she was told by police that if she discussed what had occurred while in custody, the videotape of her naked body would be downloaded onto the Internet, and she would be raped. Possibly not. Saudi Feminism: Between Mama Amreeka and Baba Abdullah. On 9 May 2012, Manal al-Sharif was awarded the Havel Prize for Creative Dissent at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway.
This came shortly after al-Sharif was honored as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World at a Gala in New York City. Such events have given rise to a pattern: just as numerous pictures and videos of activists attending various conferences and receiving numerous awards surface, waves of criticism pour in. Their motives are viewed with suspicion, worthiness is questioned, and a movement’s progress is reassessed.
The most prevalent criticism of Manal al-Sharif was that she was accepting an award for political dissent when she was only, at most, a social activist. This criticism was not meant to undermine her efforts but rather to allocate them a bit further down the activist totem pole, so to speak, in order to remove them from the high pedestal they had been placed on. Well then, why was al-Sharif being hailed as a dissident? Why Afghan Women Risk Death to Write Poetry. Women, democracy and dictatorship. The electoral success of Islamic parties in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, has raised worries about policy and legislation on family and gender issues, this despite re-assuring noises from leading figures.
Earlier electoral successes of Islamists in Iraq had brought about a disorderly mix of family policies and rule of disparate religious authorities, accompanied by much constraint and intimidation. This may be a good time to reflect on the record of various Middle Eastern countries on these issues over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century and their relations to political regimes. In the early and middle decades of the twentieth century it was always dictators who embarked on policy and legislation which liberated and empowered women in both family and society. Ataturk started the process in Turkey, followed by Reza Shah in Iran, a model followed less boldly by some Arab leaders in later decades. Flickr/Al Jazeera English. Demotix/Luke Somers. Demotix/Sabrina Belkhouja.
The Uprisings Will be Gendered. Women's rights and the regulation of gender and sex norms in the Arab world have long been put under the spotlight by local and international activists in addition to local and international politicians and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This year, the ongoing uprisings in the Arab world have brought into focus some dominant ways that sexual and bodily rights are framed, gendered, and politicized. These can be grouped under three loose themes, each of which deserves further study: One is the equation of gender with women and/or sexual and gender minorities. Two is the fear of Islamists. Three, is the use of gendered and sexed violence to discourage or discredit protests and revolutionaries. It is an old complaint that the study of “gender” is in fact the study of people who are not “white” (i.e., not racialized) hetero-normative men.
A second prevailing mode of framing, gendering, and politicizing the uprisings is the fear of Islamists. Young Women Demanding Justice and Dignity: By All Means Necessary. Amina Filali was a young Moroccan girl who was raped at the age of 15 then forced to marry her rapist. She was battered, bruised, and starved until she committed suicide in March 2012. She was 16 years old. Contributing to Amina’s suicide are her rapist turned husband, article 475 of the Moroccan penal code that absolves an aggressor of his crime once he consents to marrying his rape victim, the judge who called for a mediation instead of a prosecution against the offender, the police, and the religious clerics who have given their blessings to the rapist. Amina’s suicide exposes, once again, an entirely flawed legal system and deeply distorted patriarchal honor code that decriminalizes the oppressor and condemns the victim.
Behind her death is the lethal combination of state sanctioned gender violence, legal blindness, and societal silence. Article 475 of the Moroccan Penal code states: According to the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), Amina is a child. Women, democracy and dictatorship. Women: The Libyan Rebellion's Secret Weapon | People & Places. How Not to Study Gender in the Middle East. Setbacks For Arab Women Have Outpaced Gains. A protest leader gives directions to fellow protesters as they march during a demonstration in Sanaa May 10, 2012. (photo by Reuters) Author: Barbara Slavin Posted May 15, 2012 Women have participated prominently in the popular protests that have swept the Arab world in the past 15 months, but are in danger of losing social, political and economic gains made under previous regimes. Summary⎙ Print Women are in danger of losing social, political and economic gains made under previous regimes in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, writes Barbara Slavin.
At a recent conference, experts presented a mixed picture in which setbacks for Arab women outnumber gains. The problem is not that Islam is anti-women, but rather male chauvinism in its interpretation. “We must safeguard the rights women have made before the Arab Spring,” said Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars.
Not all of the recent news from the region has been negative for women. Culture versus Rights Dualism: a myth or a reality? The 1990’s was a remarkable period in experiencing the unravelling of a world order that has characterised much of the twentieth century, and in revealing the contradictory tendencies towards and trends in the making of a new social contract between and within societies in the post cold war era. This period witnessed a new awakening in human rights understanding as disempowered ordinary people around the world gained direct access to the international human rights system which offered a repertoire of normative standards for legitimate claim making beyond the national state. Within this context, the global women’s movement is particularly noteworthy, as it has effectively seized the emerging global opportunities in making itself heard. The mobilisation driven by UN women’s conferences as well as the global conferences of the 1990s enabled women from the local to the global to bring their diverse concerns to the arena of international policy making and human rights advocacy.
Why Do They Hate Us? - By Mona Eltahawy. Between You and Me. Hatred and misogyny in the Middle East, a response to Mona el Tahawy. Politics at the Tip of the Clitoris: Why, in Fact, Do They Hate Us? Let's Talk About Sex. War of Position and War of Maneuver: Sexperts, Sex Pervs, and Sex Revolutionaries.