The first and second time her husband shot her, the distressed woman in her 30s rejected advice to file a complaint. To do so, she explained, would require the presence of her obligatory male guardian, who happened to be…her husband. Without him, her testimony would not be legally valid. Besides, the all-male police might accuse her of “mixing” with the opposite sex, a crime in the eyes of most Saudi judges. The third time her husband shot her, she died.
That’s from the Economist on the status of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.
I think you’re right about that being the saddest thing to read. Sometimes I feel that we, as American citizens, take our freedoms, liberties, and rights for granted. We as women have had the power to vote in this country not yet a hundred years, yet there are many of us who do not acknowledge or accept this freedom that so many, worked so hard for.
There are times when it feels as though we have come so far from the way we used to be. For the first time ever, we have a woman and a black man with equal opportunities to become president, yet no one seems to be able to leave the issue of race alone.
These Saudi women, I wonder, if they would realize true freedom if handed to them. Would they go and do the things they are currently unable to do? Or would they continue to live their lives as they do now?
My heart goes out to these women who live in such a culture that treats them as children.
And it reminds me, that for all the strides we as a race have taken, there is still so far to go.
Let’s not forget that Saudi Arabia is a major oil supplier to the United States and many other industrialized countries. And, ladies of the West, think of this: When you’re tooling along in your car, you’re doing something that is forbidden to Saudi women.
Our own Bush family shogunate has a very warm personal relationship with the medievally-minded absolute monarchs of Saudi Arabia.
They literally hold hands as dear friends.
Where is the Bushs’ tender concern for “freedom” in this mockery of our vaunted ideals?
You cannot blame Bush for the sins of the majority of muslims against women. Bush is not their leader. The most you can hope for is that he manages to keep them from destroying our country as well. Can Bush magically transform all of the Arab states who choose not to try and kill us into sane, rational countries? Can you?