Different strokes

It has been awhile since I spouted about a feminist topic or anti-religion, so here it goes:

I think I met a woman from Pakistan yesterday. I'm not sure because her male companion spoke for her and she wouldn't look me in the eye. I complain ad nauseam about sexism in the U.S., but at least women aren't reduced to infant or chattel status here. I can look a man in the eye (sort of--I have to look up at times) and I can move about unchaparoned in easy fitting clothing. In some cultures and religions, it is as if they want women to be invisible: Do not speak,do not bare your skin, and do not do things unchaparoned because you are cursed with a vagina.

My dog, Muffin Top, ran up to her and licked her foot and she screamed in fright and horror!? I thought to myself, she obviously has never been licked by a man anywhere if she responds to a four-footed friend with such shreaks! This thought prompted me to do a brief google search on Muslims and sex. Surprise, surprise. In Egypt, they are debating whether or not to remove clothes for intercourse, denouncing oral sex as filthy, and asking for definitions of oral sex because pleasuring women is not high on their to-do list: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jan/17/worlddispatch.egypt.

The plight of the Muslim female is woeful indeed!

"The Trial"

"The East receives my songs, some praise, some curse To each of them my gratitude I bear For I've avenged the blood of each slain woman and haven offered her who is in fear.

Woman's rebellious heart I have supported ready to pay the prize - content to die if love should slay me, for I am love's champion and if I ceased, then I would not be I."

Nizar Qabbani