Amanda Knox wrote:
> However,
> it saddens me to see a woman hide everything about herself that is
'feminine' in
> order to fit in to a male-dominated community,
I realize that the issue below wasn't what Amanda probably meant, but
it certainly gives a whole new meaning to hiding one's "femininity"
to fit into a male-dominated community, and
it put a whole new perspective on the topics being discussed on this
list, at least for me.
The quote below is from:
http://www.feminist.org/afghan/intro.html
Since September 1996, when the Taliban militia group took over the
Afghan capital city of Kabul, women in
the majority of Afghanistan have been sentenced to a "living death."
The Taliban and their decrees have:
forced women to beg on the streets simply to feed their children,
for only a tiny
percentage of women are allowed to work;
banned girls from attending school after the age of eight;
prohibited women from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a
close male relative;
forced women who do leave their homes to be covered from head to
toe in a "burqa," with only a mesh
opening to see and breathe through;
required homes with women to paint their windows opaque so the
women inside cannot be seen from
the street;
and severely limited women's access to medical services because
male physicians are not allowed to
treat women and female physicians can only work if they are veiled
and treat only women.
Women have been beaten and shot at for trying to go to work and for
leaving their homes alone or without
the proper covering. We have heard from a journalist, Jan Goodwin,
that girls at the state orphanage
in Kabul have not been allowed to leave the building since September
of 1996 -- although the boys go
outside every day to attend school and to play.
Some of the people on this list have written comments that I found
really insightful, maybe some of you will shed some light on this one -
How is this allowed to happen? I realize no one wants to go out and get
themselves shot,
and the women are limited in what they can do to help themselves if they
aren't allowed
to leave the house, but are all the men just standing by, feeling that
it doesn't concern
them? Don't these goons have mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc
and were these women
totally unable to communicate anything to them?
If it happened there, why not here or anywhere?
(Sorry, I'm kind of having a paranoia attack; I'll calm down now:)
thanks for listening,
-E.
~
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