The Pink Flamingo :: The Death of Women’s Rights Here & World Wide

A LONG RANT
I wouldn’t be paying much attention to this if Ann Coulter weren’t throwing more of her bombs around in what appears to be a rather pathetic attempt to market her book (which is doing well) and promote herself.

We are living in a world ruled by three ideologies: Political Correctness Run Amok, Islam Run Amok, and Extreme Conservative Values Run Amok. The big problems is the fact that there’s no dealing with Islam and the treatment of women there, so a goodly percentage of the women in the world have about as many rights as an animal. They are property to be bought, traded, murdered, bred, and abused. According to the Koran, they are less than men.

Political Correctness Run Amok is willing to allow this to occur because we must be tolerant of other people’s religions and cultures, never bothering to examine if women living in those cultures are abused and oppressed. Everyone – men, women, children, cats, dogs, etc. have the right to exist and live in a world free of abuse and oppression. This is what the liberal is going to tell you. The problem is the fact that liberals are not willing to practice what they preach. Political Correctness Run Amok will not allow it.

Nothing angers me more than seeing a woman in this country, Islamic, forced to wear those veils of oppression and abuse. I don’t give a rip about religious tolerance. The very act of wearing one is an act of submission to a male dominated society where the woman has no rights. By putting on these cloths, women are saying, “I am less than human.”

Extreme Conservative Values Run Amok are personified by Phyllis Schlafly, who was and still is violently opposed to “women’s lib”. Rush Limbaugh will tell you it is about burning bras and abortions on demand. One thing that has always puzzled me is the conservative male reaction to the whole burning bra thing. My old history teacher (the one who persuaded me to be a writer and introduced me to the world political) had a saying that “….was like the old made who was terrified a man was hiding under her bed and disappointed when she didn’t find one.” That’s the conservative male. They talk about the Phil Donahues an Alan Aldas of the world who are ‘feminized’ and make fun of them, but there’s something her that just doesn’t quite ring true.

Before I get off track, think about it for a minute. Is the conservative male that afraid of women that they too, wish to kept them figuratively veiled in the burka of “family values” and modest gentility? Also, to not think I endorse the whole braless thing- but this is what the ‘conservative’ male used to exemplify why they were against “feminism”. Think about it.

Women have the right to have the same rights as men. For someone like Ann Coulter to advocate women losing the right to vote isn’t even funny. It is something I truly believe lurks in the back of the minds of a certain “Christian” conservative mind set.

There are entire philiosphies and cirriculum dedicated to raising modest daughters and making sure women – “Christians” are modest. While I advocate a person having personal pride and modesty as a matter of standards, I find these ideals below to be the “burka-nization” of the American woman. While I agree with a few of these ideas on the basis of personal standards, I do not approve of the “tone of the usage.” The are codified by “Christian” author Stacy McDonald.

“…1. Have you ever thought about what you look like from behind—how tight or sheer your clothing is? Ask your mother to stand behind you and watch you walk. Ask her if she thinks you swing your hips or swagger.

2. How is modesty a heart issue? Discuss ways that heart issues show up in our actions.

3. When you walk up a flight of stairs, what do men behind you see? What types of clothing would be the most modest in this situation?

4. Have you ever worn a long, flowing skirt or dress? How did it make you feel? How did others view you? Did it properly cover your private areas with no problem?

5. Do you wear skirts that have slits that are cut higher than you would actually wear your skirt? What happens when you walk or sit? What happens on a windy day?

6. Is your clothing modest to the people who are sitting behind you in church? Ask your mother or a wise female friend to stand behind you while you bend over to pick up a book. Now do the same with them standing in front of you. What did she see? What would your father think?

7. Raise your hands high above your head. Does your tummy show? You may think, “I’ll never be walking around with my hands above my head,” but this is a good all-around test. I’ve seen young ladies in blouses that seemed modest until they bent over to pick up a toddler or had to reach up high on a shelf.

8. How low is your neckline? Look in the mirror while holding onto your knees. Do you see cleavage? If so, everyone else does too! If you are fuller in the chest area, you may need to be more careful of certain fabrics. Sweaters, knits, and the newer “stretchy” fabrics tend to cling and accentuate the bust line, and tops that are too large fall open easily.

9. Be aware of where others’ eyes may be drawn. You want them to look at your face, not other parts of your body, while they are talking to you. Avoid garments that hug areas which should be kept private.

10. Would you feel naked wearing your nightgown or undergarments into a courtroom or church? What would your pastor and his wife think if you invited them over to supper, then answered the door in your underwear? Would they be shocked? Why do many of us think it is acceptable then to invite fellow Christians over for a pool party where everyone is wearing “colored underwear”? Discuss your answer with your mother (Romans 12:2)…..

12. Talk about how someone can be dressed modestly from head to toe and still reveal an immodest demeanor…..

13. Look up the following words in the dictionary. Discuss with your mother how they might apply to immodesty:

Conceit
Haughtiness
Egocentric
Ostentatious
What is the root sin of each of these offenses?...”

THE RANT CONTINUES
In other words, the way I dress is a root sin. I wear long flowing skirts simply because I am a klutz and when I inevitably trip and fall head first somewhere, there is more of a skirt to keep ‘down’. I like flash and trash and am ostentatious with my jewelry. I take pride in my appearance and flash my designer shoes and handbags. I guess I am a harlot.

I rest my case.

A FAMILY EXAMPLE
I’ve learned there is nothing wrong with being a feminist – in the classical sense of the word. Many years ago, one of my legendary ancestors, Sarah Johnson Dustin (Salem, MA 1692) decided women had a right to attend the town council meeting. She then decided women had the right to be seated at those meetings. She then decided that “Black-Africans” had the right to attend those meetings because they also lived in the community. She then decided to make it socially unacceptable to own slaves, and became one of America’s first abolitionists.

Years ago, before my adorable 96 year old Aunt Mabel went home to be with her family, she told me a story about voting and women’s rights.

“My sisters and I had to fight for the right to vote. Never forget the fact that if men gave us this right, they can take it away. Therefore, you must vote every time there is an election.”

She went on to tell me that women in our family always has the right to determine our destiny, to be as well educated as men and to do whatever we wanted to do. And – to always remember no man was to control our destiny. She said this has always been the case in our family.

When I was doing genealogy, I was able to trace that tradition back to Sarah Johnson Dustin. She also made the same claims. Her family went back through the Mavericks (my favorite genealogical discovery – I can claim the Mavericks and their crest. The Mavericks go back to William Marshall of England. He had 2 daughters. He had a wife who, while he was out hanging with William the Lionheart and fighting the Crusades in the Holy Land, not only ran their estates, but also Richard’s English estates. She was an only child of a father who adored her and declared that all the women in his family – forever - were to be as well educated as men, marry for love (which she did), and never ever allow a man to determine their destiny. They were to think like men. William demanded the same of his daughters, of whom I am descended. (The line goes back to Charlemagne but that’s another story).

As women we must never allow men to determine our destiny or take it away from us. To hear someone like Ann Coulter declare that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote is an insult to a thousand years of strong, well educated women in my family!

The Raw Story

“…COULTER: If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women….”

Second, I think the wrong Thompson is running for President. After Hannity’s interview with Fred & Jerri Thompson, it is obvious she’s a powerhouse. Jerri Thompson is the FIRST woman on the NATIONAL scene I’ve seen stand up and question why the role of women in the world is not being discussed.

A MINI RANT
It is obvious, if you pay any attention to Ann Coulter she evidently feels that women don’t have a brain in their pretty little, silly, empty heads. Well, it’s like this, at least I know what my voting precinct is and where to go to vote. Of course, if she had her way, I wouldn’t be voting at all. Seems she thinks we aren’t bright enough or will all vote for liberals.

Faustina’s Blog features a commentary on how the West’s pandering to Islam is killing women’s rights.

“…The result, she argues, is that "instead of telling the truth about Islam and demanding that the Muslim world observes certain standards, you have westerners beating their breasts and saying, 'We can't judge you, we can't expose you, we can't challenge you.' And here in the west you have a dangerous misuse of western concepts such as religious tolerance and cultural sensitivity so that one kind of hate speech is seen as something that must be rigorously protected. That means, principally, lies about America and lies about Jews."

In our society moral relativism has started to reach new lows, particularly in academic circles. Witness this article by Roger Sandall about the film Masai Women where anthropologist Melissa Llewellyn-Davies describes female genital mutilation as "a bit like a white wedding." Llewellyn-Davies spared us the horror of this rite by doing some judicious editing,

According to his 1993 report on the editing of Masai Women, the girl's agony was in fact recorded on audio tape during filming, and "a lively debate took place in the cutting room later about how the issue should be handled". One view was that "perhaps the girl's screams should be heard, thus giving symbolic expression to what was visually too horrific."…”

From Salon

A POSITIVE SIGN
There are signs that women in Pakistan are fighting for their rights as human beigns. Now that the election is over and it appears as though Benazir Bhuto may be PM, Captain Ed tells us Islamists have wasted no time in threatening her. It is very important she be protected. If she is killed, well, I think hell is a very good term.

A TERRIBLE SIGN
The head of Warner Brothers has decreed NO MORE FEMALE LEADS!

“…Noted women's rights attorney Gloria Allred just gave me this statement in response to what I've posted above: "If that's what he said, when movies with men as the lead fail, no one says we'll stop making movies with men in the lead. This is an insult to all moviegoers and particularly women. It is truly unfortunate that women get blamed for decisions which are made by men. Instead of taking responsibility for their own lack of judgment about which scripts to make, directors to hire and budgets to OK, some men in the movie industry find it easier to place blame for their lack of success on women leads and to exclude talented female actors from the top employment opportunities in Hollywood in favor of macho males. If that studio confirms that their policy is to now exclude women as leads, then my policy would be to boycott films made by Warner Bros."…”

THINGS THAT ARE WORSE
Then there is honor killing. It is a part of Islamic culture an elsewhere in the Middle East.

“…Honor killings, driven by the view that a family's honor is paramount, are an ancient tradition associated with Kurdish regions of Iraq, Iran and Turkey as well as tribal areas in Pakistan and some Arab societies.

While the rest of Iraq is preoccupied with the violence that has followed the U.S. invasion of 2003, the more peaceful Kurdish enclave of the country stands out in its attitude to honor killings. Here, officials who long ignored this explosive and deeply personal issue of family pride are seeking to curb the murders.

Civic activists welcome the regional government's condemnations of the custom and warnings of tough penalties, but say much more education and law enforcement is needed.

This year, the British government arranged for a delegation of Iraqi Kurds to travel to Pakistan to talk with officials there about their experience in combating the brutal tradition.

Some reports cite several hundred honor killings or related suicides a year in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has more than 4 million people. But there are no reliable statistics for a crime that is difficult to prove without effective law enforcement and the cooperation of tribal communities.

The number of women who committed suicide by setting themselves on fire increased from 36 in 2005 to 133 in 2006, while the murder of women rose from four to 17, according to a report by Kurdistan's human rights ministry.

The report makes no specific reference to honor killing. But one theory circulating in Kurdistan is that because penalties for murder have been stiffened, more men are resorting to coercing women into killing themselves.

In 2002, Kurdistan's parliament revoked Iraqi laws that allowed defendants to be cleared or treated leniently in the case of an honor killing. These laws, it is believed, were instituted by Saddam Hussein to curry favor with traditionalists.

"Killing under the pretext of protecting honor is murder," the region's prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, said in July.

Another reason for the changing attitude could be the Western influences that have taken root here since the enclave—the Iraqi part of a historical Kurdish homeland stretching from eastern Turkey to western Iran—became a Western protectorate following the 1991 Gulf War….”

TOO MANY RIGHTS FOR WOMEN?
From Gates of Vienna

“…In the Munich court room the mood was dead silence, as a 35-year old Iraqi described how and why he stabbed to death and ignited his wife on fire in the street. He regrets nothing, he said. He had to act in such a way. Because of culture. Because of religion. And because of German politics.

“No,”[said] the slightly-built man before the Munich criminal court, “I don’t regret that I killed my wife.” He would do it again. She would have earned it. And above all the politics of the Federal Republic of Germany are also guilty of her death. Why: “Because the women here have so many rights, they become immodest”….”

WOMEN OF ISLAM
Front Page Mag on the violent oppression of women in Islam.

“…Sexual slavery is possible primarily because slavery itself still exists in the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia only abolished slavery in 1962; Yemen and Oman didn’t follow suit until 1970. Slavery is openly practiced today in two Muslim countries, Sudan and Mauritania. In line with historical practice, Muslim slavers in the Sudan primarily enslave non-Muslims, and chiefly Christians. According to the Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan (CASMAS), a human rights and abolitionist movement founded in 1995, “The current Khartoum government wants to bring the non-Muslim Black South in line with Sharia law, laid down and interpreted by conservative Muslim clergy. The Black animist and Christian South remembers slave raids

by Arabs from the north and east and resists Muslim religious rule and the perceived economic, cultural, and religious expan- sion behind it.”36 Mauritanian anti-slavery campaigner Boubaar Messaoud explains that “it’s like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, her descendants are slaves.”…”

Pedophiles

“…In Iran the legal age for marriage is nine for girls, fourteen for boys. The law has occasionally been exploited by pedohiles, who marry poor young girls from the provinces, use and then abandon them. In 2000 the Iranian Parliament voted to raise the minimum age for girls to fourteen, but this year, a legislative oversight body dominated by traditional clerics vetoed the move. An attempt by conservatives to abolish
Yemen’s legal minimum age of fifteen for girls failed, but local experts say it is rarely enforced anyway. The Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing,” and advised the faithful: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.”..”

Burkas and Veils

“…In February 2007, Zilla Huma Usman, the Pakistani goverment’s minister for social welfare in Punjab province, was shot dead by a Muslim because her head was uncovered. The murderer, Mohammad Sarwar, declared: “I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah’s commandment. I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again.”55 In Algeria, “as in Iran, unveiled, educated, independent Algerian women have been seen as military targets and increasingly shot on sight.” Attorney Karima Bennoune says: “… In the Muslim holy city of Mecca in March 2002, fifteen teenage girls perished in a fire at their school when the Saudi religious police, the muttawa, wouldn’t let them out of the building. Why? Because in the female-only school environment, they had shed the all-concealing outer garments that Saudi women must wear in the presence of men. They had not put these garments back on before trying to flee from the fire. The muttawa preferred that they die rather than transgress Islamic law, and actually battled police and firemen who were trying to open the school’s doors and to save the girls….”

Inheritance

“…The Koran even rules that a son’s inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: “Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children’s (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females.”…”

WAR AGAINST AFRICAN WOMEN
From Achilles Shield
The NYTimes article

“..,“The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world,” said John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. “The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity — it’s appalling.”…”

Why isn’t something being done about this – or is it a symptom of the growing war against women?

“…While rape has always been a weapon of war, researchers say they fear that Congo’s problem has metastasized into a wider social phenomenon.

“It’s gone beyond the conflict,” said Alexandra Bilak, who has studied various armed groups around Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu. She said that the number of women abused and even killed by their husbands seemed to be going up and that brutality toward women had become “almost normal.”

Malteser International, a European aid organization that runs health clinics in eastern Congo, estimates that it will treat 8,000 sexual violence cases this year, compared with 6,338 last year. The organization said that in one town, Shabunda, 70 percent of the women reported being sexually brutalized.

At Panzi Hospital, where Dr. Mukwege performs as many as six rape-related surgeries a day, bed after bed is filled with women lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling, with colostomy bags hanging next to them because of all the internal damage.

“I still have pain and feel chills,” said Kasindi Wabulasa, a patient who was raped in February by five men. The men held an AK-47 rifle to her husband’s chest and made him watch, telling him that if he closed his eyes, they would shoot him. When they were finished, Ms. Wabulasa said, they shot him anyway.

In almost all the reported cases, the culprits are described as young men with guns, and in the deceptively beautiful hills here, there is no shortage of them: poorly paid and often mutinous government soldiers; homegrown militias called the Mai-Mai who slick themselves with oil before marching into battle; members of paramilitary groups originally from Uganda and Rwanda who have destabilized this area over the past 10 years in a quest for gold and all the other riches that can be extracted from Congo’s exploited soil.

The attacks go on despite the presence of the largest United Nations peacekeeping force in the world, with more than 17,000 troops.

Few seem to be spared. Dr. Mukwege said his oldest patient was 75, his youngest 3…”

The same thing is happening in Dafur

“…Sexual violence against women is occurring on a massive scale in Darfur. Amnesty International calls these mass rapes a weapon of war. After years of pressure from women’s organizations around the world, a 1998 landmark United Nations decision confirmed the concept of rape as a war crime, one that has increased during recent years. Darfur fits the pattern of Cambodia, Liberia, Peru, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Somalia and Uganda, with violence against women being systematically used by warring parties.

Destroying the future

Mariam is a midwife at a hospital in South Darfur. She’s been in the profession for decades, but when I met her, she told me the last few years have been incredible.

A girl she had seen that very morning had been raped by five Arabs. The sixth cut her vagina with a knife. She was in hospital for months and now is going back to her family - in a refugee camp. ‘She is afraid of what her parents might say. I am going with her for a conversation with her family. Step by step we tell them what has happened, that it wasn’t her fault. I try to prevent her repudiation,’ the midwife explains.

Rape is an enormous taboo in Sudan. Survivors mostly keep the experience to themselves, though they frequently say they ‘know somebody who has been abused’; only after long talks might a survivor admit that she herself was the victim….”

In Sudan, the Islamists and Arab militias are the ones raping women. My 21 year old niece spent several weeks in the refugee camps in northern Kenya documenting these crimes. Her stories and photos are heart-breaking. You will be hearing much more about this and her in the near future.

“…n Darfur, the Arab militia and military make a point of abusing women in front of their families or entire village. Raping a woman is such an effective weapon because it affects an entire community, for decades. French anthropologist Véronique Nahoum-Grappe calls it ‘destroying the future’. Children who witness the crime are traumatized, men flee from their partners out of shame, and women become ‘damaged goods’, sometimes literally, if they can no longer have children because of the violence. Through raping wives and daughters, Nahoum-Grappe explains, the attackers actually target the ‘real enemy’: the men behind them. Having to have your enemy’s baby goes one step further and turns this sexual violence into a tool for ‘ethnic cleansing’….”

And so women who need help are stuck. Feminists and liberals don't want to acknowledge that there are limits to political correctness and that some things going on in various cultures are just plain wrong. Good "Christian" conservatives have their heads in the sand.

FROM MY SISTER:

BITCHOLOGY

When I stand up for myself and my belief
they call me a bitch.

When I stand up for those I love,
they call me a bitch.

When I speak my mind, think my own thoughts or do things my
own way, they call me a bitch.

Being a bitch means I won't
compromise what's in my heart.

It means I live my life MY way.
It means I won't allow anyone to step on me.

When I refuse to tolerate injustice and speak against it, I
am defined as a bitch.

The same thing happens when I take time for myself instead
of being everyone's maid, or when I act a little selfish.

It means I have the courage and strength to allow myself to
be who I truly am and won't become anyone else's idea of
what they think I 'should' be.

I am outspoken, opinionated and determined. I want what I
want and there is nothing wrong with that!

So try to stomp on me, try to
douse my inner flame, try to
squash every ounce of beauty I hold within me. You won't
succeed.

And if that makes me a bitch ,
so be it. I embrace the title and
am proud to bear it.

B - Babe
I - In
T - Total
C - Control of
H - Herself

B - Beautiful
I - Intelligent
T - Talented
C - Charming
H - Hell of a Woman

B - B beautiful
I - Individual
T - That
C - Can
H - Handle anything

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, , DeMediacratic Nation, Right Truth, Big Dog's Weblog, The Populist, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, Webloggin, The Amboy Times, Cao's Blog, Leaning Straight Up, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, Faultline USA, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Blue Star Chronicles, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and Wake Up America, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.