Women Drive in Saudi Arabia

In some cultures women have rights and high ranked jobs, in other cultures women have some rights but not strong rolled rights or high ranked jobs as men. We have to give everyone rights equally. From this point I need to specifically talk about the women in Saudi Arabia and how we treat them over there, and about there rights in my home country Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries. In the past they did not give women all their rights. For example, there rights to work in general places, vote, and especially about that they can’t drive in Saudi Arabia. Right now she can vote, also she can work anywhere, but until now she can’t drive a car or have a major high ranked job that can change the way that things are working over there or change the rules. There is no doubt that woman driving cars in Saudi Arabia can benefit the community and our culture but there’s also the other side of the story and we can call it the side effects of women driving back home.

The benefits of them driving is that there is going to be less traffic jams and easier traffic flow and when women are able to drive. I think that’s going to be a game changing move that would change the way that our culture and heritage is, and can open some of the closed minds that still think that if women drove. That would be against our culture and can jeopardize how our country works and its way of living, just like this article I read about Islamic countries and that there new rules aren’t in the roots of Islam and that there just rules and laws made up by there governments

“Many women suffer human rights abuses in Muslim countries—in Afghanistan women are denied jobs and education, and in Saudi Arabia women are forbidden to drive—but the misogyny stems from cultural factors rather than from Islam. In fact, the Koran advocates equality of the sexes and humanitarian treatment of women. Men who violate women's rights in Muslim countries misinterpret the egalitarian teachings of the Koran.”  Watanabe. The side effects of that rule or law coming to life is that some men would hearse women drivers, because it’s going to be something new to them. I know that harassment would eventually stop after a couple of years but where not talking what’s going to happen after where talking about what’s going to happen when they firs legalize women driving. But Until today in Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed having their own driver’s license and there is no place to teach them how to drive. The Saudi government is against woman driving in Saudi because they think its will cost them a lot of problems such as the ones that I talked about before. I think a lot of those women can’t afford for their self a car and privet driver. This point that she can’t drive let a lot of people agree and disagree and every group have there own opinion that you cant even change it. Although I agree with the women can drive, I disagree in some point about it.

             

              Lately in Saudi Arabia the women started to get some of their rights and this is what it should happen from the beginning. Women start to insist to get a job, and from this point the problem start that the women need for someone to give her a ride.Right now she needs a car also a driver because in Saudi Arabia there are no good transportation specifically not good in everywhere. Some people said that there is a good transportation but the problem is the transportation well not includes every place or it will cost them a lot of money. However, they just have small income and they have to pay a lot to get good transportation. In the other hand, a lot of families start to use some illegal transportation, which is the use some people work without permeation from the government. They work illegally, they use very bad cars, and a lot of these drivers are old. These families start to use this illegal transportation to save some money. While they start to use illegal transportation, they will put them self’s in a very bad situation such as that they don’t know with who are they going with, or is he good in driver or not, and even if the car safety for them or not. 

          “There is no law in Saudi Arabia prohibiting women from driving” Katherine Mangu-ward. There is no law or word in our religious said that the women couldn’t drive. They can’t drive at this time because the government is against it, because of the way that people think as I explained earlier and I even saw on CNN about the protest the Saudi women went out in the streets and demanded there rights for driving “An Arab Spring may be coming to Saudi Arabia on wheels. Saudi women take to the streets, not for political protests but the right to drive. "Though there are no traffic laws that make it illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, religious edicts are often interpreted as a ban against female drivers," Jamjoom also, our culture and believe think that the woman can’t drive. There are a lot of people disagree with the women drive think that there is law or something tell them the women can’t drive but there is nothing. For example, in the past the way that people was transportation is with the camel and horses. Here is some little story about our prophet Mohammed, he was need to travel with his wife, he let his wife ride the camel and he just walk in his foot. As we can see our prophet Mohammed let his wife ride the camel that’s mean there is no problem with the women drive. Right now its all about the cultural thing that they born on it.

           The women in Saudi Arabia need to drive. There is a lot of benefit and affected about this issue. A lot of people think that it’s a good thing that the women have to drive and it’s a good thing to do. For example, if something emergency happened in the house or anywhere else and there are no men over there the benefit is that the women can drive the car and she can help in this situation, but if she cant drive and there is now one teach her how to drive the car in this situation it will be more dangerous for the people around her.

 In conclusion, as we can see that in Saudi Arabia the women can’t drive the car. This issue let the people agree and disagree about it. In my opinion I think this issue the most popular women issue in Saudi Arabia. There is a benefit for let the women drive in Saudi Arabia and there is side affect. As we can see that there is no rule in Saudi Arabia that tell the women can’t drive, but it is the culture things. Also, the government against this issue and they didn’t support it.

                                                

Work citied

"Drivingcamping for Saudi women challenges custom. " YaleGlobal Online 21 June

            2011. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 8 Oct. 2012

Mangue-Ward, Katherine. "Lady drivers: Saudi women take the wheel." Reason Oct.

            2011:10. General OneFile. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Watanabe, Teresa. "Islamist Misogyny Does Not Have Its Roots in Islam." Islamic Fundamentalism. Ed. David M. Haugen. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Rpt. from "Dispelling Stereotypes." Los Angeles Times 20 Feb. 1999. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 8 Oct. 2012.

Chinese Foot Binding

Trafficking Violates Women's Human Rights

Minh Tien Pham

Professor Bieber

ENGL-113B

15 September 2012

Trafficking Violates Women's Human Rights

            Sex trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor. Sex trafficking is a certain problem which is a crime againsts humanity and it violates women rights. There is no universally accepted definition of trafficking for sexual exploitation. I believe that sex trafficking is a big concern which is breaks human rights and people need to define and also find the solutions to terminate this issue.

Sex trafficking is a modern form of slavery in which a commercial sex act included by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person such an act is under the age of 18 years or less. Victims of sex trafficking are: men or women, girls or boy, but mostly young girls. The main reasons for luring victims into situations of slavery are: A promise of a good job; being sold into the sex trade by parents, husbands or boyfriends, and being kidnapped by traffickers. Moreover, there are also many types of sex trafficking: prostitution, pornography, stripping, live sex shows. However, the most common sex trafficking in women is prostitution and pornography.

Demand is the main reason why human trafficking still occurs. Unlike many other commodities, human beings can be used over and over again by many different customers, thus making the trafficking of human beings a very lucrative business. Lowering the demand of sexual services from trafficked women and children is imperative to ending the sex trafficking industry. In some countries, sexual service is very popular. An example of this is Vietnam, "Thousands of Vietnamese women are trafficked through the Vietnam-China border by illegal organizers who take them to Cambodia and from there to neighboring countries for prostitution purposes. Vietnamese pimps pretend to court village girls to bring them to the city, and then sell them to brothels". (Vietnam Child Sex Trade Rising, Associated Press, 24 April 1998).

In the article “Striking the Brothels’ Bottom Line” by Nicholas Kristof, author raises awareness of sex slavery and trafficking while also trying to figure out how to defeat the traffickers. By an unusual approach in his investigation of sex trafficking in a Cambodia brothel, he states that the rights of women became underestimated and need to be addressed as a big issue.  Kristof relates sex trafficking with the business: “Sexual slavery is like any other business. Rising the operating costs, create a risk of jail, and the human traffickers will quite sensibly shift to some other trade” (Kristof,188). He wants people to acknowledge that human trafficking is quite sophisticated as a business and it is not easy to deal with them. He shows that sex trafficking is consider as a job, brothel owner like manager and those slave girls like employers. Showing some persuasive evidences, Kristof also gives the audiences some cruel fact behind the business: “Ms.Channa, who does not seem to be imprisoning anyone against her will, readily acknowledged that some other brothels in Poipet torture girls, enslave them and occasionally beat them to death”(186). Indeed, girls under the command of brothel owner not only being abuse but also being harass cruelly. They are struggling with their life every day and claim their rights.

Understanding the cruel fact of human trafficking, why women did not do anything but suffer it? Actually, there were some resistances by them but isn’t enough strong to change their fate:” They are speaking out to raise awareness about human slavery and trafficking, which ranks just behind drugs and weapons in worldwide crime. They are revealing their lives as sex slaves as a warning to others. However, they appear as shadows on a wall, still too fearful to speak on camera to tell their story of a life as sex slaves.” (Sex trafficking victims speak out against trade, 2003).  Problem is they don’t know who to trust and count on.

Recently, many organization have been established to protect women rights and stop women trafficking: significantly increase the financial penalties associated with sex-slave crimes, including asset forfeiture and victim compensation, create an international slavery and trafficking inspection force, modeled on United Nations weapons inspections and charged with searching for establishments that exploit slaves, freeing the victims, and detaining the criminals, initiate proactive law enforcement raids against establishments for which there is a strong suspicion of slave-like exploitation, with protections in place to minimize adverse effects on the individuals living in those establishments, increase salaries for anti-trafficking police, prosecutors, and judges in developing nations.( Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery,2009). By those strictly laws which are mainly focus on financial penalties, the rate of human trafficking are reducing. Women have their own voice and they understand the status of them in society. There are also some charity shows raise money to help sex trafficking victims, MTV EXIT is one example.

Throughout the world, many women being abused and suffer the violence of sex trafficking. Women or young women- cannot give the decisions that affect their lives or claim for their rights. Sex trafficking is a serious problem which is need to be addressed and defeated. Although there were plenty of solutions for this issue, sex trafficking still need to stopped from the root and by the authority or government.

Word cited

           Kara, S. Columbia University. Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery Columbia University. New York, 2009. Print.

          Alpert, Adrienne. Los Angeles News. Sex trafficking victims speak out against trade. Web . 23 February. 2010. <http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=7294309>.  Print.

Vietnam Child Sex Trade Rising Associated Press.24 April 1998. <http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/vietnam>. Print.

Kristof, Nicholas. Striking the Brothels’ Bottom Line. New York Times. 11 January. 2009. Print.

What I Learned from Foot Binding

Ying Lu

Professor Bieber

Engl 113B

1 September 2012

What I learned from foot binding

Will you judge small feet as a standard to decide whether to marry with the other half? In past of China, it did. If a woman has a normal big feet, then no one will marry her. It is one reason why women kept binding their feet for thousands years. So does the female circumcision happen in many area nowadays, it is a cruel practice on women and girls, which only benefit for men, similarly have the same reason, marriage, to keep women and girls doing it. Both foot binding and female circumcision exist in a male-dominated society, where women nearly have no rights for their better lives because of lower education and have no sense of protect their human rights. Furthermore, foot binding is no longer exist and female circumcision is on its way to the end. With the help of many organizations and people, female circumcision will be outlawed so that millions of women and girls will free from the suffering. Learning from the foot binding, female circumcision should be outlawed in the world in order that women have equal rights as men to prevent their own body from hurt. It is the inevitable result of  history, the development of society encourage human become more harmony and show the human’s glory.

Foot binding was a long history that practiced generation by generation. It started in Song dynasty(960-1279 A.D.), which practice to young girls around 6 years old binding their feet in order to prevent further growth, then, foot binding goes to the boom around Ming dynasty(1368-1644 A.D.), ultimately outlawed in 1912.  At the begin of the foot binding, people believe an emperor, Li Yu, who was the last emperor of NanTang dynast and he was interested in a concubine’s dancing, especially her small feet. At that old time, men have ability to marry with several wives. Typically, a emperor of a county have thousands of concubines. How to have a better life among thousands of women while there is only one emperor. Make themselves attractive and unique as well as do what the emperor like. All these are necessary to survive in that competitive environment. Therefore, all the concubines began to emulate binding their feet to pleasure the emperor. No one realizes this special hobby of the emperor will deeply affect millions of women and girls in China next thousands years later on. Generally, outside the Palace, the wealthier classes also following to encourage women to bind their feet. It was a symbol of high status for women showing their rich and powerful family background. Until the Ming dynasty, foot binding spread widely over the nation. Even the farming women bind their feet, and it was hard to think how could they do farming with those small shivery painful feet. In fact, it developed to a higher strict level that how to bind a three-inch feet and there were twenty four kinds of different types around the country in various regions. In the male-dominated society, women have no rights to express how they feel about the foot binding. Obviously, it is extremely painful to forcibly bow bones by string into three-inch length. In the last hundreds years’ period of the foot binding, women were suffering both physically and mentally around all kinds of pressure coming to them, even they do not like bind their feet they have no choice if they want to have a peaceful life they have to bow to fate. Women afraid there is no one would marry them because of the big feet. They can not take a risk of  having a bright future destroyed by a pair of ridiculous big feet. There is no doubt, marriage to human is ineffable important in their lives, particularly for Chinese people. As the saying goes in China, a man should get married on coming of age, and so should a girl. It is only a comfort for binding women’s feet as they people know how painful it will be.

Similarly, for doing the female circumcision, marriage is one of the main reason. From the World Health Organization websites, about “140 million girls and women worldwide are living with the consequences of female genital mutilation.” “Female genital mutilation is a violation of the human rights of girls and women.” Like the Djibouti and the Egypt, over ninety seven percent of girls and women have undergone the female genital mutilation. It is a requirement for marriage because people have a serious concept of virgins. Generally, young girls are being control by their mother and a woman will cut labia or remove clitoris. There are all three different types of female genital mutilation. Moreover, it would be a very dangerous procedure for young girls because no medical support so that they might die from the circumcision. After the circumcision, it will take a long time, probably years to recover, and the pain is throughout the life. The famous modal from Somalia, who experience the circumcision when she was about five years old, and she says “When you give birth, they unsew you. Once they baby has come out, they sew you back up again.” For women and girls, of course they do not like hurt themselves like this. The reason why women and girls do the miserable thing is to satisfy men’s need. “Men invented the custom so that sexual pleasure is nonexistent for women - sex is just for men.”In most female genital mutilation areas, like Djibouti and Egypt, men have absolute power to control women’s behavior. They do not want women have optional sex with others, and make sure their wives are virgins so they use the extreme way to get their ugly goal. 

From the situation of today’s female genital mutilation, similar with the last hundreds years of foot binding, women and girls have emotional dislike the practice by hurting themselves. However, different kinds of pressure push them keep doing what elder generations did. Women and girls hardly violate the old rule because there have more cruel punishment or death for them if they do not follow the rule. Fortunately, many organizations like WHO does much effort for helping those women and girls out from suffering. From the history of foot binding, there are two main way to make foot binding outlawed eventually, which also can help female genital mutilation being outlawed all over the world. First is to educate people how harmful circumcision is and women have the same rights as men to protect their life safety. Not only educate women, it is quite important and necessary to educate men to help them realize female genital mutilation can not be continue just for satisfy them. During the last period of foot binding, men access new knowledge from outside country and notice that women bind their feet was only useless and many well educated men encourage people to rethink women foot binding in order to their fault. Furthermore, they launch campaigns to against women foot binding. It is vital to finally outlawed the foot binding. Because of some reasons, like men usually in those female circumcision places, men in general have more education than women. Therefore, they have more chances to get a new vision on female circumcision impartial. In addition, like foot binding lasted thousands years in a big deep-rooted environment, the male-dominated society, men normally have more influence and power than women to have activities against the female genital mutilation in advance. On the other side, a effective way to make female circumcision being outlawed is utilizing some influential people or issues to make people, especially men, change their mind about circumcision is inhumanness. It is the same as advertisements and many public warfare, they generally invite some famous people to encourage people consider some specific problems, which have a effective outcome for people to pay attention to those issues. In those female genital mutilation countries, they can make use of some respected people to undertake this important task to lead million of women and girls to a bright peaceful future. 

All in all, similar with foot binding, the female genital mutilation should be outlaw in the world, because both they are satisfy men’s need and women have no human rights to protect themselves. In the history of foot binding, because men’s special aesthetics, millions of women and girls bind their feet and it lasted for thousands years. Coincidentally, in order to control women’s pure, they force to do circumcision and the pain lasts for the whole life. Both of them are requirement for marriage seriously trampled women’s life safety, which should and will disappear in the world.

Work Cied

“Female Genital Mutilation.” WHO. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2012. 

Lim, Louisa. “Painful Memories for China’s Footbinding Survivors” NPR. NPR, 19 Mar. 2007.  Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Stuart Hirschberg, and Terry Hirschberg, eds. ONE WORLD, MANY CULTURES. Dirie: The  Tragedy of Female Circumcision, 2010. Print.

Female Circumcision in Egypt

Mohammed Alzhrani
Professor Beiber
English 113B
24 September 2012

                                                        Female Circumcision in Egypt

               Yolande Knell, BBC World Channel reporter showed from Egypt how women are treated and how Nermin, an Egyptian 13 year old girl, died in a local clinic while receiving an illegal circumcision operation. The reporter conversed with local women in Nermin’s village and she described that the women are having less awareness and knowledge about the female genital mutilation. Although female circumcision is not required in some religions and disapproved in others, female genital mutilation is a violation of human rights and gender inequality. Female circumcision violates an individual's right to health, safety, and the right not to be exposed to any treatment categorized as torture.

                Female circumcision is the removal of the external genital of the female organs for non-medical reasons. Usually who circumcise women is a traditional circumciser, who is considered as an important person in the places where the female circumcision is common (World Health Organization). World Health Organization categorized the female circumcision to four categories; first, the total or partial removal of the clitoris and this involves in the removal of the skin or the whole clitoris. Second kind of circumcision, is circumcise the labia and the clitoris; and the main purpose of this kind is to cut the labia with or without the clitoris. Third, is the Pharonic circumcision ,which is the worst kind, this kind is practiced in Africa and the world health organization describes it as “narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal that is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner labia.” The fourth category is other thing that includes processes with the female genital for non-medical reason such as piercing.

     The female circumcision has harmful health consequences. Female circumcision has no any health benefits but it harms the girl, hurts her genitals and destroys the tissues of the genitals. According to Lancet Medical Journal “It has medical, psychological, and psychosexual consequences, Nor should one forget the unacceptably high number of young girls who die as a result of life threatening infections such as tetanus or hemorrhage; in areas of Sudan where antibiotics are not available, a third of the girls undergoing female genital mutilation are estimated to die from infection.” The timeline of the health risk starts from the beginning of the cut, when the female is fighting and resisting against the circumcision, which causes her a lot of horror and causing her an emotional and psychological pain. Second, it could potentially cause death if the female bleeds too much, and in most of the African countries like Egypt they don’t have the proper medicine to stop bleeding due to the poor preparation in medical infrastructure. Third, the psychological aftershock is extremely difficult to cope with because some women still suffer the pain of remembering how her parents forced her to do the circumcision. For instance, the brave Waris Dirie who was born in Somalia had a circumcision at the age of five and wrote a book about her terrifying experience. Fourth, possible sexual dilemmas occur once the woman marries. She may not have the pleasure of sex because the clitoris has been cut and the woman may experience a lot of bleeding while having sexual intercourse. Finally, it is dangerous for women who have had the circumcision to get pregnant and experience childbirth, because it might cause death to the infant while the woman is in labor. The Doctors recommend males to do a male circumcision which is considered healthy. Therefore, female circumcision is accounted as unhealthy procedure.

             Female Circumcision reported highly in Egypt because of the old cultural traditions, which inherited from the Pharaonic times. In Egypt they circumcise the girls to protect the honor of the family, they claim that the circumcised women have a virtue and the uncircumcised women are promiscuous. Also, they think that circumcision protect the women from being involved in sexual intercourses. In Egypt once the woman involves in a sexual intercourse in the pre-marriage that is considered polluting the family honor. On the other hand, the married women lose the right to have the sex pleasure and the sexual intercourse became under the dominance of the man, and she cannot enjoy it as a human but she became a tool for sexual pleasure, which is measured as a human rights violation. In Egypt, some people who entitle them selves as a religious scholar says that female circumcision is a good thing to do in Islam, but in fact, Islam did not mention anything about it in the Quran, or the Hadith of Prophet Mohammed –Peace be upon him- and they misunderstand between the culture and the religion.

           Female circumcision is a surgery that involves removing the female genitals totally or partially. A female circumcision is not like surgery in the operation room, but it is a bloody, violent surgery where women and men force the girl to have the procedure. According to the World Health Organization this bad habit affect approximately, 140 million female around the world (World Health Organization), and the reason for the high violated women is the lack of education which is one of the main reasons that make the female circumcision popular in Egypt. Most of Egyptian people think that female circumcision is a cultural matter that has been inherited from the Pharonic ages; however, they think it is healthy as the Pharonic said. And some other Egyptian mixed between the religious orders and traditions and they think it is from Islam to do the female circumcision. Many scholars and religious scholars in Egypt began to give lectures to people to raise the awareness of the people to let them rethink about the operation and how it is unhealthy (Knell).

In conclusion, Female circumcision is an immoral cultural crime. And the world ought to find solutions to stop it in Egypt by stating the international legalizations and laws that criminalize who does it, and who incites it. People suppose to change their bad cultural habits, which take human’s freedom and health. Also, Scholars and activists should talk about the female circumcision and raise the awareness and people knowledge.

Work Cited

  BBC News. BBC, 09 Feb. 2010. Web. 22 Sept. 2012.

       <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11160935>.

"Female Genital Mutilation." WHO. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2012. 

        <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/>.

Flodes, Pierre, Béatrice Cuzin, and Armelle Andro. "Reconstructive Surgery after Female

      Genital Mutilation: A Prospective Cohort Study." Pierre Foldès, Béatrice Cuzin, Armelle

     Andro 14 July 2012: 134-41. Web. 22 Sept. 2012.  <http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673612604000.pdf?id=40bade475

3939e7f:-459d7b89:13a21f90b4b:-31571349192095021>.