Very late at night, I overheard a show talking about marriages and pregnancies and sex education. The doctor on the show had a few things to say which were interesting.
To paraphrase:
We all know that the hymen has different textures, and there has been rumours that some hymens need surgical intervention if it doesn't .. give way.. but anyway, that doctor said that there's no such thing as surgical intervention in hymens, they all can be disposed of in the natural way no matter what type they claim to be.
And :
The only female species that can have sexual relations while pregnant is the human female, no other female has that capability. However, that being said, during the first three months of pregnancy the pregnant woman can't bear the thought of sex, can't bear the man's scent, his aftershave, and just the reminder of his existence can make her vomit.
Supposedly this man is a doctor and knows what he's talking about, so I suppose that maybe what he's trying to say is that any hymen that doesn't give way is fake..and by the sounds of it the concept of women enduring some sort of labour during childbirth is balanced out with what a man has to endure.
(Plus of course the extra trouble he takes to buy her tickets to the Bahamas and diamond earrings)
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label women. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Equality
Is there any hope for equality?
Out of the blue a friend of mine remarked: Heba is an ‘old rag’ (Literal translation of an Arabic word that means a promiscuous lady, bitch or prostitute). So I asked why… to which he said, any woman that puts herself in a compromising position such as marrying ‘3orfy’ (common law I think is translation) is an ‘old rag’. So I asked him, how about guys? Why are they not ‘old rags’ too? This of course provoked the mother of all clichéd argument over the equality of men and women in a society.
The conversation went around in its usual (concentric) circles brushing up on human rights and equality in the world along with how different people with different passports are treated differently.. etc.. etc.. we all know the drill.
But one point came up that made me pause later on after a quick recap of the conversation. It’s that rule that men can kill their wives if they saw them cheating and get 1 year in prison while women get life for a similar murder. My friend Solomon very graciously asked that we bypass this point because it’s obvious that here if a woman finds a guy cheating on her it can be his wife but not the other way around. The law itself gives the man that right.
This is where I pause amidst other points that were said because I wonder now if there’s any point to my believing in equality in such a society. Is there any hope for equality inside a society whose very own law is biased towards a man? Is there any point in trying to see equality in society if everything else around doesn’t advocate that equality? ‘Do onto others what you would have done onto you.’ That’s a powerful statement that I believe in and nowhere in others does it say just your same gender. I believe that what rights I have should be given to others, but how would that work with a law that says otherwise, with a mentality that says otherwise and with a logic that says otherwise. Yes ladies and gentlemen, there is a logic that says that in society, men and women should not be treated equally. Constitutional rights have long gone, but does it even make sense to ask for equality within the society?
One topic that came up was the appearance of women on a beach for example. The usual for guys is to have swim wear that covers a part of their body and for women to have swim wear to cover a greater portion of their body. Now where’s the equality there? ( I say let all women dress in the same way that men do) The point that Solomon brought up is that there’s a difference and that this difference causes a different standard to be applied on men and women. I said yes, but the same abstract rule applies, which is to cover the arousing sections of bodies (although I must say that most parts in a woman are arousing). To which he replied, but that just means the implementation is different and should be different in society.
The differences in general are there, but who knows enough about both genders to make this distinction I wonder… The point is that even with a skewed scale, people think that they’re actually implementing a sort of equality in their own way. Women are in a more compromised position and so they are more accountable, women are weaker and therefore equality is to be over protective of them… Now how can you deal with a problem like that if people claim that the problem doesn’t even exist?
So my question is: Is there any real and practical prospect of equality? Is there any hope that a society can provide equality at some point in time? Can this ever stop to be a losing battle?
I present the question to those of you out there with an answer. I don’t really know the answer to it but if I were to guess, I would say that there is no real hope. Try as we might to change people’s outlook on genders, there are things far greater than just outlook that are in play. There’s the law and the notion that difference in gender implies a difference in standards. There are people that are holding on to religious values in a dogmatic way that disables any logical argument to intervene. There are people too set in their ways to heed any voice of reason.
The real question isn’t education, most people are educated enough to know what equality’s about, the real question is what you believe and what you feel. As advanced as we are, we’re still guided by our emotions that our intellect cannot control, we know things to be untrue and yet our emotions are trained to believing them. It’s all about what people choose to believe and what side of the conflict they pick.
Out of the blue a friend of mine remarked: Heba is an ‘old rag’ (Literal translation of an Arabic word that means a promiscuous lady, bitch or prostitute). So I asked why… to which he said, any woman that puts herself in a compromising position such as marrying ‘3orfy’ (common law I think is translation) is an ‘old rag’. So I asked him, how about guys? Why are they not ‘old rags’ too? This of course provoked the mother of all clichéd argument over the equality of men and women in a society.
The conversation went around in its usual (concentric) circles brushing up on human rights and equality in the world along with how different people with different passports are treated differently.. etc.. etc.. we all know the drill.
But one point came up that made me pause later on after a quick recap of the conversation. It’s that rule that men can kill their wives if they saw them cheating and get 1 year in prison while women get life for a similar murder. My friend Solomon very graciously asked that we bypass this point because it’s obvious that here if a woman finds a guy cheating on her it can be his wife but not the other way around. The law itself gives the man that right.
This is where I pause amidst other points that were said because I wonder now if there’s any point to my believing in equality in such a society. Is there any hope for equality inside a society whose very own law is biased towards a man? Is there any point in trying to see equality in society if everything else around doesn’t advocate that equality? ‘Do onto others what you would have done onto you.’ That’s a powerful statement that I believe in and nowhere in others does it say just your same gender. I believe that what rights I have should be given to others, but how would that work with a law that says otherwise, with a mentality that says otherwise and with a logic that says otherwise. Yes ladies and gentlemen, there is a logic that says that in society, men and women should not be treated equally. Constitutional rights have long gone, but does it even make sense to ask for equality within the society?
One topic that came up was the appearance of women on a beach for example. The usual for guys is to have swim wear that covers a part of their body and for women to have swim wear to cover a greater portion of their body. Now where’s the equality there? ( I say let all women dress in the same way that men do) The point that Solomon brought up is that there’s a difference and that this difference causes a different standard to be applied on men and women. I said yes, but the same abstract rule applies, which is to cover the arousing sections of bodies (although I must say that most parts in a woman are arousing). To which he replied, but that just means the implementation is different and should be different in society.
The differences in general are there, but who knows enough about both genders to make this distinction I wonder… The point is that even with a skewed scale, people think that they’re actually implementing a sort of equality in their own way. Women are in a more compromised position and so they are more accountable, women are weaker and therefore equality is to be over protective of them… Now how can you deal with a problem like that if people claim that the problem doesn’t even exist?
So my question is: Is there any real and practical prospect of equality? Is there any hope that a society can provide equality at some point in time? Can this ever stop to be a losing battle?
I present the question to those of you out there with an answer. I don’t really know the answer to it but if I were to guess, I would say that there is no real hope. Try as we might to change people’s outlook on genders, there are things far greater than just outlook that are in play. There’s the law and the notion that difference in gender implies a difference in standards. There are people that are holding on to religious values in a dogmatic way that disables any logical argument to intervene. There are people too set in their ways to heed any voice of reason.
The real question isn’t education, most people are educated enough to know what equality’s about, the real question is what you believe and what you feel. As advanced as we are, we’re still guided by our emotions that our intellect cannot control, we know things to be untrue and yet our emotions are trained to believing them. It’s all about what people choose to believe and what side of the conflict they pick.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
The Two Sides
The two sides of the same Egyptian coin is the head and the tail. Tail is a politically correct term since the true intention of a coin is having a head and a backside. Egyptians are very distinctly both really, they’re faces, but on most other occasions, they’re asses. It’s not a fifty/fifty chance though of ending up with one side rather than the other, it’s really a matter of which side you invoke.
I’ve talked with many people about the contrast between the downtown events that took place right after Ramadan and the African cup events that took place in February of the year 2006. They are opposites that are so extreme, yet certainly performed by the same people. Just last February the girls were out till midnight celebrating in face paint where other young guys who barely knew them celebrated with them and I’d go so far as to say that they even looked out for them too. The whole incident was phenomenal and the joy around was felt from the heart. The lust that following eid was also felt from the… heart. It was a very powerful lust. One that was enough to break the barriers of self control. Let me just say that those men acted on instinct. If any man is honest enough he’ll admit that when he sees a voluptuous girl on the street the thought of grabbing her crosses his mind, if not, then she’s not sexy enough. It’s just the way we feel, but we don’t act on it because as humans we’re defined by our control. There’s no doubt that both extremes exist within us but it’s a matter of how we stimulate it.
That’s not to say that the isolated incidents themselves did not contain that same contrast, for when we’re thinking of the Eid incidents we quickly overlook the few brave men who sheltered some women despite the mob. And when thinking of the African cup we overlook the sick ones who used it as an opportunity to harass some girls.
Egyptians have a way of acting like tails on normal occasions until their chivalry is challenged. A friend of mine was about to get mugged somewhere in Alexandria, and so instead of just cowering away, he went out and shouted ‘yerdeekoo ye7sal keda fi mante2etko’ ( is this a way to treat someone who came to your area is the translation I suppose assuming someone who doesn’t know Arabic would even bother to read this far). The translation doesn’t do justice cause it’s the attitude of appealing to tradition, generosity and chivalry of sha3by places. So basically some of those people switched to chivalry mode and stood up for those who were trying to mug my friend.
It’s all about which side of people you appeal to. It’s about what part you provoke. People are not ready to confront being low, they’re just ready to be it without anyone pointing it to them. People aren’t ready not to be gallant, they would fight off any such accusations in a second. This is always been a theory of mine, that you have to know which side to invoke in Egyptians. The usual circumstances usually lead to getting tails but if you appeal to them you might get their chivalry.
The theory is of course evident by downtown vs. African cup, but that got me to thinking, what is it that drove people to either of those extremes? The problem is that with the African cup, people felt united and people felt hope and that’s always a dangerous thing in a country like ours.. because not so long after this false sense of hope and pride, people realize how false it is. When confronted with their daily life they see clearly that they’ve been robbed of a right to hope or stand united. The African cup was just a glimpse of what could have been and the happenings of Eid are a glimpse of what really is. It’s hopelessness and despair and a sort of jungle. People’s chivalry is of no use to anyone and so it disappears.
People have been educated in such a manner where everything contradicts itself and so all you end up with are two extremes within them rather than one moderate behavior.
It’s a shame to see all the goodness of people thrown away, their potential crushed and their spirits drained. I’m a skeptic, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Egyptians have proven that when they need to, their motivation takes them a long way. The only problem is that it’s in very short pulses, like an awakening that happens once in a very long while.
There’s a search for a common goal, so that people’s energies are used and so that one person can derive power from the other. In the African cup it was a good cause, a victory for an Egyptian country, and that’s why women were protected, because the cause was being united to face our challengers. In Eid the goal was to chase and harass girls. It was a common goal and that’s why there was so much energy. People are deprived of a real goal, but they’re running towards nothing anyway.
I’ve talked with many people about the contrast between the downtown events that took place right after Ramadan and the African cup events that took place in February of the year 2006. They are opposites that are so extreme, yet certainly performed by the same people. Just last February the girls were out till midnight celebrating in face paint where other young guys who barely knew them celebrated with them and I’d go so far as to say that they even looked out for them too. The whole incident was phenomenal and the joy around was felt from the heart. The lust that following eid was also felt from the… heart. It was a very powerful lust. One that was enough to break the barriers of self control. Let me just say that those men acted on instinct. If any man is honest enough he’ll admit that when he sees a voluptuous girl on the street the thought of grabbing her crosses his mind, if not, then she’s not sexy enough. It’s just the way we feel, but we don’t act on it because as humans we’re defined by our control. There’s no doubt that both extremes exist within us but it’s a matter of how we stimulate it.
That’s not to say that the isolated incidents themselves did not contain that same contrast, for when we’re thinking of the Eid incidents we quickly overlook the few brave men who sheltered some women despite the mob. And when thinking of the African cup we overlook the sick ones who used it as an opportunity to harass some girls.
Egyptians have a way of acting like tails on normal occasions until their chivalry is challenged. A friend of mine was about to get mugged somewhere in Alexandria, and so instead of just cowering away, he went out and shouted ‘yerdeekoo ye7sal keda fi mante2etko’ ( is this a way to treat someone who came to your area is the translation I suppose assuming someone who doesn’t know Arabic would even bother to read this far). The translation doesn’t do justice cause it’s the attitude of appealing to tradition, generosity and chivalry of sha3by places. So basically some of those people switched to chivalry mode and stood up for those who were trying to mug my friend.
It’s all about which side of people you appeal to. It’s about what part you provoke. People are not ready to confront being low, they’re just ready to be it without anyone pointing it to them. People aren’t ready not to be gallant, they would fight off any such accusations in a second. This is always been a theory of mine, that you have to know which side to invoke in Egyptians. The usual circumstances usually lead to getting tails but if you appeal to them you might get their chivalry.
The theory is of course evident by downtown vs. African cup, but that got me to thinking, what is it that drove people to either of those extremes? The problem is that with the African cup, people felt united and people felt hope and that’s always a dangerous thing in a country like ours.. because not so long after this false sense of hope and pride, people realize how false it is. When confronted with their daily life they see clearly that they’ve been robbed of a right to hope or stand united. The African cup was just a glimpse of what could have been and the happenings of Eid are a glimpse of what really is. It’s hopelessness and despair and a sort of jungle. People’s chivalry is of no use to anyone and so it disappears.
People have been educated in such a manner where everything contradicts itself and so all you end up with are two extremes within them rather than one moderate behavior.
It’s a shame to see all the goodness of people thrown away, their potential crushed and their spirits drained. I’m a skeptic, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Egyptians have proven that when they need to, their motivation takes them a long way. The only problem is that it’s in very short pulses, like an awakening that happens once in a very long while.
There’s a search for a common goal, so that people’s energies are used and so that one person can derive power from the other. In the African cup it was a good cause, a victory for an Egyptian country, and that’s why women were protected, because the cause was being united to face our challengers. In Eid the goal was to chase and harass girls. It was a common goal and that’s why there was so much energy. People are deprived of a real goal, but they’re running towards nothing anyway.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
It’s Tough Being A Woman
I’m not sure if men will agree, or women for that matter, but I really think it must be very hard being a woman. Of course I love women and the final product (already I’m pissing off the feminists) is wonderful, but being a woman itself is a lot of work. I mean women are in a tough spot from birth. Even though it’s better now, I can’t imagine how women lived a long time ago.. deprived of any education, they had to claw their way into the world. They had to deal with far more educated men and conquer them. They had to bear abuse and they had to bear shame.
Even today, when a woman is born, especially in the Middle East, she brings less joy to her family (not to me but to some others), she is surrounded by a fence of rules that she should not dare to cross. She’s not expected to play sports, she’s expected to act in a certain manner, she’s not even expected to hear cuss words and she’s expected to be home at a certain time. The community has built a cage around her that imprisons her even with her constitutional freedom. I don’t know if women see that, but I do.. and I don’t know what I’d do as a woman. I would rather be a woman with a bad reputation than be locked in such a case.
Like I said I think it’s very tough to be a woman, and men don’t give them a break. They just ask more and more and women bear more and more. They demand so much more of women and yet almost everywhere they call themselves the superior race. I’m not a feminist out to defend women or say that they’re superior, I just understand what they go through. It’s such a horrible quality to be able to put yourself in one’s shoes, it always causes me trouble .. This is the trouble I’m talking about, as a man, I’m very happy, rebellious against my own society and it’s easy for me to retaliate. Women have much more calculations and I don’t know if I would have been able to rebel had I been a woman.
Where do women get all their strength, with all odds against them.. with child labor, responsibilities and pressures by men. I really don’t know and that’s why I’m impressed with strong women. I’m impressed with how they fought all that was naturally against them and have risen to fight those battles that I do. I think it’s very difficult not to admire women. I also can see how to sympathize with them, but the trouble is that I don’t sympathize much with those who do not choose to help themselves.
Women are about sacrifice, even those who don’t. They always sacrifice something because they’re born at a social disadvantage. I know that there’s this talk of equality, but I’m saying that they’re born at a disadvantage. There’s equality of opportunity but not equality of people. If they were so equal, why didn’t women take over the world? I think it’s very concerning whenever I see an evil woman. Not that women can’t be evil, they can be and very much so in fact, but I mean the idea of a woman has been tampered with so much in my head that she needs to be kind, loving and obedient. Now I’m thankful that this is not how I view women really.. but it’s due to that damn trait of putting myself in their shoes.
Women need to be seductive; they need to watch their weight and what they eat. They need to wax and put on make up and just basically invest so much time on how they look. To top it off it has been customary to see women as in charge of the household and cleanliness. She has to keep the house in great shape, do all the dirty work and yet maintain her feminine beautiful and sexy image. She must be everything it seems, do the tough jobs and yet remain graceful. Be responsible and yet submissive.
Another thing about women that I appreciate is their biological nature. I mean after they mature they have so much to maintain. And it’s not just that… women are normal 25 % of the time. In a cycle of four weeks, they’re normal for one week, they get their emotionally exhausting PMT for the next, then get their physically exhausting period for a week and then ovulate for a week. A woman has something out of the ordinary to deal with 3 weeks out of 4, so much so, that I’m not sure I can label any one week ‘normal’.
I don’t understand how men can just ignore this, I mean even the tough guys out there not just those with a feminine side. It’s really tough and to think that putting yourself in these shoes might be mushy is just pure cowardice I believe. I think courageous and tough men have to appreciate certain tough situations, and like I’ve been babbling all this time being a woman is theeeee ultimate tough situation.
How can one chromosome mean this world of difference? I really don’t know.. but I do know that it’s tough being a woman even with all those rights. Those women’s rights are there but they also put pressure on her. They’re a sort of freedom but a lot of women I know have less ambitious priorities by nature. I mean they can do certain jobs as good as men and some even better but a lot of them need the emotional side fulfilled too.
What started all this anyway? Well I was watching part of a show ‘Qasim Ameen’ and he was talking about giving women a right to education. I realized that we’re depriving women of all the tools they need to get ahead and that it must be very tough.. But on second thought, they’re doing very well without a lot of tools and getting ahead, imagine what would happen if we make all those tools available.. Lord have mercy on men..
Even today, when a woman is born, especially in the Middle East, she brings less joy to her family (not to me but to some others), she is surrounded by a fence of rules that she should not dare to cross. She’s not expected to play sports, she’s expected to act in a certain manner, she’s not even expected to hear cuss words and she’s expected to be home at a certain time. The community has built a cage around her that imprisons her even with her constitutional freedom. I don’t know if women see that, but I do.. and I don’t know what I’d do as a woman. I would rather be a woman with a bad reputation than be locked in such a case.
Like I said I think it’s very tough to be a woman, and men don’t give them a break. They just ask more and more and women bear more and more. They demand so much more of women and yet almost everywhere they call themselves the superior race. I’m not a feminist out to defend women or say that they’re superior, I just understand what they go through. It’s such a horrible quality to be able to put yourself in one’s shoes, it always causes me trouble .. This is the trouble I’m talking about, as a man, I’m very happy, rebellious against my own society and it’s easy for me to retaliate. Women have much more calculations and I don’t know if I would have been able to rebel had I been a woman.
Where do women get all their strength, with all odds against them.. with child labor, responsibilities and pressures by men. I really don’t know and that’s why I’m impressed with strong women. I’m impressed with how they fought all that was naturally against them and have risen to fight those battles that I do. I think it’s very difficult not to admire women. I also can see how to sympathize with them, but the trouble is that I don’t sympathize much with those who do not choose to help themselves.
Women are about sacrifice, even those who don’t. They always sacrifice something because they’re born at a social disadvantage. I know that there’s this talk of equality, but I’m saying that they’re born at a disadvantage. There’s equality of opportunity but not equality of people. If they were so equal, why didn’t women take over the world? I think it’s very concerning whenever I see an evil woman. Not that women can’t be evil, they can be and very much so in fact, but I mean the idea of a woman has been tampered with so much in my head that she needs to be kind, loving and obedient. Now I’m thankful that this is not how I view women really.. but it’s due to that damn trait of putting myself in their shoes.
Women need to be seductive; they need to watch their weight and what they eat. They need to wax and put on make up and just basically invest so much time on how they look. To top it off it has been customary to see women as in charge of the household and cleanliness. She has to keep the house in great shape, do all the dirty work and yet maintain her feminine beautiful and sexy image. She must be everything it seems, do the tough jobs and yet remain graceful. Be responsible and yet submissive.
Another thing about women that I appreciate is their biological nature. I mean after they mature they have so much to maintain. And it’s not just that… women are normal 25 % of the time. In a cycle of four weeks, they’re normal for one week, they get their emotionally exhausting PMT for the next, then get their physically exhausting period for a week and then ovulate for a week. A woman has something out of the ordinary to deal with 3 weeks out of 4, so much so, that I’m not sure I can label any one week ‘normal’.
I don’t understand how men can just ignore this, I mean even the tough guys out there not just those with a feminine side. It’s really tough and to think that putting yourself in these shoes might be mushy is just pure cowardice I believe. I think courageous and tough men have to appreciate certain tough situations, and like I’ve been babbling all this time being a woman is theeeee ultimate tough situation.
How can one chromosome mean this world of difference? I really don’t know.. but I do know that it’s tough being a woman even with all those rights. Those women’s rights are there but they also put pressure on her. They’re a sort of freedom but a lot of women I know have less ambitious priorities by nature. I mean they can do certain jobs as good as men and some even better but a lot of them need the emotional side fulfilled too.
What started all this anyway? Well I was watching part of a show ‘Qasim Ameen’ and he was talking about giving women a right to education. I realized that we’re depriving women of all the tools they need to get ahead and that it must be very tough.. But on second thought, they’re doing very well without a lot of tools and getting ahead, imagine what would happen if we make all those tools available.. Lord have mercy on men..
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