I took this screenshot of the first page I pulled up with the search term “young women facebook” because I think the real moral of this story is going to get lost as right wingers sink their teeth into it and go nuts. (Via.)
A woman was beaten up and shot dead by her father for talking online with a man she met on the website Facebook.
The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the “strife” the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation.
It said the man shot his daugther after discovering she had been chatting online to a young man she had met on Facebook.
“Security sources assured Al-Arabiya.net that the father beat up his daughter and then shot her dead,” it said.
A leading Saudi preacher told Al-Arabiya.net that Facebook was a “door to lust” for women and called for it to be blocked to prevent social “strife”.
Sheikh Ali al-Maliki said women were posting “revealing pictures” and “behaving badly” on the site, which has become popular with young Saudis.
The story is coming from right wing rag the Daily Mail. Interestingly, they are also the top result when you google for hyperventilating stories about how our white, Christian women are out of control with the crazy freedoms that Facebook provides. The question to the Daily Mail, I suppose, is this: Is it wrong or right for the media to swarm around, blaming women’s freedoms for everything under the sun, but especially for violence against women? I guess if it’s “your” women, it’s good, since the Daily Mail is fond of using scare quotes to deny that rape exists and to blame the victims’ loose behavior for causing rape, though as of yet, the Daily Mail has not accused a woman of raping herself by using Facebook. But I’m sure they would, if given the chance.
So the question is: Is it okay to commit violence against women and then blame the women’s own insufficiently constrained freedoms for it or not?
I guess the answer is, “It’s ony wrong if you’re Muslim.”
Since some asshole is going to claim I’m somehow defending Muslim patriarchies, let me make it absolutely clear: All patriarchies are wrong and must be ended immediately, and anything less than that is a moral failure of society. But I’m always amazed at how misogynists can defend their own patriarchies while pointing to other patriarchies and saying, “My god, they’re so terrible for behaving how we do/would like to but for the stupid feminists.”
36 Responses to “It’s okay if you’re a white Christian”
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Aw c’mon, Amanda! Muslim women have it so much worse! If feminists were really concerned about women’s rights, they’d try to do something about the sexist pigs over there (so we wouldn’t have to fight them over here).
You can’t really mean that Amerikun males are bad when there are societies that are worse. You should be grateful your ancestors came here to America b/c you are so much better off than if you were still living in a repressed culture like …France? Marcotte? Canada?
It’s not like we prosecute people who only murder one person when serial killers roam freely. We’ve got to lock up the serial killers FIRST, then, once the worst of the murderers are gone we might find the time to harass those that only murder one or two people. Maybe a long time in the future, we might even get to the people who just beat up or maim other people! But you can’t seriously think we should prosecute every degree of violence! So therefore you can’t possibly expect us to fight against the very minor inconveniences of American patriarchy when Saudi Arabian patriarchy is worse!
Agrees with Caren. We are winning, you idiot feminislamofascist. Dammit. Our sexists will stand down when Saudi sexists stand up….er…something. Whatever.
Anyway…why do you hate freedom?
I think you’re all missing how the Saudis are key partners in the War on Estrogen. We have to stop the evil feminizing influence of that unholy, athiestic chemical before it’s too late!
I am not being flip about this horrifying loss of life. It is the response of the wingnutzophrenics (Islamic oppression and hate of women is really terrible. But Christian oppression and hate of women is desirable and admirable) that makes me want to hit myself repeatedly on the head with a heavy, blunt object…or be flippant.
Now, if she’d been on MySpace, it would only have been a flogging.
Wow, interesting moral equivalence.
One question- if you’d read this story somewhere other than the Daily Mail, would you have posted it? Would you have made the violence itself the point of the post?
if you’d read this story somewhere other than the Daily Mail, would you have posted it? Would you have made the violence itself the point of the post?
Why does it matter? Can’t we talk about both the violence itself and the right-wing attitude toward it? We’re fairly intelligent people (though my earlier post may cast some doubt on my inclusion in that group), and I think we can handle the complexities.
I didn’t really see anything disapproving in the text of the Daily Mail piece. Straightforward reporting, and a few anonymous quotes about how blocking facebook wouldn’t help, but nowhere in the reporter’s or any of the sources’ worlds anything about the fact that this kind of behavior is insane and horrible, and a culture that condones it is sick.
And if you read the rest of the Daily Mail stories, you know why.
“Wow, interesting moral equivalence.”
Yeah, Amanda! How can you possibly compare Christians and Muslims?
Don’t you realize that they are uncivilized believers in a religion of hate that requires them to do unspeakable things to women, all in the name of God?
But the other people are Muslims?…
Yeah, Sharon. American and British women need to embrace being raped and beaten….because we’re not being killed. Sometimes. If we believe hate crimes against women are wrong all the time, instead of just when they’re performed by Muslim men, then the terrorists win. Let some frat boy rape you for the flag and for Jesus!
Of course I condemn Muslim patriarchies. I just find it amusing that our homegrown sexists are like, “But they’re so patriarchal! I mean, so are we, but it’s better and gentler when we do it.”
Maybe we should just get all the macho sexist idiots here and there riled up about how one group can beat up the other, give them plenty of weapons, and move far afield to watch the world-improving mutual annhilation.
More fun to offer a prize of 10,000 beers/virgins to the last man standing.
“so are we, but it’s better and gentler when we do it.”
yes that’s right. beating & murdering young women for talking to boys is not looked on as ok. it’s not that the argument is too nuances, it’s that youre jumping a huge stack of pancakes on this one, & yeah, it’s offensive.
none of the girls on that facebook site were beaten or raped that anyone knows of, & none of their family members, friends or strangers have beaten or murdered them for being on there.
it’s fucking stupid for anyone to post pics ofthemselves in compromising positions in public, but men have done it since forever (snapped pics of their buddies that they usually abused in some wayy for fun when they were pased out drunk), so now that women are doing it you get the middleaged tut-tuters…it’s always the same. but will any of these girls really suffer from their stupid acts? i really dont think so, onthe whole, any more than a rowdy young man might…immaturity is looked down on in some sensitive jobs arenas.
Re #13
….except for the Western women who do get beaten and raped and killedby men in this here patriarchy…
Nope. We can only stand in judgment of one thing at time. Themz the rules. If we discuss the violence, we must praise right-wingers for being agin’ it. If we discuss right-wingers, we must praise them for their violence.
Except, bluebonnet, that the Daily Mail argues that if women drink, then they’re asking to be raped AND they have articles linking Facebook to women drinking. It’s actually a pretty short leap to say Facebook=drinking, drinking=raping yourself to say Facebook=deserving rape.
I agree there’s differences of degree. But that’s because feminism has gotten farther in West, not because our patriarchs are nicer. The basic arguments of sexists from the West through the East are the same: Women are to be kept at home, under wraps, and under the control of men. If women have freedom, they deserve to be raped, beaten, and even killed as a message to other women that freedom is for men, not women.
“But that’s because feminism has gotten farther in West, not because our patriarchs are nicer”
i understand what youre saying & i agree.
im also cynical enough to believe that outrageousness & hints of violence & sex sells, ..& so that also explains the Daily Mail. No one is going to get sexually excited about an article about men who do the same thing:
http://jezebel.com/gossip/facebook-funtime/25-reasons-drunk-dudes-should-stay-away-from-females-333073.php
that’ll never sell papers.
i still say the women on those pages wont suffer in the long run for having them up there …which is going to eventually show how feminism is further along in the west than places like SA. and i doubt that there will be papers espousing views as sexist as the Daily MAil of today, in the next 10-30 years…still vile, but less sexist.
and: why are so many college age people (both sexes) binge drinking? i really dont ever remember it being like this (no, not due to blackouts ;p)… it seem epidemic.
Yes, back in the 70’s we never did binge drinking in college. We binged on cocaine and stayed up for 4 days at a time.why are so many college age people (both sexes) binge drinking? i really dont ever remember it being like this (no, not due to blackouts ;p)… it seem epidemic.
Elizabeth Dole got a huge bug up her ass that an eighteen year old could buy a beer, so now instead of drinking in moderation in licensed establishments, college kids chug down keg beer in someone’s backyard as quickly as possible before the cops shut the party down.
and: why are so many college age people (both sexes) binge drinking?
Part of the reason is because the definition of binge drinking is freaking ridiculous. It’s something like 4 drinks in a night. I binge drink multiple times a week based on that definition.
It’s so charming when boring losers are reminded that the kind of hot young women who would never sleep with them are still having more fun than they ever did.
The way I’d want to put the point is that our patriarchs are nicer because feminism has gotten further, and a result of feminism succeeding in an area is that even the patriarchs there come to honestly reject daughter-murder. Now it’s just a matter of getting them to be anti-rape.
One very good reason why feminists focus on injustices closer to home is that there’s a lot more that can be done about them. This is even more the case when many of the people talking about injustices in Muslim countries are trying to launch invasions that make women in those countries worse off.
“so charming when boring losers are reminded that the kind of hot young women who would never sleep with them are still having more fun than they ever did. ”
except none of that looks fun. just pathetic.
none of the girls on that facebook site were beaten or raped that anyone knows of, & none of their family members, friends or strangers have beaten or murdered them for being on there.
This isn’t about facebook, really, but it’s tangentially related.
Yesterday I was skimming True Mom Confessions and saw that a woman justified scrapbooking weekends because “well we don’t really scrapbook, we go out drinking & dancing and then throw a few pages together to show our husbands if they ask.”
Yes, there are adult women out there, married, with children, who feel they have to lie to their husbands about having fun with their friends, and not only that, they create ‘evidence’ to support the lie ‘just in case he asks’.
Nope, no patriarchy here. God, stupid feminists wanna ruin everything!
OK, re-reading that, it makes no sense vis a vis facebook.
I guess what I wanted to say, with that as an example, that American women ARE afraid of what the patriarch in their life will do if they step out of bounds.
I mean, OK, so you ditched scrapbooking and went out with your friends instead. What is your husband going to do when he finds out? Beat you?
Possibly.
It’s important to understand that when American feminists can be effective abroad, we jump to.
For instance, the vast majority of people screaming that American feminists don’t see further than our nose voted for Bush.
Bush cut all funding for family planning overseas at the behest of the religious right. Not just abortions, but for UNFPA, which just provided contraception and sex education.
Feminists opposed this.
People who actually managed to effectively disempower and hurt women said, “Wah, feminists don’t care about Muslim women!” And then they eagerly supported more killing of Muslim women.
I don’t really see how feminists—who actually provide actual support for women in other countries and don’t want to see them killed—get called out as “moral relativists” by people who want to kill Muslim women for their own and who want to deprive women all over the world of basic family planning, er, for their own good. They shouldn’t be fucking! Even if that’s not a choice!
Opop: I always wondered why it seems to take a lot longer to finish a scrapbook than it should.
bluebonnet: i still say the women on those pages wont suffer in the long run for having them up there.
Hopefully they won’t face this level of violence, no. But our culture still works hard to shame them- we’ve already gotten some examples of young women getting crap from the patriarchy for a few jokey pictures with friends- take Amy Polumbo, Miss New Jersey, who had some silly pictures on Facebook and almost got booted out of her title for them. I remember the ridiculous tone of the interviews- she had to sit across from Bill O’Reilly while he devolved into “were you naked ? were you stripping ? were you kissing a woman ? what were you wearing SHOW ME SHOW ME SHOW ME.” Ugh. I mean, she displayed a lot of grace and managed to overcome it, but there have been other women in similar circumstances whose careers get ruined.
And opposite that innocent but media-shamed behavior, we have Facebook groups like the one out of Winnipeg, I forget the exact name- something like “For People Who Have Thrown Stuff at the Girls out on Higgins.” It was a Facebook group for people to join if they had thrown things at prostitutes on the street. In other words, they assaulted women and bragged about it. Where’s the media attention on that ? Where’s the outcry ?
I wonder how many women in abusive relationships, or with abusive parents, really would face violence if their partners/parents found out they were using Facebook.
My guess is that the numbers would surprise you.
I would also guess that the reason we don’t hear of American girls killed by the patriarchs in their life for their use of Facebook is because such things go hideously unreported in the American media already.
Most violent crime against American women who are not prostitutes is perpetrated by the women’s father, husband, boyfriend, or a male relative.
except none of that looks fun. just pathetic.
Getting sloppy drunk is plenty of fun, especially in college. Laughing at how stupid you used to be back then is one of the great joys of getting older. You should have tried it.
Probably all of them, or almost all of them. They’d at least get yelled at, if not actually physically abused.
I’m probably not going to say this very articulately or concisely, but I think the way some people distinguish between stories like the one from Saudi Arabia in the post and what is a typical story in the U.S. — an abusive husband beats his wife because he finds out she’s interacting with other men on Facebook, MySpace, etc., because he gets irrationally jealous of entirely platonic interactions that his wife has — is that the former is seen as indicative of the entire culture, while the latter is seen as one individual who just happens to be violent. It’s like when people ask how to prevent rape and can’t conceive of the possibility that cultural changes could actually reduce the number of rapists — they insist that there’s always going to be a certain number of rapists and there’s nothing we can do to change it, so women just have to alter their behavior to prevent getting raped. When looking at Muslims in Saudi Arabia, they are able to see that there’s a problem with the entire culture, but they can’t make that same observation of our (the U.S.’s) own culture. They don’t think that there’s a fundamental problem with our entire culture that leads to men abusing or raping women — those are just individual guys who are violent and there’s nothing we can do to prevent it, because there will always be a certain number of violent people.
I’m probably not going to say this very articulately or concisely
I think you did just fine.
In fact, I have to say that I hadn’t thought of that before, really. I’m aware of the feminist work on rape culture vs. the “individual sickos” issues, but I hadn’t put it into that particular issue before.
people should be outraged when they see that a society/culture gives the Ok to men to kill ‘their’ women, no matter what end of the political spectrum youre on. the fact that there’s still a patriarchy in your own backyard doesnt negate the outrage or horror over the other. and it *is* worse over there, there’s no way around it.
im not literate with what rightwinger’s rote arguments are regarding this issue because i dont listen to them on radio or tv or print, but it must have something to do with what amanda says (that they blame feminists for not helping women in countries like SA), because ive read it a few times now on the blog. please note: i do NOT hold that view; it doesnt even make sense.
but it’s also a little sqwicky to me to use as examples murders or mutilations like these to compare them to a western society’s set of patriarchal dilemmas… they stem fromt he same place, but they are separate as far as degrees… law here & society in general does not condone as a rule the murder of your daughter for talking to guys on the net, even if it’s own prejudices & problems come from the same source, the patriarchal thinking.
maybe it’s because im familiar with the type of misogyny at the heart of this type of culture, having come from it, but it always feels like it’s being diminshed in some way when it’s compared to western patriarchal problems. for one thing, id say for most women under a western society,the number one person you need to be afraid of murdering you is not going to be your immediate relative/s. already that puts you a step ahead.
I know that there’s a problem with western culture, american culture, there is no doubt it is serious. but it’s still not to the degree of what a woman in SA has.
“Most violent crime against American women who are not prostitutes is perpetrated by the women’s father, husband, boyfriend, or a male relative.”
stats? because i thought it was from husbands & boyfriends, &ex-es. specifically, murder is what im talking. im not gettting into it about the rape vs murder crap as a way for someone to justify their argument & smear the next person.
” would also guess that the reason we don’t hear of American girls killed by the patriarchs in their life for their use of Facebook is because such things go hideously unreported in the American media already.”
a newspaper would LOVE & report those stories to death (no pun). For much the same reason as the Daily Mail article. murders like that are also pretty obvious, so i hardly think they would not be detected.
i still maintain that those women on facebook –some who posted their own pics as a joke–will suffer no consequences. for one thing, there are laws (if they havent been erased by the time ive finished the post) against that kind of bias & they can sue the pants off (no pun) a company that tries to punish them, thru fact or maliciousness.
second, this behavior has become pretty common &
acceptable for women. only an uptight bluehair who’s been living under a mushroom for the last decade or two would believe it hasnt.
“Getting sloppy drunk is plenty of fun, especially in college. Laughing at how stupid you used to be back then is one of the great joys of getting older. You should have tried it. ”
i have and so has nearly all of western society. it’s a rite of passage. but i think some youth today have serious trouble finding their limits when it comes to indulging. binge drinking is a term that has a different measure whichever place defines it, but it mainly has to do with the type of partying behavior that people in groups (even oldster, say, in sporting groups) partake in. when youre college aged, you drink a lot & you brag about it. difference is, most people drink for the pleasure, for the buzz….that’s changed some. i see a lot of college age kids who drink until they pass out, they dont know when to say when. it’s pathetic to passout drooling with your face stuck to the shit flecked floor behind a toilet; or tohave your ‘friends’ shave your eyebrows off; or have you ass cheeks glued together. i just listened to a coworkers story today about how they let their friend who was sick from drink stagger out to the parking lot by herself & passout in the car, half in & out…im sorry, it’s sad. some of that shit is pathetic & not worth a giggle; more like youd want to forget it…
as soon as that mutherfcuker got into office he cut overseas contraception/health aid…i remember saying to several diff people,”See, you assh0les? See what youve done? Remember this, you stupid dipshits, becasue this is where it starts.”
okay, without the namecalling. i just did that in my head .
Yeah, but what I wanna know is, why is whiteness only worthy of sustained white attention when someone asks them to laugh about it?