Women in Iraq forced to eat men's table scraps

[ECH1969]

I talked with Um Ali and other women in the kitchen. Yes, I traveled back and forth between countries for my job, I said. They replied that it was wrong for them to work, that they left school at age 12 to learn to cook and keep house.

Then the dinner platters returned, with the food ravaged – rice everywhere, bones with the chicken chewed off, nothing left but scraps, really.

And the women sat and began to eat the scraps.

I couldn't believe it! After all the time they'd spent preparing the meal, they got leftovers. But I sat down with them. And, as I would often do with women over the next three months, I ate from the remains of the communal stew.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060817/ts_csm/ojillfour
------------------------------------------------------

From the Jill Carrol Interview.

[Warpy]

1. Here, we're not even supposed to eat the damn scraps

We get condemned for every piece of food that goes into our mouths. Is it going to make us gain WEIGHT? Are we going to have to spend time at the damn gym working it all off?

We still have to prepare it for everybody else. We're still punished if we enjoy it too much, ourselves.

[riderinthestorm]

2. This is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to start.

I know it's not PC to knock other cultures but I just can't wrap my brain around this.


The leftovers from the men????

Jayzus.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

6. I agree with the scrap thing, however, my focus was on the FBI

position. It (FBI's take) was the wrong way to interact with the insurgents and might have even gotten Jill killed. I would wonder whether they were that out of touch with the proper way to interact with the insurgents, or were they trying to provoke another Nick Berg incident?

I would not put it past, anyone, in any gov't that feels the ends justifies the means to worry about one vulnerable individual (esp. a woman, it gets a bigger sympathetic reaction), to determine that a sacrificial lamb to fulfill the bigger picture is worth the loss, except that Abraham and Issac thing gets in the way.

[riderinthestorm]

11. I expect this govt to get it all wrong.

That doesn't surprise me.

The Nick Berg episode has a lot of other overtones that aren't exactly relevant to the Jill Carroll kidnapping. From what I've read Nick Berg's contacts with the ME were pretty bizarre. Frankly I believe all of the kidnappings were/are calculated for maximum effect and/or message either by our own side or by the Iraq side: from Margaret Hassan to Nick Berg to Jill Carroll to the two Simonas and Giuliana Sgrena.

[azurnoir]

3. Is this truly the way women

are commonly treated in Islam?

[riderinthestorm]

8. ME culture, yes. Islam, ambiguous.

From what I've read women's status is ambiguous. Although Muhammed was advanced for HIS time, he is a neanderthal for the 20th century re: women's rights.

He certainly advocated for more humane treatment for women but his version still codies real second class status (ie. legal testimony, inheritance, divorce and children etc.)

I believe all religions are deeply flawed which colors my perspective on things like this. I believe Islam is deeply embedded in these cultures and it's negative impact is seen in this kind of anecdote. I believe Jill Carroll has no agenda in coloring her experience one way or the other so I would believe this happened. And consequently I am rather sick to think there is a vast cross-section of women across Iraq eating the leftovers from the men.

[azurnoir]

12. Sorry it was a baiting question

I am friends with several Muslim women in my daily life and cannot imagine any of these women putting up with treatment like that. Of course this the US and these women are well educated and from larger cities in Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan. The only one of these women that wears a hajab or any head covering is an American who married an Iraqi man and converted to Islam, she donned a veil by choice but stopped wearing it for a while when she was told people thought her husband made her do it. I suspect some of the more extreme treatment or subjugation of women in THe ME takes place in outlaying area or the boonies if you will.

[riderinthestorm]

15. If Jill Carroll were being held near Abu Ghraib she wasn't in the boonies

Sorry about jumping on the post - I just can't imagine the kind of conditioning that has to take place whereby women and men believe that it is okay for the women to eat the scraps.

It's brainwashing imho. I want to just blame it on the culture but the religious tenets intrude and I shudder at the cultish implications of religion's doctrines.

[redherring]

14. I think Turkish muslim women have a pretty good life

compared to say middle eastern women. Muslim women from pluralistic countries like Turkey and India are in pretty good shape, in my humble opinion. Perhaps Muslims in Southeast Asia are also in better shape.

[Bucky]

38. In the US, Turkey & other moderate countries, an Islamic revolution is...

...brewing among Muslim women. I think they're going to end up being a moderating force in the long run--altho in short run some men will become even worse in vain efforts to contain this revolt.

[silverojo]

17. Yes, Muslim men are terrible to their women

And they wonder why the civilized world objects to this?

[treestar]

67. There is an up side and a down side

From what I have seen, Muslim men can take seriously that there is no sex outside marriage (well, if you can have four wives that makes it easier, but I digress) or even before marriage. They will support the family, or the social pressure to do it is certainly greater in that society. But then it's not very individualistic.

[PsychoDad]

50. No.

A Muslim man would insure that his family, Wife and children, would have food before he would eat.

To act this way is an insult to Islam which insures that the woman in the relationship has certin rights over her husband, one of which is control over family finances to insure that she and her children have enough.

If this account is true, these Men should be shamed.


Peace.

[Ravenseye]

78. Agreed

In my family (who come from Iraq)...

a) During a feast, if you don't help cook, you don't eat. This means the men too. Generally the men will make certain dishes (meatbread, roll the dolma, etc) and the women will make certain dishes. The women tend to do more of the cooking overall, but woe to the man in my family who doesn't help at all. The women won't let him eat.

b) Everyone eats at the same time from the same food.

I would definately say this is out of the ordinary, but still not unheard of. It's not an islamic thing, and it's not an iraqi thing...It's akin to a southern stereotype of the gun toting pickup driving wife beating drunk. Most people from the south ARE NOT that stereotype, but they do exist, and they do tend to be the types of people who will rise up violently against others.

I would be SHOCKED to see a middle class Iraqi family act that way.

[Truthiness Inspector]

4. That is so very sad. n/t

[smtpgirl]

5. I can, people in this forum are so concerned with a Redskins

avatar, and don't have a clue to how women are expolited throughout the world.

I myself would never go to a mid-east country, as I believe woman have a place in the scheme of things, but men in those countries don't think so.

Women are mere slaves, at least American Indians don't think so

[azurnoir]

20. Really it depended which tribe.

Women in the Iroquois Federation had a great deal of power and it was a matriarchal society. In the Cherokee Nation though "excess" women were sold to slave owners as breeding stock. Where the ME is concerned women in Lebanon or Jordan where things are more "westernized" have about the freedoms as women in EU or US. Women in Saudi Arabia where the society is very repressive are restricted greatly in their everyday lives. The only broad sweeping statement that can be made about any race, religion, or humans in general is that we all need oxygen.

[smtpgirl]

7. Maybe Jill was going to give that story to the masses,

Damn Her for being a woman.

GO JILL

[stillcool]

9. I do believe that....

every society has it's drawbacks, and individual perspective can not tell the story. Everyone has their own yard stick by which they measure others, and the further away from personal experience the more distorted the measurement becomes.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

46. Tell me,

What would you have posted to a thread about, say, an American conservative Christian community where women were treated like this?

I don't think that the attitudes of Iraq and other middle eastern Islamic cultures to women's rights, gay rights, crime and punishment, religious freedom, freedom of speech, etc, etc are simply different to ours, I think that they are bad.

[stillcool]

60. my own life experience...

has led me to believe, that we people are very much all the same...and what is detested in others is inherent in us all. It is too common and too easy to judge others lives from a distance with no personal knowledge. I find nothing helpful in trashing another persons belief's...I prefer to understand them....trashing an entire culture off-handedly...well...that's something else all together.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

61. I think this is moral cowardice.

"I find nothing helpful in trashing another persons belief's... I prefer to understand them...."

You appear to be presenting these as alternatives. In fact, they are not related - whether or not you understand something has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you're critical of it. If by "understand" you mean "forgive" or "refuse to condemn" then I think you're completely wrong - there are many forms of behaviour which we should condemn, or "trash", as you put it. This (if it's genuine, which I'm not 100% it is, but even if it isn't other similar things are) is one of them.

If you want to have any moral views, you have to be willing to point at things and say "that's bad". You can't hold morals in the abstract without applying them.

Also, does this universal tolerance of yours extend to e.g. George Bush, or are you perfectly happy trashing his beliefs? What about still more extreme examples?

"trashing an entire culture off-handedly...well...that's something else all together."

If by "entire" you mean "every element of" then that's not what I'm doing; if you mean "the average; everything taken together on balance" then it's not nearly as strong a claim.

[stillcool]

70. You and I live in different worlds...

or maybe our life experiences have been vastly different. In order to survive this life I have had to make peace with some unpleasant events. "Morality" is highly subjective as are 'good' and 'bad'. Your kind of black and white thinking does not leave any room for honesty, forgiveness, empathy, or growth. As for the repulsive acts that humans engage in....that potential is in us all...circumstances allowing. I have no clue what enormous wealth, and the intoxication of power does to the psyche....but I do know that anyone who has power over another...such as prison guards, or foster parents...are prone to abuse, and there should be some oversight to counter what is inherent in human beings. Perhaps you've been more fortunate in life, and haven't had to reconcile the person from the act, in order to make peace with yourself.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

72. No, we live in the same world,

As witnessed by the fact that we can interact, but at least one of us (or potentially both) doesn't really understand morality. Our life experiences have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The difference between our notions of morality is *not* that mine is black and white and yours involves shades of grey; it's that mine is greyscale (very few actions have only good or only bad consequences, but one can say that one action is better than another) and yours is completely undefined, and hence meaningless.

To say "morality is subjective" is just a more acceptable way of saying "there is no such thing as morality". Subjective qualities are those which, in essence, are about the impact on the speaker. Morality is something which, to mean anything at all, has to be an agreed standard. Otherwise, while I can say "by my morality, what you just did was bad", and you can say "well, by mine it wasn't" and no information has passed between us. Morality is as objective as green is, although it's much harder to measure.

Very, very roughly, moral behaviour is that which makes other peoples' lives better. That's not a rigorous definition, and making it one would be a life's work, but it's a decent approximation. That's what the word "moral" *means* - the best synonym for it in the English language is probably "altruistic".

I don't deny that everyone has the *potential* to perform evil acts; I don't think that it (or any of your talk about "reconciling the person with the act")has any relevance to the discussion of whether or not a certain culture is organised in a more or less moral fashion than another.

[stillcool]

77. hmmm....the norms that society agrees on...

are a reflection of the individuals in that society...no? Isn't government and politics about the health and welfare of it's society? And, don't the immoral acts perpetrated on that society breed sickness? And, when one is born into an unhealthy society with norms of behavior that have no meaning pertaining to the lives of it's individuals, how would you measure that culture's morality?
Isn't there such a thing as a personal morality...one not dictated by the society it was born into? And, isn't it that morality, which seeks to align the norms of it's society with the life experience's of it's individuals...so as to improve the health of that society?
I do have a better understanding...thank you...of the definition of 'morality' and that my interpretation is incomplete. There is something about the word that confounds and disturbs me...a double-edged sword. :toast:

[skooooo]

10. If I was cooking....

...I'd be "tasting" as I go.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

13. Skooo, if you get lemons make lemonade.. Imagine when the

men sat down to eat and there was no meat! I believe, where there is a will, there is a way, and you just pointed it out!

Kudos!

[Cleita]

19. Exactly as I said on my post below. n/t

[malaise]

56. As all good cooks do n/t

[guinivere]

75. I do that anyway. How else can you adjust the seasoning?

I don't think that this scraps only thing is an across the board practice.

[soothsayer]

16. Which Iraqi women? Iraq was pretty modern, before we bombed

it back into the stoneage that is. Are these Kurds? Shia? who?

[azurnoir]

22. Our grift of

Democrasy allowed the instalation of Sharia law the traditional religous rule.

[Cleita]

18. Well, I have heard that some tribal customs are like that.

But I'm sure the women who prepare the meals also know how to taste the food before it is served to the men. I know when I worked at some of my first teenage jobs, usually behind a grill, I learned how to snack in spite of the boss because I knew that my complimentary meal would be rather sparse.

[riderinthestorm]

21. Sorry but there's nothing okay with justifying this

with "some tribal customs are like that".

And it's not okay that the women must resort to sneaking food before it's served to the men so they aren't 100% reliant upon whatever rice grains and chicken bones are leftover.

And it's even doubly not okay for an employer to be such a cheapskate that they are cheating their employees out of a decent meal if that's been the agreement.

It's just wrong all around imho.

[Cleita]

23. I'm not justifying anything. I am merely stating how things are.

Also, it's nice if you have a union rep backing you up on your demands for a decent meal, but in my past (decades ago) it wasn't always that way, so sometimes a little sneaking of food happens.

I don't think any of our moralizing over things are going to make a bit of difference for those women right now. I was more shocked that a mother of three children and pregnant with another would be expected to be a martyr because her husband said so.

[riderinthestorm]

24. I guess I'm just sick at the status of women

And you are dead right: don't even get me started on the mother who is expected to be a "martyr" if/when her husband tells her.....

When a wife/sister/mother/daughter has to "sneak" food in order to eat properly... and the husbands/brothers/fathers/sons are okay with this.... gah! Or to even imagine a mentality that thinks it's right for the women/girls to eat their leftovers.... You're right, there's no justification.



:cry:

[Cleita]

26. In places where they have no rights just being rebellious about

this would put them in worse conditions. Nobody would help them. No laws protect them. They have to go along with the system to survive.

[riderinthestorm]

29. The system is flawed though. I'm sorry but just because this kind

of treatment of women is cultural doesn't make it right or acceptable or above challenging. Somehow, some way the notion of equality for the sexes has to ferment in the ME. Jill Carroll obviously was in no position to challenge her captors but her writing on the family dynamics is enlightening. And if human beings don't react to the real denigration of women as portrayed in her account, not even the first crack of change will occur.

[jerry611]

25. It's an issue of cultural relativism

Basically the idea here is that what may be wrong in one culture is right in another. Do we we have a right to go into another culture and force them to change their ways because of our morals and beliefs of the way things should be?

I remember in a college ethics class...we were discussing this and it lead to a pretty heated debate.

[Cleita]

27. I know for a fact that trying to rescue one woman from these

circumstances doesn't work unless you are prepared to rescue all of them. So at times it's better not to interfere.

I really do believe that we, as women, need to brainstorm how to go about making women equal throughout the world and then having a workable plan to make this happen.

[riderinthestorm]

30. Uhm, so you believe it is okay for

women to eat the table scaps? Or get told by their husbands that they will be "martyrs?"

Without getting into a full-blown college ethics class debate, let me just put myself out there on the line in support of "forcing" change when it comes to basic civil/equal rights for the sexes. Sometimes shaming an entire culture into doing the right thing is required.



(Jayzus, I'm thinking I am some kind of re-incarnated Quaker abolitionist in the kind of passion this issue arouses, or some kind of FGM crusader re-born, or any of the numerous and sundry other issues that have arisen in our earth's collective consciousness whereby "forcing change" is the right thing to do....)

[jerry611]

31. I never said that...

I was only stating an ethical dilemma.

There are cultures out there that treat women like crap. They've been doing it for thousands of years. Now, should we interfere with their beliefs? Do we have a right to interfere? Do they want us to interfere?
Remember when we took down the Taliban. The Afghan women no longer had to wear their burkas. Even though the Taliban was gone, many women still wear the burkas to this very day.

The Supreme Leader of Iran and many terrorists like Osama Bin Ladin make the claims that human and civil rights is western propaganda designed to destroy the moral foundation of Islam. This is one reason for their terrorism. They are trying to stop us from forcing them to change their lives.

[azurnoir]

32. Maybe forced change but

I truly have a problem with some of the sweeping statements I've seen here, the story of the women in Iraq is terrible, but this is not common treatment for Muslim women and yes some Muslim men treat women terribly but so do some men of any race or religion. Part of way this got driven home was shortly after 9/11, I was working in an oncology clinic, one of the patients was a young African women who was Muslim a fact I did not know until she mentioned it to me. Anyway a man a relative started coming to the clinic and asking to have records of her all of her clinic visits printed out she was in the clinic almost daily for treatment this man returned several times making this request each time, my boss a rabid repuke stated that this was her husband and he was doing this because he was checking up on her "their all like that, they must control their women" was her statement, I mentioned to this women that her husband had visited and turned out that this was not her husband but in fact her uncle (mothers younger brother) and the reason he needed the printouts was that the government was trying to deport her as a security risk due to her country of origin, this women who died a short time later could not have stood up out of her wheel chair much less be a risk, I have very good reason to believe my boss knew the truth but preferred the lie.

[jmowreader]

51. It almost looks like she WANTS to be a martyr

Hear me out.

I read the link, and it says that men who want to be mujahideen are allowed the glory of fighting, but women who want to be mujahideen must become suicide bombers.

So...if she wants to become mujahideen and fight the imperialist American government, it's car-bombing for her. Which sucks.

I also like the comment the husband made that she can't do this while she's pregnant because Islam forbids her to kill the fetus. I don't know about you, but if I was a Muslim man and my wife came to me with this crazy-ass idea about blowing herself up in the service of Allah, we'd be going in the bedroom right about now. And then my imam and I would be having a sit-down about Allah's pronouncement that mothers can't do jihad. "Just find ANYTHING! Falwell's Allah does it! And our Allah is better than Falwell's because his is green and folds in half."

[Cleita]

55. I don't think she came up with the idea.

It seems most likely it's her husband who seems to be speaking for her. I can't imagine the mother of small children wanting to die while her children need her. On the other hand maybe it's her way of getting out of the life she was dealt.

[jmowreader]

66. Your last comment is probably the most accurate assessment

"If I go out and blow myself up, not only will I get my 73 men, I won't have to eat scraps anymore."

Or...

"If I go out and blow myself up, Allah will love me, which is more than I can say for that asshole husband of mine."

[HardRocker05]

44. There is different, and then there's WRONG. Sure, some things are just di

different from one culture to the next, and one is not any better than the other on some objective level, for example, maybe clothing, hairstyles, what side of the road people drive on, etc. But there are also things which are just plain wrong, regardless of whether they are part of a culture or not. Of course the matter of the definition of right and wrong is itself a subject of much debate, but as liberals/progressives i think most of us believe that those things which cause obvious, direct harm or degradation to others without just cause are wrong. Being forced to eat the left-overs of another class of person is certainly degrading in my book, but hey, maybe women over there are perfectly okay with it. I doubt it, though.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

47. There's a big difference

Between "is what they're doing objectively wrong, rather than just different" and "do we have the right to force them to change".

I think the answer to the former is clearly "yes" (although I don't pay 100% credence to the OP, at least not as representative, the treatement of women in middle eastern Islamic cultures *is* shocking); I'm much less sure about the second.

I can't think of many cures that wouldn't be worse than the malady, except perhaps long-term economic and cultural engagement and low-level pressure.

[Cleita]

52. They are okay with it because the alternative is not to eat at all.

However, that being said, sometimes it's best not to interfere in tribal customs unless you are prepared to make changes that can be enforced and are permanent.

I once read that in the nineteenth century in India, well meaning westerners often tried to rescue wives from suttee or being burned on the funeral pyre with their dead husbands.

The end result was that these women became castouts without status, home or anyone who would help them. They were left to die from starvation and disease.

[HardRocker05]

58. I'm not suggesting any interference; i think the women involved need to

bring about a change themselves. It's not impossible, but the biggest problem is that the women themselves continue to willingly accept this kind of mistreatment, even though privately they know it's wrong and would like a change. It has been this way all throughout history; women are their own worst enemies. Look at how many american women opposed allowing women the right to vote and even now continue to oppose the ERA. Call it fear, inertia, attachment to tradition, whatever, but women everywhere are complicit in their own oppression.

[Cleita]

59. You have never lived in a society with no laws to back you I

assume. I have. Trust me you think twice before crossing the person who has the right of dictating your life because there is no law that says you can defy him and come out of it a free and employed person.

The thing is that women from the upper classes, the more educated among them can effect change, but sometimes a comfortable life makes them turn a blind eye. The poor and illiterate have no choice whatsoever, nor would they have the skills to fight the system.

I believe other countries can effect change by giving these countries a carrot and a stick. The carrot could be money for schools, the stick that the girls must attend or the money gets cut off. Incrementally, you can make change.

[HardRocker05]

62. What about America? There was a time in america when women (married

women in particular) were virtual non-persons from a legal standpoint. Their property and their children were legally under the sole control of their husbands. They had extremely limited opportunities to earn an independent living. If a woman left an abusive marriage, the husband could physically compel her to return. And of course women had no political rights with which to bring about a change in their legal condition, but it is because of this as well as in spite of it, that a few brave women and men used whatever power was at their disposal to change the system.
And they were not all rich women, as you suggest; i recall seeing a letter (to Congress, i believe) from the wife of General Sherman, in which she implored Congress not grant women the right to vote (or "force it on them," as she put it). The rich and the poor were on either side of these moral issues, just as they are today. I also recall a speech given by Susan B. Anthony towards the end of her life, after 50+ non-stop years of fighting for women's equality, in which she bitterly denounced the young women of the day who ridiculed and trivialized the work done in the past on behalf of women's rights. There was a sizable group of what was called "remonstrants" at the time, who felt that women's rights had gone quite far enough (and this was around 1900!) and were opposed to it going any further.
Bottom line is, yes, there is a price to be paid when an oppressed class resists their oppressors, but if they do not resist, they will never overcome. There is no other way.

[Cleita]

69. Whatever. I know we had a hard time in America until

the feminism of the sixties. I know I went through it and was part of the revolution of the sixties. The fact is though that American women did get a basic education that made them literate and able to get information and communicate their needs. I for instance was able to demand equal pay from my employer by comparing the fact that men with less education than me and no specialized skills made twice as much money as me. In most of the countries that women have no rights, the poor girls get no education and it makes a big difference in being able to stand up for yourself.

Until you actually live in a country that keeps women like cattle, you won't really understand why they won't and really can't stand up for themselves, especially the ones from the lower classes. This custom that was described about everyone eating from a communal tray and the women allowed to eat only after the men have eaten is a bedouin custom. Just because the sheep and camel herding people have given up their tents and live in cities now doesn't mean that they have thrown of the traditional ways to liberate their women.

Also, the bedouin are found in most countries of the Middle East not just Iraq, so saying that all Iraqi women must follow this custom is disingenuous. Now, though that we have "liberated" them and brought Sharia law to Iraq, they no longer had the rights that they had under Saddam and are particularly at the mercy of the men in their families.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

73. The status of women in America was never as bad

as it is now in much of the ME, at least since it was settled by Europeans (I know very little about native American societies).

There are parts of Europe where it was arguably once not much better, but in Western Europe at least you'd have to go back quite a long way (further back that the European settlement of America) to find them.

[Deja Q]

28. self-del

[treestar]

68. But they think it's wrong how we treat sex

Those women would be horrified by the sex lives of American women, IMO.

It's not as black and white as that. Sure, it's bad, but when you look at American women, you could say there are many ways in which our lives are worse. There is plenty in our culture to allow men to treat us as sexual objects, leave relationships, including those with kids, etc.

So it might be that both are flawed, but one not necessarily better than the other, just flawed a different way.

At any rate, those women will make progress on their own within their culture as we did, but won't get much benefit from the US invading their country.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

74. No, it's worse.

Being made to wait until the men have finished eating, and then eat the scraps, and the other ways in which women are treated as inferior to men in many middle Eastern Islamic cultures, is objectively much, much worse than their status in America, not just "differently flawed".

I agree that a US invasion would make things worse still, but that's a completely separate issue. I do think, though, that other forms of economic and cultural pressure to improve the rights of women (among other issues) would probably be a good thing.

[TahitiNut]

33. More than half the women in my life ...

... have tried to make me eat their left-overs, including my mother ("I can't finish this. Here!") and both ex-wives. I can't express how aggravating that is to me - no matter how I've tried. I've NEVER accommodated such a demand and they nonetheless never desisted in making it.

I thank God I've never gone hungry for any significant period - but I'm not a fucking garbage disposal.

[phylny]

37. I assume you had other food provided for you that wasn't picked over,

yes?

[Cleita]

40. Huh, my husband used to volunteer to eat the food I

didn't finish on my plate. I never asked him to.

[Subdivisions]

65. Are you kidding me?

I'm like a big dog under the table when it comes to my wife's scraps. She eats like a bird, so when we go to Chili's or TGIFridays or wherever, I have to hurry up and eat my food so I'll be done when she slides me her plate!

Heck, there might even be a sizable chunk of steak left on there!

[cigsandcoffee]

34. That's sickening, but not at all surprising.

Add it to the countless other indignities suffered by women in the Middle East.

[Jed Dilligan]

35. Primary producers worldwide forced to eat table scraps

of totally unproductive "executive class."

Oh, but that's not news.

[bananarepublican]

36. Mistreat women... go to hell... go straight to hell! Also, this...

... phenomenon is not dependent upon your religious beliefs.

Personally, anyone who takes pleasure from the suffering of any living thing is lower than a snakes belly!

[niyad]

39. unfortunately, this sort of thing is true in many cultures. men eat first

and women eat afterwards, because the men, of course, are far more important. it'a patriarcy, pure and simple.

[Cleita]

41. Also, in some cultures don't the men eat before the children as

well?

[Nobody]

43. Ancient Athens being one of them

This is one of the reasons I root for Sparta, even though they're militartistic and yet lost the Peloponnesian War.

In Athens, cradle of Democracy despite there being a very narrow definition of what a citizen is, women ate after everybody else. First the men ate their fill, then the boys, then the women, then the girls. If the family was poor, daughters starved. But the father always got to eat his fill no matter how many of his children starved. Women were also not allowed outdoors. In the Iliad, there are many references to "white-armed" female characters. For a people who are Mediterranean with olive skin, "white-armed" implies that they don't get much sun.

In Sparta, the belief was that strong mothers breed strong sons, and the women not only were well-fed, but they were also encouraged to exercise. Spartans valued women more than the Athenians did. They were quite progressive for the times.

Ever notice how many religious traditions involving restrictions on women are rules put in place thousands of years ago and not allowed to change? At the same time, restrictions on men are tossed aside with the changing times. Read the first few chapters of Genesis, paying close attention to the punishments meted out to Adam and Eve. This passage was what held back obstetrics until the 20th century. Men used farm tools and sought non-farming career paths ever since the dawn of history and no one said anything. If the men had to obey the strict rules imposed on women, no man would be allowed to eat meat, either. Every condordance I just looked up has a variation on this: Cursed in the earth, he is to toil and eat of it all the days of his life.

And whenever a charismatic leader emerges and tries to make life easier for the downtrodden of society, the rules freeze in place for the women, but men get to progress. It happened with Jesus, and it happened with Mohammed.

Times change. Why are only men allowed to change with them?

[Cleita]

54. It's hard for women to fight back when they are kept in ignorance

as happens in many of these societies. Many societies don't feel girls need to go to school. They believe that they will learn all that they need to know at home from their mothers and other female relatives who are also probably illiterate.

Even in my social circle here in the USA when I was growing up many families didn't see any need to send their girls to college. Only the boys got the education money set aside. One of my best friends came from such a family and she had to struggle to put herself through college.

[dropkickpa]

42. This paints an incorrect picture of how things are

This type of article tells the western world that all Iraqi's treat their women this way. People failt o grasp the concept that the men who abducted Jill are/were religious fanatics. Prior to the first Iraq war (1991), women in Iraq had a much more western-type role in their society.

PLEASE read this http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/wrd/iraq-women.htm

One of excuse given for this war is "They're Muslim!! Look how they treat their women!!" and to fall prey to it is to become one of their tools. WE created the environment that has led to this decline in women's status. We destabilized the power structure and a reaction to that was to "woo" traditionalist support by bowing to their demands. Sound familiar? It should. The same thing is slowly but surely happening right here.

[HardRocker05]

45. Good grief, this type of thing certainly predates our arrival in the ME.

When liberals try to make excuses for things like this, it just makes us look like we have no moral foundation that we are willing to take a stand on.

[dropkickpa]

49. I am not excusing anything, I don't know where you got that idea

And I am not denying that this crap happens (a lot, moreso recently). But time and time again I have heard people rationalize part of the reasons for the war by saying "But the iraqi's treat women like dirt!".

I object to the portrayal of an entire country and their people as being this way. All it does is help the US another "feel-good" reason for this stupid ass war, and fans the flames of racism and intolerance against Muslim people.

I am objecting to the tone of the thread (based on the article) which gives the impression that every single woman in Iraq is treated this way, and was historically treated this way, which is false. For a large portion of the last century, Iraq had one of the most progressive policies with regard to women of any middle eastern country (still left a lot to be desired, but still an improvement, and it was getting better slowly but surely). Hell, women in the US still can't get the Constitution amended to guarantee equal rights to women!!

Honestly, if Elizabeth Smart were to describe her captivity in a news article, wouldn't it sound close to Jill Carrol's experience? Do we base the perception of america and american women on that type of experience? Of course not, but we are more than happy to do that very thing when it comes to Iraq.

[HardRocker05]

64. I have been opposed to the Iraq war since day one, and the fact that women

are treated like crap there or in other ME countries does not change my opinion that the Iraq war was always a lose-lose proposition. Don't know if the OP was trying to justify the war on the basis of this, but we should be able to look at the position of women in the ME and say yes, it is deplorable, but it will not be helped by a war initiated by us. If anyone is justifying anything, it sounds like you are trying to justify the treatment of women in Iraq on the grounds that it's a lot worse in other Muslim countries.

[dropkickpa]

76. We actually are in agreement, but

Something is being lost in the translation here.

I have no idea what the OP's interpretation/intent was as they posted only the article snippet and they've failed to respond to anything in this thread. The post title was inflammatory and pertained to just a tiny part of the article. But the title and snippet has brought people out of the woodwork to roundly condemn all Iraqi men based on ONE sentence in an article. So long as there is a good number of people (and there are) who still believe in and support womens rights, the situation is not totally lost.

When women were making progress in the past, there were not huge uprisings against it. I think (hope) that if/when a stand is made for women in the future, we will see a lot of support for it from within the country from both men and women, based on the history. Maybe I'm an optimist. But I honestly believe that, if we can stop the flight of those being driven by conditions from the country by creating some stability, women DO have a fighting chance and will have home support.

I believe it's a lot easier to restore something that used to be there than it is to force minds that have never known/accepted it to suddenly accept what, to them, is a totally alien concept.

[neweurope]

48. I'm certainly not defending this, BUT:

It's not only Moslems who are treating women like this. In my youth in Germany there were backwards areas where the women of the house served the men, standing!, not eating, until the men had finished. And I'm 52, not 152 years old. So give them time.

And: It takes two to tango. Women CAN change things. Western women were not GIVEN their rights, either. They fought long and hard for them, going to prison and what not (and have to constantly watch out to make sure their rights are not taken away from them again). And that was in the times of my grandmother. Not very long ago!

It's mainly a MALE thing, not a CULTURE thing.

------------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Cleita]

53. This happened in America not so long ago in the last century too.

The stay at home wife cooked dinner and served it to her family, feeding the young ones to young to feed themselves as well if necessary. Then and only then when everyone had eaten and left the table, she sat in the kitchen and had her dinner if she wasn't too tired to eat. I observed this many times in the homes of my classmates where I had been invited to dinner.

[Nobody]

57. I remember my grandmother said she liked chicken feet

and other parts of the meat that most people usually put in dressing or just toss. I wonder if it was because she felt she had to let everyone else eat first when she was a kid or while raising her kids.

But yes, the husbands and kids often ate first and uninterrupted while the wife snuck a bite or two of cooling food whenever the kids too young to feed themselves would let them. I'm glad to see that now there's more of a team effort which allows both parents to eat the food while it's hot.

In my family it was considered rude not to wait until everyone was seated before you dug in. I even wait at friends' houses when they invite me to dinner. They're a lot more casual at sit down dinner and when the food is placed on the table, it's fair game for whoever's at the table. If you're taking a nature break when the food comes out of the kitchen, no one will wait for you.

I come from a very large extended family and it makes plate passing go smoother. Family gatherings now are so large we have to do it buffet style. Grandma was always the first one to fill her plate. With a buffet, you could eat as soon as you finished going through the line. It made huge family meals a lot easier.

[lonestarnot]

63. Freedom is on the march!

[seabeyond]

71. my sexist father in law tells me i should appreciate living in u.s.

and not bitch about sexism. then he will go on to tell me, in such glee, about his princess daughter being in south america as an exchange student and all the men would sit to eat what was prepared and she was allowed to sit with them because she was a guest and the woman would eat the scraps afterwards. this is his way of getting a kick out of putting women in their place. this was not long after marrying husband. 12 years later i have smacked this man down with his continual sexism thru telling these stories to let me know my place.

[noonwitch]

79. My dad went to India in the 70s and said it was like that there

One family he stayed with was different. They were extremely rich and admired british customs, so the whole family ate together.

The other houses he stayed at, the men ate first, then the dogs, then the women. Things in India are changing fast, though-dad went there with Rotary Club when they were helping Indians develop businesses and such.