Another giant leap backward for humanity

[rgraham666]

What if she makes more money than you?

Would you be willing to stay home and raise the kids then?

 

[cantdog]

Got some documentation of this assertion?

As much as fifteen years ago, when I retired, it was a courtmartil offense to tell dirty jokes in thepresence of female military member if she chose to object.

I know of no instance where a female military member was "gang-raped with impunity" unless she CHOSE not to report it.

As for the decision not to allow women to vote in Saudi Arabia, it may not be a step forward, but it isn't a step "backwards" either -- it's simply things staying the same.

Judging from some of the news reportage of the Afghan Election, giving women the Vote in mny societies is in fact giving their fathers and husbands an additional vote.

There are any number of instances of women in Afghanistan saying things like, "My husband/father won't allow me to register," "I'm voting for Karzai because that's what my husband/father told me to do," etc.

One Afghan grandmother was quoted as saying, "I won't allow my daughters or granddaughters to vote because it was against the the Taliban stood for." She truly believed that the Taliban's restrictions on women were proper and justified.

In cultures where the subservience of women is deeply ingrained, giving them the vote is pointless because you're actually giving whoever they are culturally conditioned to obey a scond vote rather than giving it to her.

First, women have to be given a cultural sense of individuality before further "freedoms" are possible.

Giving every woman in the world an "equal say" and a vote is an admirable goal, which I fully support, but it is simply not a practical immediate goal.

Until and unless the cultural conditioning of a lifetime can be countered and women begin wanting equal rights and th vote, it's simply a waste of time to force it on them.

The women of Saudi Arabia are close to being ready for the vote, but those who are actively seeking the vote and other equal rights are still a minority there. It's still a relatively new and radical idea for MEN to have a vote there. If it's radical for MEN to vote in that culture, how much more radical is the concept that women should vote too?

I'm not sure that the men are culturally ready for democracy and there is a great deal more groudwork to be done before either the culture or the women of that culture are ready for "equal rights."

Much of this is true enough. In Afghanistan, much of the vote is expected to be en bloc, not as a family, but as a tribal unit. If the prevailing attitude is that the tribe or the family is more important than the individual, and if the tribe or the family can be seen to have a common interest in voting one way or another, then it is surely legitimate to use a vote for that sort of larger purpose. You are Western, and think first in terms of the individual, but I think you could see that with a little introspection.

Representation, as you say, is radical in many parts of the world. But it is still damn desirable, AFTER needs for sufficient water, food, and whatnot is out of the way. Being consulted upon one's future was new to all of us as we became adults, and at first we had little idea what to do with that power.

As to the women in the military. I'm a member of Amnesty International. They featured the stories of thirty such women in the issue before last of Amnesty Now. The best responses were tepid indeed when the crimes were reported, and in most cases, impunity is a fair description. I shall search the Amnesty site for the article. It is lengthy, and features interviews with many many people, but it will doubtless be there. I'll be back with a post of it. This is the American military. You were in it. It makes a person's career shaky if he has to report up the chain that such a thing has occurred, does it not? And there are many rationalizations near to hand. We're "at war", for example. Esprit de corps is at stake. We can't have every woman or every parent of every woman suddenly be in fear of attacks.

And so on. They cover their asses, these officers, and they cover it up. As to choosing not to report your entire unit, who already got together to rape you last night, and who can certainly overpower yopu again today, how much courage do you ascribe to the "choosing" you speak of?

"Report to your unit until we can investigate" is all you'd have to hear to know your ass was meat, weird.

Choose.

cantdog

 

[Lord Naraku]

What if she makes more money than you?

Would you be willing to stay home and raise the kids then?

Yeah, I'm ok with kids. Though I've never done more then simple babysitting. I would be more then willing to try.

 

[cantdog]

Sexual Violence Against Women in the Military

That's Weird's link to the Amnesty Now article.

It contains a link to a Denver Post series of investigative articles based on nine months of research, and references to internal DOD reports. One report was requested by Rumsfeld in February 2004,
another in 1994. Both report widespread problems, neither has resulted in very much, since it is at the discretion of commanding officers what to do about the reports or whether to address them. No forensics are done, no medical treatment in many cases, etc. etc.

Sad but unfortunately all too true.

The interviews, case by case, are here:
Women's voices
as well as more in the denver post articles. Apology accepted.

 

[Weird Harold]

As to the women in the military. ... This is the American military. You were in it. It makes a person's career shaky if he has to report up the chain that such a thing has occurred, does it not? And there are many rationalizations near to hand. We're "at war", for example. Esprit de corps is at stake. We can't have every woman or every parent of every woman suddenly be in fear of attacks.

I disagree with the charcterization of the problem as being "widespread" in the link you supplied. The problem does exist, and there is some resistance to airing the military's dirty laundry in public, but it is truly "unacceptable behavior" that the military does not an cannot tolerate. Even if the numbers are double what AI is reporting, it's still a small percentage of "bad apples" and not a "systemic infection" in themilitary.

As for your question: "It makes a person's career shaky if he has to report up the chain that such a thing has occurred, does it not?"

In my experience, it is more of a threat to someone's career to allow such conduct and/or cover it up than it is to deal with it firmly and decisively. A commander who doesn't support all of his troops will eventually lose control of his troops.

From the news report about what went on at Abu Ghraib and other cases, like the 28 soldiers charged in Afghnistan, it does seem as if many commanders aren't in control of their troops.

But this is a subject for another thread -- it relates to this one only as an example that there are pockets of people even in "enlightened" nations that cling to "primitive" ideas about "a woman's place."

If such behavior can happen and be tolerated, even on a small scale in isolated units, in an organization that is officially banned and actively opposed (through constant "human relations training") then how much worse will it be in a society or culture that has never even considered that women might be more than chattel?

 

[cantdog]

Fine, weird.

 

[cantdog]

But those pockets of people seem to have been able to maintain a glass ceiling in promotions and a salary differential in society at large. I suppose we may characterize the authors of such society-wide phenomena as "pockets."

These pockets, too, seem to maintain within the military a pervasive attitude of covering up and downplaying the incidents. The careers which are terminated are the victims', not the rapists'.

The commanders of Abu Ghraib whom you claim lost control have not lost control, but have kept their command positions.

The conditions at Guantanamo have been the subject of report after report, protest after protest, and hearing after hearing since at least the Clinton administration. This stuff is not new, nor confined to Abu Ghraib.

Soldiers who abuse their families are never dealt with under military justice either.

Here ya go .

Deep pockets.