"The unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates

- - scatterings of ideas sent to my younger self, a sensitive girl who was fooled into believing she was a boy because of anatomy - -

Monday 28 October 2013

some rules need to be changed

There are some rules, or religious & social conventions (which are like rules, especially in some countries) that seem very wrong. Rules and laws make sense for the time of those who create them, but later, when conditions change and the law or rule is tested, it becomes obvious to all that it no longer fits. 
Cassidy gave us some good examples of this in her post Lessons Learned. Please do read this in its entirety if you haven't already. What she has to say is important. 

The social conventions that are on my mind, a basis for much of my thinking on the topic of people who have to hide who they are, has to do with what it means to be a woman in much of the world. 

Very much in the news this past week are Saudi women who are demanding the right to drive in their country, testing the rules by getting behind the wheel. I am no expert in what it means to be a citizen of that country, so I cannot comment on whether this convention, and the laws that support it are right or wrong, yet if I put myself in their place, lack of choice on how one might care to live one's life seems wrong. It is hard to believe there is any explicit religious prohibition; the whole "cars are too modern to be mentioned in holy scripture" thing. This likely fits the 'social convention' category. Perhaps some knowledgeable reader might care to educate us in a comment.

Now before I get too far ahead and start sounding critical of others, I will fully admit that women here in Canada, because of convention, have also suffered from lack of choice on how to live their lives in the past. More to come hopefully on that. 

In the meantime, some topical levity. 



A postscript: Thank you to our Smokey Swallow whose post created the original impulse to give extra thought to this topic. I must see the movie Wadjde, the first movie written and directed by a Saudi woman.

8 comments:

  1. And did the Saudi woman director have to do exterior scenes by directing from inside a trailer? You betcha she did!

    Males have physically bullied society and especially women for most of history and we still let them get away with it...

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    1. I believe there is a gradual and I hope inexorable process of change that will make the bullying a bad memory, but until then...

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  2. Bit slow tonight! Exactly the same thing happened here when the bicycle was invented. At first women's clothes, which were a form of submissive bondage, made it impossible to ride a bicycle and there was outrage when they broke free and wore rational clothes and gained two wheeled freedom. At last they had a chance to seek mates outside of their own stagnant gene pool...

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    1. A wonderful example Caroline ,and obvious, yet not one that had occurred to me.

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  3. I don't know whether you follow "phantsythat". But there is a post there about female circumcision in Kenya. Great courage is being shown by Kenyan women against the outlawed practice. There again, some rules need to be changed.

    The baser, possible suggestion I made there to focus Kenyan men's minds on the pain and indignity suffered by Kenyan women, would be inappropriate in Saudi Arabia (actually not appropriate in any society). But it is high time that everyone, and in particular women, should have, not only the right, but the power to decide their own social, religious and political futures - and presents!

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    1. Thank you Tom for suggesting Susan's crosspost at phantsythat.
      Here is the url for those who might like to follow up as well:

      http://phantsythat.blogspot.ca/2013/10/when-time-comes.html

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  4. Halle - hmm... I posted a comment to this (or so I thought) from my iPad. Apparently the iPad and Blogger do not play well together...

    Lots to ponder as a result of reading this, as is usually the case after reading one of your posts.

    Also , thank you for your kind words about my post. They are very much much appreciated. :c)

    That was one of those posts that wrote itself; all I had to do was turn off my brain (which is dishearteningly easy, by the way lol) and get out of the way.

    Thanks again, Halle!

    Hugs,
    Cass

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    1. Always amazing isn't it when we put 'pen to paper' or in the modern sense, 'fingers to keys', and just let it flow. I have a collection of journal entries from the 1980's that fascinate me, especially in the context of the present.
      Sometimes when I think of it, and as I suggested to Tom earlier this week, I compose my comments in a word processor, then copy and paste so that Blogger cannot mess it up.

      Thank You Cass!

      xox Halle

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