What's So Scary About Smart Girls?

[sheshe2]

What’s So Scary About Smart Girls?

WHEN terrorists in Nigeria organized a secret attack last month, they didn’t target an army barracks, a police department or a drone base. No, Boko Haram militants attacked what is even scarier to a fanatic: a girls’ school.

That’s what extremists do. They target educated girls, their worst nightmare.

That’s why the Pakistani Taliban shot Malala Yousafzai in the head at age 15. That’s why the Afghan Taliban throws acid on the faces of girls who dare to seek an education.

Why are fanatics so terrified of girls’ education? Because there’s no force more powerful to transform a society. The greatest threat to extremism isn’t drones firing missiles, but girls reading books.

Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/opinion/sunday/kristof-whats-so-scary-about-smart-girls.html?_r=0

[Electric Monk]

1. Yep.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1262&pid=1075

[socialist_n_TN]

10. Malala is DEFINITELY smart. She's a Trotskyist......

[IrishAyes]

30. Didn't know that. Good for her.

[socialist_n_TN]

39. Yep. One of the Pakistani groups from the ........

Ted Grant tradition.

[IrishAyes]

41. Even this morning I have such a glow from that news that I must thank you once again

for passing it along. I'm more impressed with her than ever.

[Mister Ed]

11. Wow. That 'toon is powerful n/t

[rosesaylavee]

15. Bagley is one of the best political cartoonists today

I had missed this one tho - thanks for posting!

[William769]

2. What's So Scary About Smart Girls?

They think for themselves. Many men have a problem with that even here in the U.S.

[sheshe2]

3. Thank you William.

All those girls, so bright. Our future..

Obviously, the situation in the United States is incomparably better. But we have our own problems. It’s estimated that 100,000 girls under 18 years old in the United States are trafficked into commercial sex each year. So let’s fight to #BringBackOurGirls in Nigeria but also here in the United States and around the world.

[William769]

4. I always have and always will stand with my Sisters.

[sheshe2]

7. I know~

[redqueen]

14. 100,000 per year

The demand that exists for these girls...

[sheshe2]

18. Demand...

It's the willingness to go out and buy what you want, sad indeed redqueen.

[redqueen]

23. It is heartbreaking.

Reading what the PUAHate crowd was saying about the kind of porn they liked in Will's thread, it explains why there is such huge demand for girls and very young women. It is sick, and it is a direct result of sexual objectification.

The idea that 'women are past their prime in their 20's' is a very common sentiment in MRA groups, PUA groups, in porn and in prostitution.

[sheshe2]

27. Yes it is heartbreaking.

Oh yeah, they want them young because they want the power to take and destroy what was not theirs and never would be. They feel entitled, I want I want.

To hell with them all.

[IrishAyes]

32. That's worse, of course; but

bad enough is the societal problem of girls being taught to be submissive to boys, almost from the cradle. Women are every bit as smart as men in the hard sciences, but we're not rewarded as well and we're certainly disrespected to an appalling degree.

[sheshe2]

33. Oh, the degree that we are disrespected is definitely appalling.

Thanks Irish, always good to see you.

[IrishAyes]

36. I read an article elsewhere online where a woman professional pointed out

Last edited Fri May 30, 2014, 10:05 AM - Edit history (1)

there are 3 things women need to learn to say to men: "Stop interrupting me", "I just said that" (because men are too prone to repeat thing's we've already pointed out), and "That needs no explantion." For some reason that language always came rather easily to me.

I've often heard it said that the world thinks a man's no means no but a woman's no means maybe. Here in the MidWest I've been urged to concede a point to a man strictly on the basis of gender more than once.

Please see my recent reply to Steve Lesser, whose post I greatly appreciated. Had to tell him about a friend of mine in Los Angeles I thought he'd like!

[stopwastingmymoney]

38. Excellent advice

Marking to refer to later, thanks!

[IrishAyes]

40. I'm flattered although the advice was not original from me.

Regardless, kindly note that I've edited my exhaustion-induced misspelling this a.m. I did change 'who's' to the possessive 'whose'. Missed my nap yesterday, and it wrecks heck with everything when that happens.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Smart girls change society.

That's scary to the status quo.

[sheshe2]

29. Yes they do, Starry Messenger.

And some men just can't handle that.

[AngryAmish]

6. 2Scarry4Mee.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Because

"Knowledge is power."

Francis Bacon

and

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Frederick Douglass


Thanks for the thread, sheshe.

[smirkymonkey]

9. K&R!

[Half-Century Man]

12. What is so scary?

The fact that they are harder to scare than you.

Estrogen fueled education enables enlightenment.

[stevenleser]

13. Sometimes I think I would like our Intelligence apparatus smuggle high tech military weapons and

tons of ammunition to the women in some of these countries and spend time training them in how to use them and in military tactics.

I know that is a simplistic thought and likely wouldn't solve anything but it is a cathartic thought.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

17. I'd rather evacuate the women so the men can't breed more men like themselves.

[stevenleser]

19. I think I wrote an article suggesting that once. The backlash was immense. nt

[stevenleser]

21. Yep, I did write that article. Here it is...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_071206_afghanistan_s_women_.htm

OpEdNews Op Eds 12/6/2007 at 01:11:47
Afghanistan's Women Should be Granted Asylum in the West - All of Them that Want it

I’m really getting tired of seeing pictures and news reports of abused women in Afghanistan. It is even more disappointing given that the West has over 40,000 troops on the ground in the country. I thought all of this was supposed to stop when we engineered the overthrow of the Taliban? The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), the leading Afghan women’s rights group, issued this http://www.rawa.org/events/march8-07_e.htm press release on March 8, 2007 in recognition of International Women’s Day from which I have excerpted the following:
.
.
.

We have to look at all of this a little differently. Women are being denied their basic human rights in the Afghanistan. They are being singled out for their gender. They are being tortured, denied opportunities to earn a living, and executed for what most of the civilized world would recognize as minor offenses or non criminal moral lapses. Imagine how we would view this if a country were doing this to a group of a particular religion or race or ethnic origin? We have to look at Afghanistan’s treatment of women the same way. The only difference is we have a higher responsibility to act in Afghanistan given the troops we have in country and the fact that the government in power is one that we installed.

The Solution
The situation requires a special and radical solution. We have to get the people that are the object and victims of the discriminatory and genocidal policies out of the country and area, assuming they want to leave. NATO countries should agree to grant all of Afghanistan’s women asylum. NATO troops should go from city to city, announce the asylum program and take any women away who want to leave right then and there. They should be immediately taken to and housed on NATO bases under the protection of NATO forces until they can be airlifted out. NATO military transport planes and civilian aircraft should be contracted to fly them out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

No one has to tell me that this policy would create a political firestorm and harm our relations with many of the nations in the region. I don’t care. The men of Afghanistan and any other country that treat women this way don’t deserve to have any women around. Any country that discriminates against any class, race, gender, religion, etc. of people has lost the privilege of having those people as citizens and deserves to have that group flown out and given asylum in a country that does not discriminate against them. The difference here is that we have the troops on the ground to do it. We should start this process immediately and to hell with the consequences. Maybe this will send a message that the world is serious about stopping mistreatment of women and other vulnerable groups and this will influence other countries to stop the discrimination and abuse.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. I imagine the Right Wing freakout over the idea of millions of immigrants was a hoot....

Invade a country, inherit it's people. That's why England has a lot of people who can claim Indian and African ancestry.

[stevenleser]

26. I got more criticism from the left than the right on that one.

I was accused of advocating an American Exceptionalism/Imperialism solution.

Now, none of those folks had solutions of their own to offer, they just knew they didn't like mine.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

28. Coulda been worse. They coulda claimed they were protecting an endangered species....

Next up,.....raising free range Taliban.

[sheshe2]

31. Great post steven.

No wonder you caught flack on this one. I can just imagine the response...how dare you!!!!?!11

God this makes me want to tear my hair out and cry at the same time. That doesn't make me weak, just angry for what is happening to all our girls. But you know that already.

[stevenleser]

35. Thank you. It's weird looking back at stuff you wrote 7 years ago. I still think...

...that in situations of genocide or something resembling it, and I do think it is fair to describe treatment of women in Afghanistan that way, that it is completely fair to evacuate the group being persecuted, regardless if the group is women, LGBT, Jews, etc.

And yes, treatment of women is still not good in the US, but it does not resemble how bad it is there. I feel the same way about LGBT from Nigeria and other countries where there is a death penalty for being LGBT. Bring them all here. Yes, we have discrimination here against African Americans and LGBT, but not like that.

[IrishAyes]

34. You would've liked a friend I had in Los Angeles.

We were both into Tae Kwon Do, but she was at the top of the black belt range, and she served as a discreet bodyguard to visiting dignitaries, because she was very petite and looked like what the men considered eye candy. But she could kick butt with the best, and she was a crack shot too.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. Two Tea Party types talking....

Slim: Hey Clem. What's new?

Clem: It's my wife's birthday.

Slim: Really? Did you get her something?

Clem: Yeah. A watch.

(Long pause)

Slim: (surprised) She can tell time?

Clem: (buries his face in shame.)

[sheshe2]

20. Shame indeed Spitfire, sad isn't it?

So much stupidity and so little time.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. I kinda picture Slim's wife as a champion hog caller.

[one_voice]

24. Nothing...

My baby is a smart girl. She finished college early. Has her Masters. Bought her first house by the time she was 25.

She's gonna rule the world. LOL. Yeah, I'm proud.

[sheshe2]

37. As you should be one_voice!

Girls rule!