This Is What Saudi Arabia's First PSA For Violence Against Women Looks Like

[The Straight Story]

137. Well that is your best post in the whole thread we agree on some things:

"My point is really a simple one. We need to consider the views of Muslim feminists already working to bring about change in their societies if we are to have any hope of aiding their cause. It's important to understand that Muslim is an ethnic as well as religious identity. They are identified in the world by their religion. Our determination to reject that identity without their consent does them no favors. Just as you have a right to make choices regarding your own relationship with religion, so do they. "

No need to really expand on it when it comes to Muslim women but the principle is one I have spoken about a long time in our own culture.

I don't know where you stand on a lot of things - but one contention I have had over the years having been on all sides of the political and religious spectrum myself is that there is room for culture and discussion without the fear and hate.

To wit: As I have mentioned many times in my past at my elementary school we had little Christmas and Hanukkah parties and decorations. I wasn't Jewish. Some kids were probably atheists, and I know my one friend there was Jewish.

We didn't get into the religion of it all, it was more of a cultural celebration of our histories and heritages. We sang about Rudolph, had a play (which I always hated....), spun the dreidel and sang the song, etc and so on.

We didn't hop around praising jeebus. It was just a part of who we and our families were and our traditions.

Now such things are considered bad. We leave our culture at home and focus more on being drones and passing tests. Fear of 'religion' in schools has pushed out a rich heritage of many kids from many cultures.

We have melded together in our minds religion in a religious sense with the cultural side and don't see the two as even remotely separate when they can, and I would argue many times, are (Most the people I know in my hood now never see the inside of a church but still light up for the holidays - it is just tradition). I don't even think a person I know outside my dad here even knows where a bible is in their house and probably think John 3:16 is a play call in college from a guy in a clown wig.

If a woman wants to wear a head cover out of tradition, so be it. But just like here people will be suspicious of the why and in some cases rightly so. Deny the choice? Nope, I am about as pro-choice as a person gets.

I, and others, were looking for a brighter future for the women of Afghanistan, sadly that has not panned out as well as it could have - so in a place like that one might be hard pressed to believe someone is exercising a choice out of tradition versus one of fear.