I was just reading on Tulip (check out Linky love list dears)
about the plight of Iranian women who were about to finally... after years of being banned ..be able to go to (GASP) a sporting event...
seems that moslem women being able to watch the male body in a sporting event is just a little too sexy..over there in Iran... course now the ban being lifted is under attack and the Iranian women might be kept out of the stadium after all...
but reading this gave me one of those
"there but for the grace of god" moments..
it's painful for me to watch the women i see in my own neighborhood, an influx of religious moslems that have sprouted up around the east village..
they walk thru the park with their sons in t-shirts and jeans, their husband in t-shirt in jeans while they are covered in a black veil, all but their eyes...
the last time i saw this was a sweltering humid day
but i did not shed a tear for these women in my hood
just as i dont shed a tear for the chasidic women wearing wigs and full body cover in july
because no one will stone these women if they wake up one morning and decide to wear Levi's
or well, at least, if their husband does stone them
their husband will be arrested for murder
yet in Iran
women are legally not allowed to watch sports
what would happen to the brazen female who dared to peer out
at a soccer match?
would she be gunned down?
i know its not right to generalize
and i dont condemn moslems around the world
for having so many rules that seem to outsiders to be in-humane to women
but i do comdemn any society and any country and any religion
that believes that a women who breaks the rules
deserves to be murdered
or maimed
or both
one has only to step briefly out of our own world
to know
that no
we have not come a long way baby
