Re: RC: Re: Where does the UAE stand?

["Barbara McCrary" <bigcreekranch@cruzio.com>]

This is why I didn't make statements with any authority.  I don't know
enough about this subject to do so, just have images from what I've always
heard.  You know how accurate THAT can be.  Thanks for the enlightenment.

Barbara

----- Original Message -----
From: <CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com>
To: <bigcreekranch@cruzio.com>
Cc: <ridecamp@endurance.net>
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 8:04 PM
Subject: Re: RC: Re: Where does the UAE stand?


> In a message dated Fri, 21 Sep 2001 10:51:58 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
"Barbara McCrary" <bigcreekranch@cruzio.com> writes:
>
> > It is my understanding that Muslim women are looked at in a very
different
> > manner than we look upon ours in America.  It's a MAN'S world over
there,
> > not based on capability but on status, which is definitely different.
Don't
> > know enough about it to speak with authority.  I couldn't really adapt
to
> > their view of women; I'm much too independent and believe too strongly
in
> > the equality of people (including sexes).
>
> One has to understand that there is a great deal of variation in
interpretation among Muslims just as there is among Christians.  Some
extremely fundamentalist Christians are also very repressive of women, while
on the other end of the spectrum there are Christian women who stand on an
equal footing with men.  In this day and age, I'd venture to say that the
latter is more common in the basically Christian world than is the former,
but that is a relatively recent change, if one takes a historical look at
things.
> One of the things that struck me in the UAE was that women seemed to have
a great deal of choice.  Many held jobs and had careers.  (My first mental
picture of Dubai is going through customs after getting off the plane--and
somewhere between a quarter and a third of the customs agents were women.)
Many women in the UAE wore Western dress.  The grocery stores and suqs had
women shopping and doing business, in all modes of dress from a few that
were completely veiled, a few more in Western attire, and the majority in
"native" dress but not veiled.  In an evening spent wandering the parks of
Dubai, I encountered many family scenes that were quite similar to American
family scenes of a warm evening in a public park--just with different modes
of dress.  Islam treatment of women ranges from this on to the extreme
fanaticism that one sees with sects such as the Taliban that is so
repressive in Afghanistan.  Some of the repressive sects are REALLY
repressive, though--sort of like going back centuries in time for us
> .
>
> Heidi
>