all you say is very very true on all points, including the henpecked men. I too have seen the "nice guys" get terribly harrassed, even physically abused by their women.

You have to remember that very unhappy women who have to live through their men will turn on all the control games. This is an unexpected twist in living in the gender apartheid world of fundie Islam--it's also a huge pain for men. Think about it:

Miserable women picking on you. Having to take your mom, your sister, your wife, out to the market, to go visiting or even to the movies or just being the driver/chaperone if they want to go anywhere. Huge financial responsibilities from an early age, which the women in the family will never help alleviate. Women, kept in a state of childlike dependence, acting like children their whole lives (a common complaint of Muslim men). Having to break up fights when the women, bored to tears or whatever, are at each other throats. Coming home to whining and constant complaints and everybody needing something. Muslim men of different cultures will privately complain bitterly about all these things, but not to outsiders.

Being a fundie Muslim just sucks, even if you're a man. of course it sucks even worse if you're the woman.

Because everybody stands to benefit from increasing freedom for women, it's my belief that that specific form of fundie Islam which is pretty much tied together by strict enforcement of gender apartheid, i.e. Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, is doomed to failure and will die out on its own, unless the West overreaches and inspires a backlash (which has already happened). We can see from the new Broadsheet post about the ban on driving being possibly repealed, plus the Qirl of Qatif's sentence being commuted, that the West should not stay silent and it does make a difference to speak up. BUT it is also easy to push people in the other direction.

Right now, the single greatest thing that could help the West gain stature in the eyes of the Ummah would be to do something real and substantial to force Israel to finally stop their genocide-by-inches of the Palestinians. That would take 90% of the wind out of the extremists' sails. They would have to finally stop arguing that Western influence is an evil thing based on hypocrisy.

I too think we need to avoid the clash of civilizations mentality, which is why Hirsi Ali's recent comments have been more and more worrying to me. I used to be on board with her message, but given her recent rhetoric and her choice of venues, I can't say I am any longer.

BTW I always appreciate your experience and your insight, even if we don't always agree :)

if it's true then it's great news, really nothing to bicker about, is there?

Besides that bit about the change being glacial and all...but remember before 1960s girls weren't even going to school, according to the post.

So this is good, but let's remember IF it happens, it's probably partly a response to near-universal Western condemnation, and partly a result of Saudi women organizing and protesting and engaging in thoroughly Western style civil disobedience (which they have been doing, even though the media has all but ignored them).

We should continue to speak up and apply pressure in all the positive ways we can think of. It works!

When I lived in Texas, Ann Richards was governor, and I never heard this kind of vitriol directed against her. Ann was not beloved by everybody, but she was smart, tough, classy, and did not have a sex addicted husband as a liability. Nobody in Texas would have dared called Ann Richards a name.

Right now where I live Jennifer Granholm is governor. She isn't quite in Ann Richards' class (wish we had you back Ann, I mean that), and there are people who absolutely do not like her, but you don't hear these slurs. You just don't.

I think it is absolutely wrong to use a misogynist slur against Hillary Clinton. BUT we have to understand that there are successful women politicians in this country and this isn't JUST happening because Clinton's a woman, but because she's a woman who's perceived as bitchy, underhanded, and sleazy(in the business dealings sense), and people hate her husband.

I truly believe if Jennifer Granholm ran for president she'd have a better chance of winning than Hillary Clinton. I'm very worried about a Clinton nomination. I think she's the one Democrat the Republicans could beat. And it has nothing to do with her being a woman.

What I'm trying to say is that this isn't JUST a woman thing, and I don't think any woman who ran for President would be subjected to this egregrious treatment by virtue of gender alone. I think we are already past that stage and have seen many women top politicians. I think this is something to do with Hillary herself. The Clintons just awaken the beast in the people who do not like them. And I'm sorry to say there are many Democrats among that number.

And Broadsheet needs to get over boosting her just because she's a woman. Is she the best candidate for women's interests? That's another question, isn't it, and one I don't think can be answered in the affirmative.