Reply to Be Wary of Racism and Islamophobes

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Uncharacteristically coming to PP's defense.  The problem is with the language she used.  She wrote:

"I performed Hajj several years ago and even in Mecca women were walking unaccompanied, with their husbands, or their children, or with other women. "

What she meant was along the lines of:

"I performed Hajj several years ago and even in Mecca women were walking unaccompanied, [b]as well as[/b] with their husbands, or their children, or with other women.

There is plenty to criticize about the position of women in Saudi Arabia, but [b]there is no prohibition on women walking unaccompanied on the street[/b].  (Although as one PP noted it rarely happens as everyone is driven everywhere in the Saudi Arabia of today, where walking has become a lost art.)

As I recall, however, I think the Taliban in Afghanistan did prohibit women from walking in public unaccompanied.[/quote]
I think that's not an honest way to address this. Saudi Arabia doesn't have any formal laws banning women driving either. The question you should ask is: is it culturally appropriate in Saudi Arabia to walk in the street unaccompanied if you are a woman?[/quote]

Unequivocally, yes a woman can walk around unaccompanied.  However, culturally the fact that you are walking around may indicate you are too poor to have a driver so you may not do it.  But this is a class issue, not a religious one.

Women can and do walk in the street unaccompanied and have always done so in Arabia.

Am wondering why you find it so hard to believe that this is the case...  (And believe me I am not one of the PP Islamic apologists on these threads and have posed my share of hard questions and comments to the PPs who are.)   [/quote]
My husband is Saudi and he said he wouldn't let either his sisters or me walk in the street unaccompanied. And he's as liberal as it gets.[/quote]

Perhaps he is worried about harassment.  I grew up in Saudi Arabia (100% white American) and it definitely was common to see Saudi women unaccompanied on the streets and in and out of the stores.  Granted, this was a long time ago and harassment of women of any sort, including foreign women, would have been severely dealt with.  There has been a shift in the culture, though, so maybe harassment of foreign women is more tolerated than it was, jeopardizing Saudi women as well.

I have lived in other Middle Eastern countries and the newspapers regularly report on men being picked up for harassment of women in the street.  One middle-aged Arab women I know beat a harasser unconscious with her handbag.  The police sent hm to the hospital and charged him.  She was interviewed briefly at the police station for her victim statement.  No one would have dreamed of charging her with assault.[/quote]

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