Saudi Newspaper: ' The Saudi Woman Is Always To Blame For Her Problems '

UPDATE: My apologies to Holger readers. Sometimes the saying "haste makes waste" is very true and in this case, I skimmed the Memri article, missing the tongue-in-cheek and actually accusatory message of the piece's author. Thanks to 'Anonymous' in comments for catching my error and yes, this was a brave article to slam the Saudi treatment of women. I'll leave my original thoughts below as a reminder to myself to be more careful and also, my reactions to what the Saudis do are relevant.

Good grief. Just when you think the Saudis cannot revert further back in time to the Middle Ages, they come up with some new gem of archaic thought. The Saudi Daily Arab News recently ran an article, found here at MEMRI, that in essence points out that any problems, any agony experienced by a woman in Saudi Arabia is her own damn fault! I love the opening line of the article:

"The Saudi woman is guilty. She is guilty of being born in a male-dominated society. Her fault is that she grows up in a society that stigmatizes her sex as a sin. She is held accountable because society believes she is underage - even if she is in her 60s -and implements a guardianship system over her as if she were a second-class citizen. It is very common for a Saudi woman - a widow or a divorcee - to have her young son as her guardian, and she needs his written permission to carry out official paperwork."

Oh and here's another gem of wisdom as it relates to the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia and in islam in general:

"The Saudi woman is born unwanted. Everybody wants a male child rather than a female one. "

I've said it before. When a Saudi woman goes through the excruciating pain of childbirth, that pain pales in comparison to the pain she feels when she looks down and discovers her newborn is a baby girl. A muslim woman giving birth to a son is filled with joy and love and hope while the new mother of a girl cries tears of anguish for her new daughter - knowing she has brought this baby girl into a realm of hate and fear and degradation.
This is not a religion. It is a violent political ideology and islam, being about violence and warfare has no place for the likes of females.
Totally disgusting, yes. A truth to be shouted from the world's mountain tops, yes. Hope for muslim women, never.

Saudi Daily Arab News: The Saudi Woman Is Always To Blame for Her Problems

"The Saudi woman is guilty for being raped, in darkness or in daylight, because her society wants her locked in, producing legal children and never leaving her house unless she is dead and of course accompanied by a guardian. She is guilty when brutal beasts tear her body and soul apart, threatening her with weapons and defamation because society believes she subjected herself to them and she deserves what happens to her.
"She is guilty because society prohibits her from driving and forces her to live at the mercy of a foreign driver. He might rape her one day or make money by allowing others to rape her, and then she will be the one who is blamed for having put herself in such position and went out with a driver without her legal guardian.

"The Saudi woman is guilty because she is part of her guardian's property even when he is a criminal, serving time in jail and he marries her off to his colleague in prison who is awaiting execution. Society is aware of this and apparently sees no harm in such. In fact, the community blessed this marriage and arranged for them to be legally alone together. And the woman's fault is that she is the daughter of a criminal.

"The Saudi woman is guilty of being haunted by spinsterhood and not accepting misyar [2] and all other types of male-invented marriages. She is also guilty if she accepts being abandoned by her husband when he feels tired and bored with her and wants a new wife. She is guilty if she objects to anything and her legal guardian beats her until he breaks her ribs or permanently disfigures her. His right is to beat her and make her obey and listen, even if that means deforming her physical features as a woman and taking away her beauty.
"She is guilty when others confiscate her property or real estate by impersonating her, and her greatest sin is that her identity stems from her guardian. The Saudi woman is always guilty and anyone who thinks of dealing with her humanely is a criminal."