Based on the information provided below: (a) List 3 activities Saudi Arabian wom

Question

Based on the information provided below: (a) List 3 activities Saudi Arabian women today cannot do that American women can. Create a separate argument for each: Defend each practice as a relativist would, separately. (You are creating 3 arguments, defending the 3 activities you chose that Saudi Arabian women are restricted from, each defense without using religion or God as the justification.) Criticize each of the 3 arguments. How does each of the 3 arguments fail? Explain.

Women in Saudi Arabia

All females in Saudi Arabia must have a male relative or husband as a guardian. The guardian’s permission must be obtained in order for women to marry, travel, open a bank account, or have surgery. If a female American citizen is married to a Saudi man, she must obtain her husband’s permission to leave the country. In Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive, since driving involves uncovering the face, and leads to: the freedom to go out of the house unaccompanied, the freedom to interact with male strangers, and the freedom to possibly have sex before marriage or cheat on your husband in other ways. Driving can also lead to being raped (as American women have learned). In 1990, twenty Saudi women illegally drove the streets of Riyadh in protest of the laws. They were taken into custody and released after their male guardians signed statements declaring the women would never drive again (which they never did). From the Saudi’s perspective, male guardianship is a right only women have which provides them with protection and love. According to Noura Addulrahman, a female employee of the Saudi Ministry of Education, “In Saudi culture, women have their integrity and a special life. As a Saudi woman, I demand to have a guardian. My work requires me to go to different regions of Saudi Arabia, and during my business trips I always bring my husband or my brother. They ask nothing in return – they only want to be with me. The image in the West is that in Saudi Arabia, women are dominated by men, but westerners always forget the aspect of love. If you want stability and safety in your life, if you want a husband who takes care of you, you won’t find it except in Islam” (New York Times, May 31, 2010). In 2008, Rowdha Yousef and other Saudi women launched a petition, “My Guardian Knows What’s Best for Me,” which gathered over 5,000 female signatures.

In Saudi Arabia, sexual segregation is strictly enforced. It bars wives, sisters, and daughters from contact with male strangers. This safeguards female purity and family honor. Sexual segregation is strictly enforced in restaurants (since eating requires removal of the veil, which shows the beauty of a woman’s long hair). Western companies such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks have been criticized for maintaining sexual segregation zones in their restaurants. Girls’ primary role in life is to raise children and take care of the household. Under Saudi law, women may work only in capacities which serve other females exclusively: doctors for women only, nurses for women only, or teachers of girls. Saudi women constitute 17% of the workforce. In 2013, Saudi women were allowed for the first time to ride bicycles, although only at parks while dressed in their burkas and hijabs, covering all parts of their bodies except for their faces and accompanied by one male relative (even if it isn’t their guardian). Consider: At the last summer Olympic games, female swimmers from some Muslim countries (but not Saudi Arabia), wore complete black body wetsuits that cluing to their bodies from head to foot (including over the head). Many online male bloggers from the U.S. commented how sexy the young Muslim women swimmers’ bodies were, even though they were wearing these full head and body wetsuits designed specifically for Muslim women who did not want any part of their bodies exposed (except the fronts of their faces for sight).

It is the law in Saudi Arabia that a man may take as many as 4 wives, provided he can support all his wives equally (this comes from religious traditions and from a verse in the Quran which grants men this right). Note that American men claim to detest the idea of polygamy (multiple wives) yet the divorce rate nationwide is 50%, and surveys show that 50% of all American husbands – while married – cheat on their wives with another woman at least once during their marriage. (Polyandry – having more than one husband – has been practiced by a few cultures, but is rare.)

There is no minimum age for marriage in Saudi Arabia, with many girls marred by the age of 9 or 10, though many are 12 or 13. Husbands are supposed to wait until the girl reaches puberty to begin having sex with her (to allow pregnancy). Many Saudis view their country as a pure Islamic nation, and so in need of the most resistance to Western values. In 2009 women in Saudi Arabia who protested a law which required them to submit to their husband’s sexual requests were stoned by an angry mob in the nation’s capital city of Kabul. (“Women protesting at ‘pro-rape’ law attacked by Afghan men” The Independent, April 16, 2009.) www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/women-protesting-at-prorape-law-attacked-by-afghan-men-1669296.html.

Until 2013, any violence against one’s wife was not seen as a crime in Saudi Arabia. There is still no law against spousal rape in Saudi Arabia, though for the first time ever the Saudi Cabinet in August, 2013 passed a law making domestic violence against any of one’s wives (beating or battering her, for example) a crime, punishable by up to 1 year in prison and a fine of up to $13,000. Note: The U.S. until the 1960s did not recognize spousal rape, so a wife had no legal recourse if her husband raped her. Today a woman can seek legal justice if her husband rapes her (in court, with evidence).

According to Saudis, Western (American/western) liberal values for women bring the following results: marital infidelity and pregnancy outside wedlock, single-motherhood, sexually transmitted diseases, pornography, prostitution, abortion, and rape. In the U.S. although 89,000 rapes were reported to police in 2008, only 25% of the accused went to jail. Nearly 20% of all U.S. college women are raped, 50% of them while drunk or drugged. (Investigations show that 90% of women raped in college were victimized by 3% of college men, who are repeat offenders. So, the vast majority of college men are not rapists.) For Saudis, these depressing facts (which have been true for decades in the U.S. and show no signs of slowing: trends in pornography, rape, prostitution, and abortion have not shrunk in the last 40 years) are what happen to American women; this is what freedom brings to American women, who are victimized over and over. Saudi women are protected and safe from prostitution, pornography, rape, single motherhood, abortion, and STDs, since Saudi husbands of four wives have no need to cheat or visit prostitutes, as American men do.

Explanation / Answer

(a) List 3 activities Saudi Arabian women today cannot do that American women can.

1. Saudi Arabian women cannot open a bank account without the permission of a male guardian. This is because the male guardian is protecting them from any fraud that might happen with them.

This does not make sense, as women are also qualified and can understand if they read or write. Only a lady who might be working or might require to keep some savings would want to open a bank account, and for such menial matters accompanying of a male relative or their permission should not be made mandatory. Some men might not even allow as they would argue in saying that they are providing well enough for their wives to not require to open their bank account, just completely denying them of their will.

2. Saudi Arabian women do not have the permission of driving since they would have to uncover their face for that and this may lead to rape.

3. Se-xual segregation is strictly enforced such that the women could not come in front of any man who’s a stranger or for that matter, would not even eat in restaurants since that would mean that strangers would see their face as the veil would be uncovered during eating.

For the Saudi Arabian people anything that leads to even the most minimalistic exposure of the women’s face to the world may end up resulting in either rape or prostitution or por-nography. If they are really so worried about the women exciting men by just showing their face, they should rather ask their men to control their emotions and their excitement. If an act as easy as eating could lead men to such horrendous acts, it is better that there should be change in mentality of the person who is watching and not the person who is endorsing.

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