Afghanistan

[Repat Van]

Sept 18, 2021 17:00:04 GMT flatandy said:

I see that the Beeb are leading on "Girls aren't going to secondary school in Afghanistan". I wonder if they mentioned how few girls were going to secondary school outside of Kabul last year? I wonder if they've ever led on the secondary school access for girls in Saudi Arabia or Qatar?

Interesting (1)

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Qatar

“ The first university in Qatar was opened in 1973.[20] It provided separate faculties for both men and women. Out of the 157 initial students, 103 of them were female.[19] The ratio of female-to-male students remained steady over the proceeding years. Sheikha Abdulla Al-Misnad became the first female president of the university in 2003. Females accounted for more than 50% of the university's personnel in 2008.[21] By 2012, there were almost twice as many female students enrolled in the university as there were males.[22]

More than half of the Ministry of Education's employees are female. In 2008 it was reported that the growth rate in the number of female students had surpassed that of males in public schools.[21] Rates of women attending private universities are also growing rapidly. At the Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, for instance, 57% of students are female.[7] Previously male-dominated career paths such as engineering and information technology have been attracting more female participants in recent years.[7] Roughly 40% of students of the Texas A&M University at Qatar, a university geared towards engineering, are women.[7]

Qatari women find female education important for a variety of reason. One of which is to protect themselves from divorce. Many young Qatari women believe that the divorce rates of the nation is rising, although the overall divorce rate is very low at 8%. They believe if they have a degree, they will be safe from financial ruin if their future husbands ever decide to divorce them. Another reason is that a number of Qatari women view earning an education as a form of women's empowerment. They view it as an opportunity to prove their worth to society and for them to truly achieve independence for themselves.[23]”

[mids]

Kudder.

[Repat Van]

Sept 18, 2021 17:00:04 GMT flatandy said:

I see that the Beeb are leading on "Girls aren't going to secondary school in Afghanistan". I wonder if they mentioned how few girls were going to secondary school outside of Kabul last year? I wonder if they've ever led on the secondary school access for girls in Saudi Arabia or Qatar?

Ok so it is harder to find things on Saudi but this seems to reflect the same details from multiple sources in terms of female literacy rates and university enrolment:

www.mei.edu/publications/education-key-womens-empowerment-saudi-arabia


“ At the same time, the Saudi education ministry released statistics showing that women constitute almost 52 percent of university graduates inside the kingdom, while more than 35,000 female Saudis studied abroad in 2014.[2] More than half choose to study in the United States, with the halls of campuses such as Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University full of ambitious, articulate Saudi women. The contrast could hardly be starker: a nation that sponsors women to obtain degrees—even doctorates—abroad, yet won’t allow them to drive in their own country.”

“ The impetus to expand women’s education came in the mid-1970s after the oil boom, with anxieties that the rising numbers of Saudi men studying abroad would marry foreigners to avoid having uneducated wives.[3] Four decades later, Saudi Arabia now boasts a female literacy rate of 91 percent (compared to 97 percent for men),[4] and Saudi officials claim to have almost completely eradicated illiteracy among younger generations of women.[5]”

[perrykneeham]

It's an interesting one, this. While I accept that Islamists are backward heathens with no more right to God's grace than a weasel, I doubt that they're complete idiots. Who actually wants illiterate kids or a wife you have to read to? It's bad enough explaining what's going on in Suburra.

[Repat Van]

I think people are just lazy when thinking about a number of ME societies. They’re likely a lot more complex on various things, including women’s rights.

[ootlg]

Shame they're driven by Islam really. It sort of sets them back in the eyes of the rest of the world as medieval.

[flatandy]

I’ll admit to being surprised at those stats from Qatar, given how backwards it is in the treatment of women.

I think my point largely still stands, though - the BBC didn’t ever lead with the majority of Afghan girls not going to school during the US/UK occupation (because correspondents never left the cities). The BBC never does lead on the shocking treatment of girls and women in other countries with which we are more closely allied.

[ootlg]

It's ingrained in most countries to mistreat girls and women, just less in some. I say 'most' because I can't think of a country offhand where women and girls aren't treated/regarded in a secondary manner. It's been this way for thousands of years but the times they are a a-changing.

[perrykneeham]

Dunno if I buy that. Women have every opportunity in UK. In fact, I would say that a young woman has every advantage in UK now. No excuses.

[Repat Van]

Sept 21, 2021 11:54:34 GMT ootlg said:

It's ingrained in most countries to mistreat girls and women, just less in some. I say 'most' because I can't think of a country offhand where women and girls aren't treated/regarded in a secondary manner. It's been this way for thousands of years but the times they are a a-changing.

Men.

Actually that’s not fair - plenty of women are upholders of misogyny.

[ootlg]

Sept 21, 2021 18:26:12 GMT perrykneeham said:

Dunno if I buy that. Women have every opportunity in UK. In fact, I would say that a young woman has every advantage in UK now. No excuses.

Maybe. But the predominant view is of women as those who perform the menial tasks, less important. As I say, secondary. In the more enlightened households and places of work maybe less so, and education's changing this, but they are still pretty much tagged with the old 'but she's only a woman' ethic.

[perrykneeham]

Ten years ago, maybe, in France, maybe, but I don't recognise that characterisation on UK these days. What you do get is "he's only an ordinary bloke (read Chav/Oik/Pleb) so, leave him where he is, no need to worry about him."*

*From a recent essay "What I will do when I am Prime Minister" by K. Starmer aged 52.

[ootlg]

Hahaha... what does Starmer imagine he's doing, writing a 14k word essay on his thoughts for the future? It's an admission of his inability to debate if you ask me; there's an open goal with Johnson at PMQs and every feckin' time he misses.

[ootlg]

But France and men, yes, still macho - they consistently talk over the women, some men going so far as to brow-beat their wives publicly if they speak out. But it is slowly changing. Saying that, the news we watch in the morning LCI was run by 3 women and 1 older man until a couple of weeks ago and it was a calm and collected thing to watch first thing in the morning; now they've brought in 2 blokes to balance it out and it's been reduced to shouty stuff, the men constantly interrupting with their pov.

[mids]

How do they cope with French presenters waving their arms about? Do the cameras have to go a bit further back to fit it in the shot?

[ootlg]

They've stopped the arm waving. They all talk at once.

[rick49]

the newer, more kindly and gentler taliban.

The Taliban is bringing back executions and cutting off hands as punishment after retaking control of Afghanistan

www.yahoo.com/entertainment/taliban-bringing-back-executions-cutting-173657867.html

team biden praise them for their businesslike attitude.

[rick49]

Woman soldier assaulted at Fort Bliss refugee camp for Afghans

"The FBI is investigating the assault of a female Fort Bliss soldier by several male Afghan refugees at the Army’s Doña Ana Complex camp where thousands are currently being housed, officials told ABC-7 on Friday."

"There are a couple of other details in the story. First, the soldier received medical treatment so this was apparently serious enough that she was hurt, though we don’t know how seriously. Second, the complex where these Afghans are being housed is now talking about additional lighting, so it sounds as if this happened at night, i.e. they jumped her in the dark."

hotair.com/john-s-2/2021/09/24/woman-soldier-assaulted-at-fort-bliss-refugee-camp-for-afghans-n418228

we don't need no stinkin vetting.

[flatandy]

So we should have left all our allies in Afghanistan?

Or we shouldn’t be housing them in the New Mexico complex where they’re getting processed and vetted, and instead just told them they were welcome to live in the US and sent them on their way?

Those seem to be the two alternatives to the current situation, so which would you have preferred?

[flatandy]

I mean, we could have not invaded Afghanistan in the first place, not have had a 20 year fruitless war run by idiot Republicans, and not be in this situation - but once we’d been in Afghanistan for 12 months some version of this was going to happen.