Israel > Arabia

"...Mama was in the hospital for almost three weeks. During that time I learned a great deal about the ethics and values of the Israelis. There were also constant reminders of the differences between the Israelis and the Arab world. After the mercy the Israelis showed their enemies, the thing that impressed me the most was the respect with which women were treated. I loved to watch the Israeli women, particularly the young women in the army. Some of them were only a year or two older than I. I was amazed by how assertive and self-confident they were. I did not yet understand the language that they spoke, but I could tell from their tone of voice and the way that they carried themselves that they felt accepted and respected by the men. Some of them were even officers! This was such a stark contrast to the Arab world in which I had grown up. No Arab soldier would take an order from a woman. In the Arab world, women were property. We were owned by our parents, and then we were reowned by our husbands. Israel was truly a different world."

- Brigitte Gabriel, ibid. [see previous post]

The Culture Wars Have Already Been Won

"Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls' genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women's rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can lawfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better. - Ibid.

Sick Culture II

"Controlling women's sexuality and limiting men's access to sex with women are the central focus of the code of honor and shame. Muslim women are chattel, and every Muslim girl must be a virgin at marriage. Once wed [with or without her consent], she must be faithful to her husband, who, in traditional societies, she will never refer to by his first name but only has rajel, my lord. In case of divorce or widowhood, the job of monitoring her sexual activities is assumed by her new guardians: her sons, if they are adults, or her husband's father and his male bloodline. These men may select a new husband for her. Few Muslim women are ever free to choose whom they will have sex with. An element as powerful and potent as a Muslim girl's virginity also has great commodity value, which means that virginity is above all a man's business. Daughters are bait for attracting alliances, or they can be reserved for the highest bidder. Power, wealth, and the solidifying of clan relations may hinge on marriage alliances, so raising daughters of quality who are modest and docile is important. Using violence to ensure obedience and to warn them against straying is a perfectly legitimate reminder of the law in a system of values in which women have only a little more free will than livestock. There must be blood on the wedding night from her broken hymen or she will be condemned as a slut." - ibid.

Sick Culture :P

"A man's honor within a clan society - and these societies are, largely, about men - resides in his authority. Men must be warriors; shame consists in being seen as weak. Women are the breeders of men, and women's honor lies in their purity, their submission, their obedience. Their shame is to be sexually impure, and it is the worst shame of all, because a woman's sexual disobedience defiles herself, her sisters, and her mother, as well as the male relatives whose duty it is to control her. No Muslim man has any standing in society if he does not have honor. And no matter how much honor he builds up through wise decisions and good deeds, it is destroyed if his daughter or his sister is sexually defiled. This can happen if she loses her virginity before she's married, or if she engages in sexual intercourse outside of the marriage - and that includes rape. Even the rumor that she may have had sex is reason enough to label her "defiled" and lead to loss of honor for her whole family. A father who cannot control his daughters, a brother who cannot control his sisters, is disgraced. He is bankrupt socially and even economically. His family is ruined. The girl will not fetch a bride-price, and neither will her sisters or her cousins, because the mere suspicion of independent feeling and female action in their family taints them too. Such a man suffers a social death, exclusion from the mutual assistance and respect of the clan - the worst possible fate that could befall a person, whether child or adult, male or female." - ibid.

The Women On Level Six

I was doing the mail run on Level Six and all the women were mine. I didn't recognise any from real life except G. One of these women seemed really low at her desk, but I soon realised it was because she was naked (or at least topless). She asked me to come around for some "touching", and I said something like, "Oh! That sounds very agreeable!" Then she popped up and jiggled her small breasts and giggled. I lunged at her.
Later, when I got outside in the hall, there was a man following me. He gave a disgusted jerk, bit his knuckles and growled, then dashed away. It was clear to me that he was infuriated and mystified that I had all these girlfriends.

She Reads Books

Now that I have had my bicycle stolen, I am riding the bus again every day and can once again focus my attention on trying to find out what books people are reading.
When a man is reading a book on the bus I am interested, but in a different way to when I see a woman reading a book. When I see a man reading a book, perhaps I manage to see the cover and find out what it is. That is interesting to me because I like to know what people are reading. But when I see a woman reading a book and try to see the cover, I am also paying attention to how the woman looks. Naturally I am soon aware if I feel some attraction to her. I might be attracted to a woman on the bus or anywhere, but if they are reading a book and there is some attraction, this attraction is amplified by the simple act of their reading a book. What is it that makes this attraction burn so much brighter? Yes, maybe it occurs to me that I could have a conversation with her about books, because she likes books and I like books. That is something we would have in common. But I don't consciously think about all that, I just see the woman reading a book and must know what that book is, then if she inadvertently flips the book at such an angle that allows me to read the cover, I can find out what the book is. It doesn't even matter if I have never heard of the author because I will write it down on the spot and look it up on Amazon as soon as I get to a computer. I will have a burning and irresistible impulse to find out more about that book, that writer, as soon as possible, then proceed to wonder a million things about why that woman was reading that particular book. Is it by her favourite writer? The first time she read him? Does she only read historical romance fantasy, or whatever it is? Does she fantasise about a book-loving man interrupting her fervent reading to ask her what that book is, by any chance? Would she tell him to leave her alone and that it is none of his business anyway? God, I hope not. If a woman did that, it would break my heart into a million pieces.

No It's Not Just Her Accent

I was in the Human Resources department this afternoon, scanning files. Have to scan the barcodes of them files. It's a robot job but I don't mind because it doesn't take any brainpower, I can think my own thoughts and space out as much as I want. Anyway, I went over to Gosia's desk and saw a file there. Gosia is Polish and a book-reading woman. She used to work with me and Boss and Colleague. I've always had a big crush on her. God, these Polish women! Well, after a few years she went off to work in the HR department, and OK I will admit that it was a traumatic event that I never quite recovered from, but since I'm also the mailman and zoom around the place with my mail trolley, I get to visit her every day.
So today in the middle of scanning those stupid barcodes I went over to talk to her and saw a file on her desk. I said, Hey, I better scan that file you got there! Looking at it, I noticed it was Pete's file. I said Hey, that's Pete's file! I like Pete, we talk about books. Pete was the one that recommended this enormous space opera trilogy I'm reading now. Gosia said, That Pete, he is strange! I say, That's OK. I like strange! I like you, so you must be strange too!
She moved her eyes down and blinked them a few times and said, breaking my heart, It's my accent.

I Saw Her

It's been so long that I had begun to wonder if I would ever see her again. Maybe once a week I think about her. It's probably more than once a week. Anyway, this morning when I reached the corner of my street and turned, BAM! there she was, right in front of me, walking along with her head jammed in a book.
Suddenly there seemed to be rainbows blasting across the sky. I felt my heart surge up in my chest, almost bursting out from its ribcage prison with pure glad joy. Gee, how long had it been since I had seen her? It was way back in March. Six months ago.
Well, never mind. There she was again and nothing else mattered.
I fell in behind her, making sure not to walk at my usual speed. She walks pretty fast for a woman (in fact, all these walking women seem to walk pretty fast for women these days) but still not as fast as me. I had to stay behind her, or sort of behind her but to the side, or even more to the side but not quite. I had to find out what that book was she was reading.
This time though I made sure to pay more attention to her. What is it with my obsession about her? It must be more than that she likes to read a book as she walks to work. And is it really an obsession? If it really was, wouldn't I do what my friend The J Man suggested and follow her all the way to work and see if there was a Position Vacant sign in the window?
Well anyway, there I was making sure not to walk too fast, I had plenty of time to make some observations. For a start, she is shorter than I remembered, but only a little. That's OK. But the thing with that is that it's hard to get a look at the cover of the book she is reading. I would have to drop down right in front of her pretending my shoelace had come undone and sneak a look up. That would be too obvious. If it was another woman I could maybe do it, but not with her. The last thing I want to do is freak her out. But I came close enough to that today anyway.
This morning she was wearing a navy blue suit. It was a bit baggy, and seemed to be at least one size too big for her. She was also wearing sneakers. Her hair was shoulder length and brown, with the sides swept round to the back and tied up so they fell joined down the middle of the back of her head, over the top of the other hair that grew naturally from the back of her head. I imagined that to a million other people she would appear to be a quite average looking woman, only distinguished by the possibly wacky way she walks fast down the street with a book jammed in her face. Yet to me she is utterly captivating and enchanting. God, how wonderful and singular she is!
We were already at Taylor's Square and I still hadn't managed to learn what her book was, so I decided to make a strategic move. Surging past her and well ahead, I reached a bus stop and went inside and sat down. The back of it was glass so I could see through as she walked past. She zoomed past and I didn't manage to catch the book title or author. Blazes! Foiled!
I scrambled out of there and quickly caught up with her again. It seemed to be vitally important that I find out what book she was reading. Was it another historical romance? Good grief but the suspense was at a high pitch!
Three blocks later and I was still in the dark, so to speak, and the point where our paths would tragically diverge was coming up fast. I knew I had to try another manoevre so once more I accelerated ahead and found a seat, some newly installed *street furniture*. I sat down and pretended to be looking through my backpack for something. For a second it occurred to me that she might see me and wonder what the hell I was about, but I quickly understood that she was far too engrossed in her book to notice much going on around her. But again she came up as I frantically tried to focus on the wobbling book cover. Again it eluded me! Cruel!
At last we got up near Hyde Park. That was it, the end of the line. She was going through it; I was going along the edge of it forty five degrees in the wrong direction. The pedestrian light was red. We all stopped. There was a desperation in me then. I realised I should just go on up and ask her. It was so simple, really. Really simple and straightforward. Anybody could it, you would think. I could pretend to be a robot. Just go and say, Excuse me but would you mind telling me what book that is you are reading? But then of course my brain started revolting, sabotaging such simple logic. Of course, it was too simple. Ha ha! Yes. She would freak out. That could really happen. What business was it of mine? And if I left my mirror sunglasses on she would think I was a fiend or some kind of creep; if I took them off she would be horrified and repulsed by my bloodshot eyes, for they were surely still so. Or it would be a Danielle Steele book and I would not be able to suppress a mad giggle or some look of horrified alarm. Either way, if I went ahead and asked her I would ruin everything, that's for sure.
The light turned green and we all walked across the road. Then I kept watching her as she disappeared among the trees.
God, how long would it be this time before I saw her again?

Night With Theresa

I had quite a mad night, an eventful night last Friday night. Anders had invited me over so I took my bicycle to work and rode over there at the end of the workday. He's staying at his boss's place in Redfern again. He used to live in the swimming pool there a while back. He's not in the swimming pool anymore, but sort of building a little room out the back of the house (it's quite a mad, strange house..) So I went out there and we played some CDs and had some ciders, and played the drums (he recently bought a drumkit. It's great, I've always wanted to play drums. I'm getting pretty good at it.) We were slowly getting happier and sillier. Then he asked me if I didn't mind his girl friend (Cheryl) coming over, I said, "Hell no, that's alright." She's Aboriginal - a big, Gothic-looking Aboriginal woman. She's a social worker and lives down in Nowra but regularly comes into the city to visit friends/family in Redfern I think. So she was OK, and interesting to talk to, for the most part. Then Theresa came over. I'd met her once before there. Theresa is, uh, it's probably too simple to cal her mad, although she kind of is. It's also hard to follow what she's talking about, but I found her fascinating. Actually, I really fell under her spell. Anders and Cheryl were in another part of the house, and all of a sudden Theresa and I were hugging each other. I told her I wanted to kiss her. I must have been quite drunk by that time. I guess she didn't want to get into the kissing stuff, but that was OK. I just remember thinking, "Well, she's holding me and can feel my body, I'm probably not as big and muscular as she had hoped." Or something like that. We sat down, then got up and hugged some more. It was very strange. Soon after that Anders and Cheryl returned and everything went back to normal. It was about 4.30am by that time so I decided I had better get going home, so I announced to everybody that I was going. In fact, Theresa left at that time too, and got in her car ready to drive away. I pedalled off on my bicycle, all over the street. I kept looking back to see if Theresa was driving up, and I was kind of glad I made it to the end of the street before she drove up that far. I turned the corner and pedalled homewards, having to close one eye, I was really seeing double. I swear I almost hit half a dozen poles on the way home. I had to slow right down a few times, that's how drunk I was. It was cold too, but I was more worried about hitting something. Well, I got home safely and went straight to bed and fell asleep immediately.