Our soldiers are fighting and dying for this:

[lastone]

Afghan Boys Are Prized, So Girls Live the Part

excerpt:
"Lacking a son, the parents decide to make one up, usually by cutting the hair of a daughter and dressing her in typical Afghan men’s clothing. "

So - lets stand up for freedom, justice and the afgan way of forcing your daughter to dress as a boy!


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/world/asia/21gender.html

[Warpy]

1. Those might be the lucky girls

because they get years of less restrictive clothing and a less restrictive lifestyle before puberty.

Being dressed in drag on the playground would have made for a more enjoyable childhood on my part, skirts being drafty and impractical for hanging upside down on the monkey bars.

[mike_c]

2. this is sort of reverse cultural relativism, isn't it?

I mean, girls in the U.S. often wear "boys clothing," i.e. pants instead of skirts, etc. The distinction is fairly meaningless in the U.S. because most folks don't regard trousers as exclusively male or even dresses as exclusively female, although the later are less commonly coopted across gender lines than the former. Certainly those associations WERE once just as important in western society as they are now in traditional Islamic societies. Still, that sort of gender ambiguity is commonplace in the west. Why criticize it when others do it?

I know the answer is that what's being questioned are the motives, rather than the act, but even then, who's to say that all western women who wear trousers or men's shirts do so without blurring gender distinctions? I'm sure that many eschew the "girly" look intentionally. That's a matter of self image, and we don't usually question it.

[lastone]

4. ...

unless their parents are forcing them to, no?

[renate]

3. that was such an interesting article

Some darling Afghan girls live in our neighborhood--I love them to pieces, they're so sweet--and I can't stand to think of what their lives would be like if they were living in Afghanistan.

I'm stunned that girls are allowed to dress and behave as boys at all; I'd have thought that was the ultimate taboo in a country where girls are considered to be, basically, a misfortune.

[clarence swinney]

5. Better than this

Iraq
5 young heroes went to a home of beauty they had been observing and
shot mom-dad-six yr old sister then took turn raping a 15 a year old beauty.
When finished they killed her, took body into back yard, poured kerosene over her and set afire.

Yes! True story. One already pled guilty at Ft Carson trial got him Life in prison.
Years later still have not tried other four.

Sad Sad World has seen details Not in America land of Freedom of Press.

Wonder why we are called Barbarians? Why we are now hated?

Many many such incidents in Iraq. By our sweet bright young men?

The Arabs have viewed many on their TV Not in America.

Praise Allah!
olduglymeanhonest

[lastone]

6. olduglymeanhonest - to validate your point

we now find this bit of news:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/21/michael-ware-former-cnn-w_n_733030.html

Michael Ware, perhaps the corespondent w/the least tolerance for bullshit tells us that CNN censors stories, so the good ole us of a populace is kept in the dark to wonder "why do they hate us?" all the while our instigator in chief w tells us it is because "they" (referring to himself obviously) "hate our freedoms" (remember the free speech zones)! The right wing need to be called out on every turn, water cooler, in your car, your dumbass neighbor, every time they utter a word - call them out and ask them what they stand for? freedom of religion, why try and stop a church from being built next to a strip club? freedom of the press (whoops this one may not come out of the mouth of a republitard) why do i get more real info from the bbc or aljazeera? We are all slaves to the mighty corporations that dictate our lives in one way or another - what we need is a peaceful revolution - as in a strike, fuck them, fuck it. I've quite working for any co w/more than 10 people in it, fuck crony capitalism - it works as well as Communism. ranting here but - when will we do something to stop this utter madness?

[yurbud]

7. whatever the cultural faults of the Afghans, we are NOT there to help them in any way

except to teach them to obediently sign pipeline contracts (and probably make deals with the right people for their heroin too).

Wars are about money, land, resources, and markets.

Whenever someone says otherwise, they are a fucking liar or profoundly ignorant and gullible.