fair enough and point taken.
WTF?
I agree with Maysie's point as well - that we should donate the groups already in existence and which were started by women themselves in the area affected. I would add that another way if one has no money is to volunteer with refugee/immigrant type organizations.
Breezescream - I'll take a shot at this then, but I doubt others would see it the same...I think it comes down to symptom vs cause. It's ultimately mysoginy, men treating women as things they own and not as people. In the West, we deny it...the 1.6% conviction rate in a UK city works as an example. In other societies, it manifests much more obviously...but nonetheless it's the same thing manifesting. When you're arguing that people should be actively critisizing this manifestation in muslim and african countries, you're actually arguing that we critisize them for not hiding it as well as we do...you're critisizing the symptom, yet ignoring that we have a common cause. More often then not, pointing at a 'barbic african' country serves only to distract us from the common cause.
that the west does not have a right to criticize anyone because of our own flaws
the 'flaws' exist in both societies...you are not critisizing the flaw, you are critisizing that they're manifestation of the flaw is worse than our manifestation of it. As long as you're clear on what you're critisizing (and the level of hypocrisy it ultimately holds), go right ahead and critisize.
It's your business if you'd like to label yourself a racist (and without knowing you I'm confident that you're not), but I'll say again, I"M NOT A RACIST, and I have already acknowledged that life for women in the west is far from perfect. My point is that it is BETTER. Tell me Remind, as a woman, where would you rather live, here or in the Middle East?
boxman, I'm well aware of Iranian women (and men) being highly educated. Obviously the issues I've raised here don't apply to every middle eastern country in exactly the same way, BUT, in all countries in that region women are oppressed in one way or another to a far higher degree than they are in the west.
the way u talk about western superiority, western is better this way, without really knowing other places, their customs, reasons (not sayin it justified), as well as the fact that evryhing outside the west is not a singular entity, or 1 area (like u try n paint the mid-east), shows u are a racist.
Also yes u only thank ur luccy stars because u are WHITE. Remember that I dont thank my luccy stars for bein here shit..
Also plz do not say other countries are the worst human rights violators. The west is period. Talk about the human rights violations in other countries dont plz dont incorrectly use worst. Because thats a title that the west has fought tooth and nail for over 500 years and continues to cuz they love the title.
On point tho it works like this. The west went in and fucced the countries while also many times the west or the arabs went in and changed up the culture, and system for those ppl to turn it into where 1 group is dominant other aint. (tribes, genders, etc) then after with their benevolence they gave them "indepenance" o look u need some loans. Well, Im the only one with money so 2 get loans u have to neo-liberalize ur economy to let our multi-nationals come in and control u but we'll just call it globalization and free trade. Then also remember that our corporate execz are gonna buy new bornz from u from time to time to penetrate the soft parts of their skull (google it a blacc baby aint worth much today huh? :( )
Then after we prop up our own governments after overthrowing ur democratic ones repeatdly we're gonna allow our soldiers as well as others to go freely looting and raping and then film it and spin it off as barbaric colord ppl. Thats the situation on the ground. U can adress the surface without looking at the root. And the thing about anything outside canada's borders is bulshit. What ppl were trying to say is that the west is at the root of most of the problems facing the world today. So the easiest way to fix those problems would be to get at the root and while ppl in the 3rd world aint got power in these countries. We aint either but they pretend we do so we gotta use and it 2 things will happen. Either they forced to bow down or the dictatorship hidden as a democracy is shown and a revolt will start.
Go for the root
Excellent points noise.