It has been missing for ages Ahmed.. By the way, any hope for updating the forum?
Posts: 2591 | From: **Ex Oriente Lux** | Registered: Jan 2007
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Shorty Longbottom had a pink spitfire. Pink was used to camouflage planes. This is because the sky has a faint pinkish tone to it when it is cloudy. The first planes were blue, but the colour was changed because they stood out.
Posts: 11097 | From: Cairo | Registered: May 2008
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Now it might just only be the Americans, but American adult women would find this degrading.
Feminizing everyday objects and facilities into something that would be appealing to grade/elementary school girls is just grotesque.
I remember my first year of marriage in which a handful of my then hubby friends gave me gifts. Two were perfumes with tween star logos, and the rest were stuffed animals. One wanted to give me a baby doll but since I was pregnant it was futile because I was getting a "real baby" in a few months. THe guy then protested that I could play and pretend "practice" on the baby doll until then. Seriouly they were shocked I didn't own stuffed animals and baby dolls.
I made an excuse to leave the apartment dinner half completed, when my then husband called me on the cell to ask why I hadn't come back 30 minutes later.
I was sobing, profusively sobbing and he couldn't understand my fustration.
Its as if women are supposed to be emotional retarded to a 9 year old level until they marry and have a child, then immediately mature into a 40 year old women to baby her husband.
DIdn't like baby dolls or stuffed animals when I was 9, or 5 years. And was mad as hell when this happened, I was 6 months pregnant at 28 years.
Immediately forbid these arsholes from stepping foot into my home again.
One of these guys gave his college American sweetheart gifts of this nature all the time. She put up with it and after 4 months of marriage she annulled and left the state.
I guess she learned he was only going to get worse after the marriage certificate was signed.
That is what my child would like, but I think only because she has been raised in an Arab country.
If my dad dared to offer me this at age 9 to mow the lawn, I would've taken all his work papers, books, personal hardware tools and suits laid it out on the lawn and proceeded to mow over it all.
BUt my father isn't that stupid.
Posts: 514 | Registered: Jul 2009
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quote:Originally posted by $sonomod$: This is what bothers me about Egyptian guys, they assume that the female mind and character doesn't progress past 9 years into maturity:
I'd say any guy who finds those pictures funny just proves that *his* mind and character are still at the stage of a nine year old. Posts: 2803 | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
First African female president wows UC Berkeley
Like Barack Obama, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf broke a historic barrier by winning office. And like Obama, Sirleaf - Africa's first elected female president - is greeted by adoring crowds wherever she travels, as happened Thursday night in Berkeley, where she wowed a standing-room-only audience with humor, advice and her belief that Africa's best days are ahead.
Liberia, a country founded by former American slaves, elected Sirleaf in 2005, and has seen a dramatic turnaround in its economy, basic infrastructure and educational system.
"We're blessed that Liberia is rebuilding," Sirleaf told hundreds of attendees at UC Berkeley. "Liberians have a sense of restored hope."
During the event at International House, Sirleaf received UC Berkeley's highest honor, the Berkeley Medal, from Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, who read aloud a letter from former President Jimmy Carter, who lauded the Liberian president for her courage and determination.
A Harvard-educated former banker, Sirleaf was almost killed in Liberia's 1980 coup, when the nation's military targeted her and other government officials. Sirleaf managed to escape, but returned from exile after a bloody rebellion that eventually killed millions of Liberians, drained government coffers and turned the country into a failed state.
Under her administration, Liberia - located on Africa's West coast - now has something that most countries take for granted: a functioning electrical and water system.
When Sirleaf was inaugurated in January 2006, Liberia's annual revenues were just $80 million - "probably the budget of a high school in this country," she told the Berkeley audience. With new government policies that encourage more efficient and ecologically sustainable exporting of rubber, timber and other natural resources, Liberia now earns $300 million a year, said Sirleaf, 70, a former top administrator with Citibank.
Along with a dramatic reduction of Liberia's once-$4 billion debt to outside creditors, "hopefully, next year all our debt will gone and lifted from the (backs) of our children," Sirleaf said.
Applause greeted Sirleaf's announcements of Liberia's economic turnaround.
Someone asked her how U.S. banks should handle their own financial woes.
"Stop the greed," she said.
Sirleaf, whose talk was sponsored by UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, ended the event by being circumspect about her political future.
"Are you going to run again?" she was asked, to which she replied, "My answer (to this question) is always the same: As a good politician, I keep them guessing."
When the laughter died down, Sirleaf moved out of her chair, waved to the crowd, then quickly left the International House, to continue a weeklong speaking tour that is taking her around the United States.
A parliamentary quota system for women might favour Egypt's ruling party, but maybe the opposition should just catch up Comments (12)
by Joseph Mayton guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 October 2009 08.00 GMT
Empowering women in the Middle East is a much-discussed idea but it has run into a number of obstacles – mainly Islamic conservatism, which sees the woman's place in society as a wife, daughter and provider to her male counterparts. There are plenty of progressive views around, but in reality life is difficult for liberal-minded women in Egypt.
Taking Tunisia's lead, Egypt's parliament earlier this year approved a quota system for women that aims to increase female representation. In Tunisia, the quota system has been quite successful. In 2004, women won 22.8% of parliamentary seats – which in the view of many women shows the idea is working, much as America's affirmative action policy worked to put African-Americans on a more equal footing. In that respect Tunisia has, despite its obvious political failings as an undemocratic state, set an example for the rest of the region to follow.
"Tunisia wishes to actively take part in empowering women in Arab societies," Tunisia's first lady, Leila Ben Ali, said when discussing women's issues in Tunisia and the region. She added that positive discrimination for women through the quota system "is but a factor and not the sole one" for the empowerment of Arab women. "In the near future, when Tunisian women will have proven their competence, Tunisia will no longer need the quota system," she added.
But Tunisia, which sees itself as a gateway between Europe and Africa, has a longer history of buttressing women's rights and has also curtailed Islamic opposition for decades. In 1990, women held 3.4% of parliamentary seats, nearly twice as many as in the current Egyptian parliament. This number doubled by 2004, when the quota was introduced.
According to women's groups in Egypt, after the 2005 elections, only eight women were in parliament, and four of those were appointed by presidential decree. Change was definitely needed. The new quota approved this summer will increase the number of parliamentary seats from 454 to 518 by adding 64 seats set aside for female politicians.
The major problem with this is that the quota system is a partisan endeavour. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) understands this well. The NDP is the only party capable of fielding enough women candidates and will therefore come out on top, further reducing the influence of an already stifled opposition.
The new quota comes into effect for next year's parliamentary elections, and opposition groups are crying foul. "The NDP hopes to monopolise these additional seats in order to shore up its parliamentary majority," said Muslim Brotherhood MP Hamdy Hassan. "By having to run in vast electoral districts, such as Cairo or Alexandria, female candidates will not have a chance of winning unless the contest is rigged in their favour."
The extra 64 seats give women a minimum of 12% representation in parliament – half that in Tunisia. But at least it is something.
And where are the female opposition leaders? On 14 October, Egyptian opposition leaders and parties came together to announce an anti-succession campaign against Gamal Mubarak's possible ascension to power but only one female leader, Kefaya's Karima el-Hefnawy, was present out of some 50 leading opposition candidates. Not a promising percentage.
Unlike Tunisia, where women have been making an impact in all segments of society, Egypt remains a good-old-boys country, where to be a woman means to suffer the ills of society, without a voice in power to provide support.
If the Egyptian opposition doesn't like the new quota, maybe it should start to grow up and realise that this will enable and empower women. If the NDP is the only party with enough members to put forward on the ballot, then it is time to rethink who is among the opposition.
Hala Mustapha, a leading NDP woman, told me in an interview two years ago that the ruling party is the only one with women as key figures "because the opposition continues to struggle and they still see politics as a man's world". She continued: "The NDP has at least given us a chance and we are working on a number of issues to help empower women. A long way to go still, but we are here and that is a good start."
It is easy to argue that the NDP uses women as a way of telling the west: "Hey, look at us, we have women in government." Even so, at least they have women prepared and ready.
The opposition doesn't seem to understand the need for women leaders and if it doesn't do something about that soon, Gamal will be president and the NDP will have 64 more seats in parliament.
posted
For those who praise the Idea, women never hold a presidency in the States, once in the UK, never in France..... if women can't prove their efficacy in the Western open society, why r some promoting such ideas in a conservative society such as Egypt
Posts: 4 | From: Cairo | Registered: Oct 2009
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quote:Originally posted by barmaky10: For those who praise the Idea, women never hold a presidency in the States, once in the UK, never in France..... if women can't prove their efficacy in the Western open society, why r some promoting such ideas in a conservative society such as Egypt
because other 'conservative societies' have had a female president before 'open societies' such as the ones in the west have.
societies such as egypt and pakistan put more stock in a person's social class than they do in gender.
Posts: 2280 | Registered: Oct 2009
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posted
A woman premier might be just what Egypt needs. There's a modern era precedent where a female succeeded a male dictator. The Philippines like Egypt was suffering from widespread corruption under the authoritative rule of Ferdinand Marcos. Carzon Aquino restored democracy to the Philippines.
Posts: 2275 | Registered: Dec 2009
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-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
I think his point was not that women are better by default, but that a nation will not be able to progress if its people are still hung up on discussing women's clothes, whether they should have the same legal rights as men etc. pp.
Look at the Qaradawi thread in the religious section. An intelligent Muslim woman writes an article, and some self-proclaimed defender of "Muslim values" attacks her fingernails and the fact that she is showing her hair. Sadly, this is way too often what happens in the Arab and Muslim world.
Posts: 2803 | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
I agree, but I doubt that somebody with the views as Mona Eltahawy ever would bring it as far that she should have influence. Politics isn't a fair process, it isn't that simple that we are able to choose the one who shares our idea's.
Climbing the stairs from a political carreer is more a case from "Who allows me to climb that high? Do the big financers share my view and donate the money? Does the media pay attention to what I say?" And even when a person is able to go that far, he/she will be dependant on the staff, on the departments, on all the people who are working for him/her. I am convinced that it is possible to sabotage the work of a president or a prime-minister, after all he/she isn't an absolute ruler, but is depandant on the ones who are working for her/him.
It is very well possible that a female PM is sabotaged because the male staff wants to work her out of her function. I am sure that a lot of politicians in fact are placed on that position by hidden agenda's from the financers.
The real power is by the ones who have the money...
-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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Sadly, this is way too often what happens in the Arab and Muslim world.
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