One Step Up...Two Steps Back

Soon-To-Be-Ex-Virgins


In a world in which a woman is the Secretary of State of a major Western power meets with a woman fresh out of a two-year house arrest in some faraway country (is it Burma or Myanmar?) and the meeting causes ripples throughout the political world, it is absurd what duress other women find themselves under.
Yesterday, an Afghan woman was released from prison: a place she's been kept since she accused a man of raping her...on the condition that she marry the guy. really. WTF?
Today's news features a report from a noted Saudi cleric to the Saudi Arabian Legislative Assembly (called the Shura Council) that addresses the issue of women being allowed to drive. a car. really. and there's more.
The report asserts that should women be allowed to drive vehicles, the state of virginity would be lost forever. Not only that, but there would be an incremental rise in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce. all because women would be behind the wheel.
Admittedly, the Saudis want to keep their women pure and chase without temptation from strange men, but these women get in cars every day DRIVEN BY MEN NOT THEIR RELATIVES! Duh!
King Abdullah has recently shown an impulse to think about allowing women to drive (prodded significantly by a wife, no doubt), and the conservative religious elite are all having a collective hissy fit.
Now, maybe I'm naive, but most of the nefarious action that I've heard about involving girls and guys and cars happened in the seat OTHER than the front, and women were definitely NOT behind the wheel at the time.
Seems to me that having women behind the wheel would be the safest place to guard things like virginity...unless they're driving to a brothel to meet other lesbians, watch porn, and decide how to dump their idiot husbands.
You go, Girl!