Not the kind of thing that I usually post, but it tickled me so much I had to...

LoveLoveLove

- A -

This "Five Minutes With..." has been donated to Mookychick...

Read it HERE!

LoveLoveLove

- A -

(Yes, I know that I said yesterdy that my blog would be back to normal today... but it's not. Because some things are far more importan than fashion. Seriously...)

So, yesterday, I got an email from Amnesty International. I get these quite a lot - my Mum is member, and as she desn't have an email account, she uses mine. But this one, I read myself, and it repulsed me. And I kind of hope that it does you, too. Because I've had over 2000 hits/month since I started this blog, and I think that I can use that to make a difference.

I'm going to paste some of the email below... here goes...

"Imagine if...

Your evidence in court counted for half that of the opposite sex.

You couldn’t take a job without your partner’s approval.

Your partner ‘disciplined’ you, and the law allowed it.

As a woman living in Iran, this would be your life.

In the 2005 presidential elections, 89 women presented themselves as candidates, only to be turned away as ineligible. For a year they protested, often resulting in beatings and arbitrary detentions. On 27 August 2006, a group of Iranian women launched the ‘Campaign for Equality’, to collect the signatures of one million Iranians on a petition that demanded equal rights.

Thanks to the courageous actions of these women and others like them, the profile of women’s rights in Iran has been steadily increasing.

They have made progress since they began the campaign:

·                         Inheritance laws are now being reviewed

·                         A new polygamy law, which would make it even easier for men to take several wives, was rejected in Parliament

·                         The law which means a woman’s death or injury receives half the compensation of a man’s is being reviewed

·                         In the last election women’s issues were on the agenda for the first time

·                         President Ahmadinejad has appointed three women to his cabinet

People who followed my blog may remember that I mentioned a while back that I'd ocassionally be unable to stop myself writing major political rants. If you don't recall, the info is here.

So: as I'm on my Dad's laptop at the moment, the Home Page for the internet is MSN, and I'm sure most people know what that page looks like, bringing up news links and so on as you log in. One of these links was entitled "Women flogged for wearing trousers" - and it caught my eye on many levels. As you may well have noticed, I don't like to keep my views on anything quiet, and I am quite blatant about my feminist views, so obviously that made me want to read. However, the word "trousers" also made the fashionista within me sit up and go "Huh?". So, I clicked the link.

I read the article.

I was repulsed.

I know, I know; we should all accept other cultures, and we should be understanding about those cultures whose customs differ greatly from our own, however I think that when a nation is willing to flog seven women for wearing trousers, I am allowed to look a little bit repulsed. Ok. A lot repulsed.

The country where this happened, Sudan, is strict about Sharia law, and so that means that women are expected to dress in the tradidtional muslim way, with the veil and the hijab, and it is (I hope that people will excuse me for saying this) quite a repressive nation. Traditional roles; traditional values.

But, think back to Britain 100 years ago. Women didn't wear trousers, but I highly doubt that they would have been punished with forty lashes for doing so.

Women in Sudan, though, do.

It is not my place to criticise other cultures, and I wouldn't deign to state that my beliefs alone are to be listened to, but this disgusts me. Women and should be equal. Even in Britain, we aren't. Not entirely. Not in peoples minds. But this is taking it too far.

</rant>

Apologies for the cheerfulness of today's post. It probably won't happen again for a while. Harry Potter tomorrow ;)

LoveLoveLove

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