a recent GD thread revealing that Saudi women felt like it was the

[ensho]

men that were seperated from the women because the men could not control themselves, instead of the other way round.

I mentioned that a number of sci/fi/fantasy fiction by women writers dealt with this situation.

today I discovered this article over at SciTech Daily Review:

http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=4654&cn=139


Review - Feminist Philosophy And Science Fiction
Utopias And Dystopias
by Judith A. Little


-snip-

And they will love Little's book. She presents a series of stories written by first rate sci-fi writers to support discussion of some serious problems in the history of utopian and dystopian philosophy as well as feminist and anti-feminist Western philosophy. Little includes selections from such noted writers as Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Karen Joy Fowler, Ursula K. Le Guin, James Tiptree Jr., and many others. These stories are collected under four main themes:

1. "Human Nature and Reality" -- which concentrates on the question "Is there an intrinsic difference between males and females.

2. "Dystopias: The Worst of all Possible Worlds" -- which portray world where men and women are constantly at war or where women find themselves mere slaves in misogynistic societies (that sound eerily familiar).

3. "Separatist Utopias: Worlds of Difference "-- which ask probing questions concerning the reasons women might desire to be separate.

4. "Androgynous Utopias: Worlds of Equality," in which the authors create possible worlds that anticipate the consequences, good and bad, of perfect sexual equality in education, intelligence, capability, and reproduction.
-snip-
-----------------------


I've read all of the above writers and recc. their books.

[Warpy]

1. Saudi women have told me that, too

and that they always feel a bit undressed in the west when they take their abayas off. They feel that garment not only hides all fashion sins and bad hair days, it's protective.

Our way of life is just as impossible for them to cope with as their way is for us, in other words.

The one restriction they told me they found the most onerous is not being allowed to drive.

[ensho]

2. interesting and I can see how it can be a protection

and a shackle

[aquart]

3. So men are assumed to be without any responsibility or self-control.

Opportunistic rapists, in fact.

My personal belief is that anyone not responsible for his own actions should not be allowed to vote or own property. Or be off-leash in public.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. I have always found that amusing as well, the admission that Muslim men can not contrl themselves

[Book Lover]

5. Please! Men *can* control themselves

They need to be taught to do so, and punished when they don't. But nooooo, much better for women to heap layer upon layer of clothing on themselves in the fucking desert. Yeah, that makes sense.

And pardon me, but do the women run the country? Then who is separated from whom as the central figure in the civil society?