goonerseba

+1

shiva

more karma for another great post.
The uaedresscode timeline is interesting stuff. a lot of talk of respect and tolerance but when you read the tweets made elsewhere by some of these people there is very overt rasicm, homophobia, sexism and on one occasion mockery of the disabled.

mikewot

I find it extraordinary that there are a LOT of couples in the malls where the male has on full Western clothing, jeans, tee-shirt, bling, sunglasses and baseball cap whilst wifie is in full cover up.
I wonder why that is......

Eva

Which he probably chose for her on a previous unaccompanied expedition to the mall.

Out as a couple?
Must be his day for a new outfit,wifie brought along to stroke his ego and carry the bags while he struts his stuff..Oooh la!

Alexa

EXCELLENT post! Excellent!

desert_dwellers

Interesting research effort, would be interesting to know the motives behind it, sounds like it was a commissioned duty, which is quite normal in any country to carry out research work on social problems. there is nothing special about the GCC countries when it comes to social problems, every country is ridden with more serious social problems, just recently in the news, it was reported that Southampton city has now become EURO-CAPITAL of teenage pregnancy involving girls as young as 13.
I am sure such a phenomenon deserves a real serious research work

mikewot

Classic avoidance of the subject at hand. We're not talking about teenage pregnancies in UK but dress code in the UAE. Get with the plan!

Alexa

Ah, the classic and predictable "but in the West..bla blah bla" tactic...why is it impossible for certain people to stick to the topic at hand?
Because they don't have any arguments? Well.......

shiva

Of course in the uk we don't tend to marry 13 year old girls off as its allowed in a book

desert_dwellers

Not intending to divert the discussion into another topic, I just need to briefly throw some light upon the subject of early marriages. Indeed it was a common practice in many cultures around the world to marry women at young age, Madonna, for example, according to the Bible gave birth to baby Jesus at the age of 14. But actually the main thrust behind this practice came out of sheer necessity, as societies were in need of extensive labour work for farming and other trades. Families, therefore, had to grow and multiply fast enough to survive, hence the reason for early marriages and big numbers of children. Britain was by no means an exception, average life expectancy during the Victorian time was 40 years among men, not because people didn't last that long but because of the sheer numbers of child mortalities. Therefore in England, up until the victorian time women were married off at a very early age, there is an old Victorian english say I feel uncomfortable to mention but since I seem to need to enlighten the self-righteous lot here I am going to go for it:

"Old enough to bleed is old enough to breed"

so really there is no room for comparison between those old legitimate practices and the modern problems of teenage pregnancies

auzdafluff

Your last point is the reason I became an atheist, despite being brought up as a Catholic and going to Catholic schools throughout my life in both Australia and the UK.

If there ever was anything genuine about the three major Abrahamic religions, it has long been lost through people seeking to use religion as a method of social control and power.

For example, in the West during the Middle Ages religion was used to keep control of the populace. It's a fallacy to think of those in the Middle Ages as more religious because they all went to church every Sunday. It was more the land owners forcing them there, where they the local priest would preach along the lines of "we might not know what you've been up to, but he does. So behave".

It continued right up until Victorian times (the mill owners would often require their employees to go to church).

It's funny isn't it how religion in the West started to falter at exactly the same time as national police forces and legal systems started to come into being. It is because those in power no longer needed to use threats about God knowing, because they'd become much better at finding out themselves. So religion lost its influence.

It was also hit by a double whammy from science, which removed people's personal belief in it. With no compulsion to go, and an alternative to religion in explaining how the world actually works, faith collapsed in the West amongst the lower classes.

It only remained strong in the middle classes because it was all about keeping up appearances.

That's just Christianity. But there are plenty of examples of those in places of power within each of the major religions using the influence afforded to them to their own ends (Iran for example).

Edit: I should say, my dissertation was on the rapid decline in religion in the West; hence why I know this stuff. I think I read something like 80 books and countless more papers on the subject from Medieval times, right through to the present.

mathematist

Well, to be honest, there's only a certain amount you can write in 140 characters. I haven't even checked that out to be honest and again, I'm certain that many tweets are by people where English is not their first language so they cannot express themselves as we can here.

Quote from Lullabelle "Oh FFS.

I've interviewed probably close to over a hundred women over the years on this subject. I was giving examples, you pedantic mare. If I listed every single chat I'd ever had on the subject we'd be here until next year. I already write enough in a post.

At least I'm speaking from some kind of experience. " and pedantic mare isn't exactly pleasant is it. I won't stoop to your level with pathetic insults to other posters.

Once again, 100 people, not enough for an accurate reflection love.

Of course, people will follow the norms of society and push the boundaries in dress code. That happens anywhere.

What you could try and do to further your "studies" is to ask women all over the world living in western countries such as the UK, US, France et al why they voluntarily choose to wear some sort of scarf / hijab, NOT the fusion between east and west type but an abaya for example. This would give an accurate reason why many Muslim women are going against the flow of society where the word modest is non-existent and they want to when society dictates otherwise. Why do you think that is?

Are they brainwashed people with no intellgence? Why do they WANT to wear something that doesn't reveal much and why does it annoy so many people? Save the cheap comments such as "get turned on" by ankles etc...

Try a large sample of different soci-economic groups, those that have reverted, those that are thinking about wearing a scarf etc...I'll be glad to assist you with the reliability of data collection and statistically valid findings if you want but wouldn't want to bore people with the various statistical hypothesis tests like the Normal, Poisson or Binomial Distribution models...

I can also tell you the exact opposite where many women want to wear the abaya but due to family pressure from husbands, brothers and other secular minded famiy members are forced NOT to wear it but that doesn't make good headlines and sell papers does it? What do you say about that? The same applies to those wanting to wear a scarf and even the veil but are forced not to as they'll be seen as not integrating.

Talking about integration, how many expats living in Arab lands have bothered to learn the language wherever you are and whilst MPs and others are saying people need to integrate more and not stick to their own. I had better stop else I'll be accused of not sticking to the OP...

I am sure you can find the relevant links on youtube why women, reverts and not wear the scarf / Abaya / veil should you care to search for it and maybe reflect and try to understand.

Why the obsession with the expats and the west wanting to liberate women? Sort your own back-yard out first I'd say...

In this society, the various media forms have done a grand job in planting in the minds that everything from the West is good for you. If you're inundated with films, glossy billboards, magazines stating how good it is to be free and revealing, many women and men who haven't lived in the West will aspire to be like them.

For crying out loud, some Arabs are surprised that there are Mosques in the UK let alone Halal food for example hence think their values and beliefs are on hold whilst abroad such as dress code and consuming food when abroad. A lack of understanding of their own faith.

Hence when many Muslim women change their attire on the planes en route to London or somewhere, that clearly shows that they are not sure of the reasons why they wear it or not and it's up to them to reflect and investigate further. Again, what about the many Arab / Muslim women who continue to wear Arab / Islamic attire when abroad? Nobody again mentions that either.

Please be balanced is all I ask and see that the for the 100 Arab women Lullabelle has studied who are not comfortable with the Muslim attire in it's various forms, there are 100 000 who willingly wear it.

Furthermore, I also suggest you try to liberate women in China where they are violently forced to abort children and the other billion + country, where there is a class of untouchables, shunned by society and where women had to die when their husbands did. THAT really is oppression, don't you think..?

Millhouse

Has the three line post rule been totally forgotten?

I couldn't give a shit what women wear - as long as it's on my bedroom floor by 10.30pm we are all good.

norsk

Leave the number cruncher alone. He has a lot of repressed anger to get off his chest. One can only guess how he became like this...

mathematist

I am perplexed that when Lullaby posts a long thread that you agree with, wow, excellent, Karma etc... and when you try to hear something from the other side of the argument, it's a raging rant etc...

Really, no point anymore in discussing this I suppose. Enough said and leave it at that...