Dubai: "Manly" women considered menace to society

[woo me with science]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/03/uae-manly-women.html


DUBAI: 'Manly' women considered menace to society


We've all heard about the financial crisis hitting Dubai and the United Arab Emirates' economy: real estate prices plummeting, herds of professionals getting laid off and flocks of shopping-obsessed tourists disappearing.

In this economic mess, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates has set its sights not on unscrupulous bankers or speculators, but bizarrely on women who act and dress in a masculine way.

The government of the United Arab Emirates, a confederation of kingdoms torn between the conservative Muslim society and Western influences, is dead serious about “protecting” society against the growing number of women who dress, behave and speak like men.

In fact, the ministry of social affairs a few days ago launched a campaign called “Excuse me, I am a girl," directed against what they described as the "fourth gender," according to media reports. ....Some, they say, are “menacing” because of their homosexual tendencies.

....

In May 2008, Dubai’s police carried a one-week operation to crackdown on homosexuals in public spaces around the city.

-- Raed Rafei in Beirut








Photo: An Emirati woman walks past an advertisement at festival city in Dubai on March 9. Credit: Karim Sahib / AFP/Getty Images

[Duer 157099]

1. This coming from guys who wear dresses in public

nuf said

[tblue]

4. LOL! Bwaaaaaaaaahahahahaha!

Not to mention headbands and bridal veils.

[Sultana]

8. ...

like Joseph

[Sultana]

6. Dishdashas are hella awesome

Don't hate :D

Men wore it in Biblical times....

[tblue]

12. It's not hate. But it is funny.

[ConcernedCanuk]

25. Actually those look pretty comfy - nothing to pinch your privates!!

.
.
.

:silly:

[Kurovski]

2. Pathetic horseshit. The year 1220 B.C. is so 1999.

The world is just plain worn out from all this screwball crapola.

I was wishing for the internet to make faster work of all this, "but all in good time, my pretties!!"

[Number23]

3. Wow. Even in Arab countries, it's apparently tremendously difficult to find Arab-looking models

The stupidity of that image struck me almost as hard as the stupidity of men going after "masculine looking women" as the answer to their society's problems.

[Sultana]

9. They exist but they are not used in those campaigns plus that ad is from a Western company

[Number23]

15. I know. But for every blonde, blue-eyed Arab, there are probably

4 million that, you know, AREN'T...

And Western company or not, I don't think it would have killed them to have a picture that was more reflective of the local culture. It may be hard for many Western companies to believe, but there is a veritable SLEW of drop-dead gorgeous women of Middle Eastern heritage.

[Jamastiene]

5. Fuck Dubai then.

Not that I had a raging urge to ever visit there. :shrug:

[bluedawg12]

20. Dubai definition of manly women? Talk, think, speak, disagree, vote

drive, work.

Gee, just like some of our fundies.

[jbnow]

24. I wondered. I get what looking masculine would mean to them

probably...dress and hair or whatever

But behave like a man?
Talk like a man?
What is that?

Wait...
Talk like a man? Maybe I know that song

So if they try to cut her down to size
Telling dirty lies to her friends
And if her father says give him up don't bother
The world isn't coming to an end

They fear she'll Walk like a man
Talk like a man
Walk like a man, she's done
They think a woman's worth
Means crawling on the earth
But she walks like a man, she's done

She tells them "Good-bye baby I don't mean maybe
I'm gonna get along somehow"
Soon they are cryin on account of all their lyin
Oh yeah just look who's laughing now"

Evidently they don't like that attitude? They are really going to piss of Frankie Vallie.

If not that...if someone said to me "You are talking like a man" I wouldn't have any idea what they meant.
Behaving like a man? Not to sound sexist (some of my best friends are men) but if they mean sitting around, deinking beer and burping loud...well I wouldn't like that for long from anyone.

Sounds like I am taking this too lightly... but it is just so strange I can only mock it.
Maybe I get the looks part because I remember my otherwise super bright 3 year old son asking me how you can tell the difference between boys and girls if they didn't have clothes on, how did you know what someone was when they were kids? (Boys had longer hair then) So I get we identify clothing with gender...

But you must be right that they expect women to be submissive? Really? In Dubai? They can't even blame being hyper fundamentalist with Sharia law, they are just selfish and stupid and want to feel superior, they are hyper-chauvinistic.

[Sultana]

7. Pathetic

When it's no secret that many their Sheikhs have sexual relations with men behind closed doors

:eyes:

[MrPerson]

10. And where doods kiss each other - a lot.

[tblue]

14. And hold hands.

And they hate LESBIANS??????!

[readmoreoften]

11. Damn I was hoping they'd put up some examples of "manly women"!!!!

As a femme lesbian, I don't get to see enough images of the women I like to ogle!!!

:loveya:

Maybe I should move to Dubai and be part of the problem.

[tblue]

13. No, let's go over there and bring them here! The Bay Area will love them!!!

[bluedawg12]

22. Bring the butch women and the fem women, the more the merrier.

:P

[anonymous171]

16. Fuck Dubai. I'm glad their economy collapsed. nt

[DCKit]

17. 'Cept we can't import their Mos and educated women to protect them, what's the point? n/t

[KamaAina]

18. The *fourth* gender?

Is there something going on over there I should know about? :shrug:

[Maru Kitteh]

21. I've been rolling that one around for a while too.

XX

XY

??

[Lex]

19. Their fragile masculinity is threatened.

Le weep.

[skooooo]

23. No kidding! What a bunch of wimpy men. nt