saudi, women drivers

[Danzig]

i have to admit, this is an original:

http://news.msn.com/world/saudi-cler...maging-ovaries

A Saudi Arabian warns women that driving a vehicle can damage their ovaries and cause them to bear children with medical issues.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A conservative Saudi Arabian cleric said women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and bearing children with clinical problems, countering activists who are trying to end the Islamic kingdom's male-only driving rules.

A campaign calling for women to defy the ban in a protest drive on Oct. 26 has spread rapidly online over the past week and gained support from some prominent women activists. On Sunday, the campaign's website was blocked inside the kingdom.

In an interview published Friday on the website sabq.org, Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Lohaidan said women aiming to overturn the ban on driving should put "reason ahead of their hearts, emotions and passions."

By contrast, Sheikh Saleh bin Saad al-Lohaidan, the person quoted in the sabq.org report, is a judicial adviser to an association of Gulf psychologists.

His comments reflect the extent of opposition to women driving among some conservatives in Saudi Arabia.

"If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards," he told Sabq.

"That is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees," he said.

He did not cite specific medical studies to support his arguments

[GenuineRisk]

"If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards," he told Sabq.

[Danzig]

did they really have to include that he didn't cite any medical info? does anyone think anything could possibly exist that backs up his assertions?

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

did they really have to include that he didn't cite any medical info? does anyone think anything could possibly exist that backs up his assertions?

Funny, isn't it, that whenever women want anything that offers greater freedom (driving, education, exercise), the response of the male Establishment is that it will adversely affect female fertility?

Women beware. You are on the brink of destruction. You have hitherto been engaged in crushing your waists, now you are attempting to cultivate your mind. You have been merely dancing all night in the foul air of the ball room; now you are beginning to spend your mornings in study. You have been incessantly stimulating your emotions with concerts and operas; now you are exerting you understanding to learn Greek, and solve propositions in Euclid. Beware!! Science pronounces that the woman who studies is lost.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

Funny, isn't it, that whenever women want anything that offers greater freedom (driving, education, exercise), the response of the male Establishment is that it will adversely affect female fertility?

it wasn't long ago that i read a letter to the editor, admonishing women to return to their god given duties as wives and mothers...only. no working outside the home, no voting, etc
it's why the usa is going down hill, dontchaknow.
yeah, it's amazing to see middle eastern and other third world countries sticking to covering women, keeping them home, no schooling, like the old world in the old days.
then there's how many over here who would like to see us return to those ways! like repubs with their latest salvo, the conscience clause in obamacare.

[hi_im_god]

Originally Posted by GenuineRisk

Funny, isn't it, that whenever women want anything that offers greater freedom (driving, education, exercise), the response of the male Establishment is that it will adversely affect female fertility?

i thought the quote presented as "women beware" sounded like satire.

and it is. interesting article about its genesis:

https://blathering504.wordpress.com/...-the-internet/

sorry to sidetrack the discussion but the lack of attribution for the quote set off an alarm.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by hi_im_god

i thought the quote presented as "women beware" sounded like satire.

and it is. interesting article about its genesis:

https://blathering504.wordpress.com/...-the-internet/

sorry to sidetrack the discussion but the lack of attribution for the quote set off an alarm.

Thank you for the correction! The quote in the piece I found it in was attributed to a collection of pieces from For Her Own Good, but as it's not the original source I didn't attribute it. The article you linked was fascinating and fun reading on how a quote gets misattributed. Though it doesn't contradict the original point, which was that in the 19th Century, doctors really believed that education adversely affected women's fertility:

While corsets distorted the bodily image of woman, woman's body in itself was viewed as suspect. The embodiment of "woman" continued to see women's bodies as a dark continent in an alien world--particularly in the realm of re production. "Misplaced ovaries" caused a "great deal of trouble" to women's health, according to Dr. S. W. Mitchell, the nineteenth-century neurospecialist made famous for his infamous "rest cure" for the "hysteric" woman, one of whom was Charlotte Perkins Gilman.5 Myths regarding women's menstrual process often served as a guise for misogynist and enslaving techniques. One famous menstrual myth appears with startling regularity in controversies over co-education in colleges and universities. Elaine and English Showalter note that in 1873 Dr. Edward Clarke of Harvard College published a work entitled Sex in Education in which he argued that higher education was destroying the reproductive functions of women by overworking them during a crucial time in their formative years. Supporting Clarke 's thesis, Mitchell pointedly noted the case of "Miss C." in his medical treatise entitled Nervous Diseases, a text devoted primarily to women. "Miss C.," a seventeen-year old, "lost" her menstrual cycle while attending (Mitchell pointedly reminds his readers) a "school in which boys and girls were educated together." Prior to attending the coeducational academy, the young woman's menstrual cycles, Mitchell claims, had been "regular." Once she was sent home, however, her menstrual flow miraculously returned in but a few short weeks and the young woman's health was gradually restored (96). Sadly, her educational process was not.

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/...95/Murton.html

[Alabama Stakes]

I can see the pregnancy thing. When they are sitting on their husbands laps trying to drive, it does have them in an awkward position.

Working with them is horrible. Even the coolest and best woman co-worker, is still worse than the biggest complaining gold bricking male co worker. They are all really nice ladies and I love them all after work, but when none are working there are never any problems. Just sayin.

[Danzig]

ever notice when someone says 'just sayin' that they are saying something incredibly stupid?

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

ever notice when someone says 'just sayin' that they are saying something incredibly stupid?