Monthly Archives: March 2003

Iranian Authorities Crack Down on Illicit Love

Posted on by
Reply

In Iran, where conflicts between religious authorities and reformist student movements seems to be growing, authorities have been cracking down on illicit contact between men and women, including anything that smacks of decadent Western values — such as Valentine’s cards.

In February, Iranian police ordered shops to remove Valentine’s cards and decorations and in some cases confiscated “corrupt materials” being sold to promote the holiday.

According to the Associated Press, the crackdown appeared to be limited largely to northern Tehran, a wealthy area where exposure to Western culture is more common than in other parts of Iran.

In March, meanwhile, a Basij militia (religious police) commander told Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency that 68 men and women were arrested in Tehran for running a web sit where young men and women could meet to talk and arrange meetings.

IRNA quoted General Ahmad Rouzbehani as saying,

Some people were using an internet site to allow girls and boys to talk and arrange meetings in a place in north Tehran where they had illegal relations.

According to the BBC, the Basij regularly raid parties and gatherings where both men and women are present, but this is the first time it has targeted an Internet site.

Sources:

Iranians arrested for net dating. The BBC, March 3, 2003.

Iranian cops curtail Cupid’s canoodling. Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press, February 12, 2003.

Share

Are Firefighters Lousy Parents?

Posted on by
Reply

A Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled in January that a firefighter could not be granted joint custody of his children because his job requires him to work often odd hours.

In June 2000, Lt. Gerald E. Burton, a divorced firefighter employed by the District of Columbia, won joint custody of his son and daughter after a judge ruled that “both parties were fit and proper to have care and custody” of the children. The judge insisted, however, that Burton change his job hours to accommodate a five-day a week, 40 hour schedule.

Burton told the judge that he would soon be receiving a transfer to an administrative position, but when that had still not happened after a month, the judge revoked the joint custody decree. Burton appealed the decision, but the Maryland Court of Special Appeals reaffirmed the verdict. The Washington Times quoted the appellate court’s decision at length,

In making the ruling, the court determined that there was already a potential for disruption in the children’s social and school lives because they do not have ‘one place where they do everything. The court found that this disruption would be amplified if Mr. Burton were to work a 24/72 shift. The court further found that a 24/72 shift schedule would be a demand of employment that would interfere with the ability of the parties to jointly parent their children.

Burton and Lt. Ray Sneed, president of the D.C. Firefighters Association, both said that firefighters routinely swap shifts to deal with these sorts of situations, but the court ruled that was not an adequate solution. Sneed added that the ruling might make it difficult to recruit firefighters and could have a serious impact on single parents already working in the D.C. Fire Department,

This is ridiculous. This is going to affect every shift worker — not just firefighters. . . .You could say they’re [other single parent firefighters] not good parents based on this decision.

Those single parent firefighters include about 60 women according to Lt. Sneed. It seems a bit bizarre to say that, as a society, we want Lt. Burton to risk his life on a regular basis to protect people from fires, but that at the same time the odd schedule firefighters must often works makes him ineligible for joint custody of his children.

Source:

Fireman’s appeal for custody rejected. Matthew Cella, The Washington Times, January 9, 2003.

Share

Free Clara Harris?

Posted on by
Reply

A Texas jury earlier this year convicted Clara Harris of killing her husband after she caught him with another woman. Harris repeatedly drove over her husband with her car.

In a short article about the trial and conviction, Cathy Young noted that during a segment about the case on The O’Reilly Factor some women wrote in via e-mail to express their support for Harris. But, to my knowledge, no prominent feminists took the absurd route of defending Harris.

Not so, however, for those nutty right wingers at WorldNetDaily.Com where Editor and CEO Joseph Farah devoted an entire column to singing Harris’ praise and saying that, if there were any justice in the world, Harris would be set free. Farah wrote,

I say: Free Clara Harris. We need more women like her. Live like her.

. . .

People are no longer accountable to anyone. They don’t believe they are accountable to God. They don’t believe they are accountable to their spouses. And they don’t believe they are accountable to their children. They are not accountable to the state, as no-fault divorce laws have made certain.

. . .

If I were on that jury, I would find Clara Harris not guilty. After she was sprung, I’d give her a medal. She did the world a favor. She may have acted emotionally. She may be sorry for what she has done. But, frankly, she did the right thing. That creep deserved what he got.

In Harris’ case, fortunately, no one on the jury shared Farah’s views, but Young notes a Texas case where the jury did buy into this sort of ridiculous argument. In 1999 a jury convicted Jimmy Dean Watkins of murder after he shot and killed his estranged wife in front of his 10-year old son. But the jury sentenced him to just 10 years of parole after buying into his claim that he was acting on a sudden passion (even though Watkins had fled the scene after his gun jammed, then returned to fire the fatal shot after restoring his weapon to working condition).

Apparently a world in which men and women run around killing their philandering spouses without any sort of consequence may appeal to Farah, but Young is correct in noting that as much as we might sympathize with someone who commits a crime of passion, we should never allow that sympathy to be used as a justification for murder,

A certain measure of sympathy for people who commit crimes of passion is understandable. Many feminists have attributed this sympathy to the underlying belief that men “own” women; but they are wrong. Most of us can relate to feelings of anger, loss and betrayal caused by infidelity or rejection?in a way we cannot relate to the cold-blooded motives of someone who kills for greed. But we should never allow this emotional understanding to overshadow the horror of what happened to the victims.

Sources:

Free Clara Harris! Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.Com, January 30, 2003.

She Done Him Wrong: Cowboy law, sexism mix in wronged wife’s trial. Cathy Young, Reason, February 4, 2003.

Share

Killing Women: Two for the Price of One in Iran

Posted on by
Reply

New Zealand News recently ran a chilling story about how the Iranian legal system devalues the lives of women. The story centered around Tehran-based human rights lawyer Hadjimashhady whose daughter was killed in a car accident in 2002 after a 70-year-old opium addicted truck driver fell asleep and ran a stop sign.

Under Iranian law, Hadjimashhady was entitled to blood money from the family of the driver, but because the victim was a woman, he was only entitled to half the blood money that would have been required had the victim been a man.

Hadjimashhady told The New Zealand Times that he wasn’t interested in the blood money, and that the differing rates for men and women make the whole affair even more bizarre,

I don’t want the dieh [blood money]. Janooreh [the truck driver] doesn’t have any money, he wasn’t insured, and he doesn’t have any family. But this law, this is a reactionary law. It is something that belongs in medieval times, I think.

A group of female Members of Parliament in Iran are campaigning to equalize the monetary amounts. They note that while the system may have made sense in a traditional, nonindustrial society — where the death of a man could mean the death of the primary income provider in the family — that it is insulting to women in contemporary Iran.

Fatemeh Rakei of the Iranian Parliament’s Committee for Women’s Issues also cites a similar religious tradition called quessas, in which if a woman murders a man the mans’ family can demand vengeance (i.e., the death of the woman), but if a man kills a woman, the woman’s family must first pay the man’s family half of the man’s blood money before demanding vengeance.

Rakei told The New Zealand News that she believes this has led to an increase in wife killing since many families simply can’t afford to pay the blood money.

Source:

The price of women. Tim Elliott, The New Zealand News, February 15, 2003.

Share

No Sex for Oil?

Posted on by
Reply

One of the nuttier ideas for opposing war in Iraq comes from a feminist-inspired group called The Lysistrata Project, inspired by the famous play by Aristophanes. The Danish-based group is planning a reading of Lysistrata in 56 countries, and also is seriously urging women not to have sex with men who favor war in Iraq.

Danish actress Anne-Marie Helger told the BBC News Online that, “Mrs. Blair, Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Rasmusen should stay out of their husbands’ beds until they call their dogs off.”

The BBC quotes Rhea Leman, an American theater director working in Copenhagen, as saying, “Basically we are saying No Peace, No Sex.”

Blogger Asparagirl has the perfect response to such nonsense,

The project of course assumes that all women are anti-war and all men are pro-war, and that furthermore the only way for women to make their political opinions known is to withhold sex, and further still that any woman would actually want to do that. It also implies that the best way that today’s women have of influencing their worlds is not through their writings, speeches, jobs, money or votes, but through their ability to have or not have sex, and that the sex will be solely with men, who are of course the real powerhouses in our society when it comes to shaping world events.

Sources:

Real women don’t wage war? Asparagirl.Com, March 2, 2003.

Sex boycott urged over war. The BBC, March 3, 2003.

Share