12 ms·

She’s Got Game

90 points by woldemariam 6y ago

sneak 6y ago
This reminds me of the gender-based discrimination in Banks’ Culture novel The Player of Games. It’s still astounding to me to see a country keep half of its population in effective slavery.
- vertis 6y ago
  I don't even remember that from 'The Player of Games', perhaps I need to re-read.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    In the book, the dominant "apex" gender is quite blatant about its subjugation of the other two (males and females). In this way, Banks managed to present an extremely unequal society and its ills without having to refute any of the unfair critiques either a patriarchy or matriarchy would have prompted.
- klyrs 6y ago
  The death penalty is still employed against LGBT folks there, too. Pretty awkward when your company wants to do business in a country where an onsite could be a lethal endeavor. Maybe, just don't do business with these folks until they get with the times. It worked with South Africa.
- sukilot 6y ago
  It's not freedom, but it's not slavery.
  - watwut 6y ago
    It is not chattel slavery. It is that far off to other forms of slavery.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      It's pretty far off from other forms of slavery as well. The slaves in Saudi Arabia are the foreign domestic workers, like in pretty much all Arab countries. It's an underdeveloped culture, women don't have equal rights by any means, but it's not slavery. Continuously reaching for superlatives just makes the terms useless.
      - watwut 6y ago
        The "not having equal rights" is euphemism too, it makes it feel like western 1950-1960 when women still had significantly more freedom. Inability to leave makes big difference. Especially when limts are enforced by police prisons and both state and private violence. It is hard to distinguish from ownership.
        luckylion 6y ago
        I said they don't have equal rights by any means, in other words they're not close to having equal rights. But it's still not slavery. Navy blue isn't as light as aqua blue, but that doesn't make it black. I'm not arguing for Saudi Arabia here, I find most things I know about their culture and traditions to be disgusting (though they appear to be making progress, no doubt thanks to international pressure and the oil money drying up). But I'm strongly against this trend of constantly reaching for the most extreme words for dramatic effect. Saudi Arabia does have slaves, actual real slaves. But they're not Saudi women (they're often women, but they're from e.g. Malaysia or the Philippines and are forced to serve these Saudi women you call slaves). If you call the Saudi women slaves, what word would you use for their slaves? Slaves' slaves? Super slaves? Real slaves? Why not just call them slaves, and call the Saudi women something else, describe their situation with different words. Something like saying they're not given anywhere close to the same rights as Saudi men of equal standing, are not given the freedom that we consider a basic human right, and are forced to live in an underdeveloped society. That's bad enough, and I hope their situation improves, but it's not slavery.
        klyrs 6y ago
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Women are effectively owned by men. They can do very little without permission of a male guardian. There's been a bit of progress in the last few years, but for example marriage is a contract between two men amounting to transfering ownership of the bride.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      That's not as radically different from Western culture as Western culture likes to pretend it is. We have traditions like a man asking her father for her hand in marriage. We change her last name to signify she has transferred identity from her father's clan to her husband's. We treat marriage as very much a financial contract and divorce tends to hurt women financially much more than it does men. Etc.
      - bitexploder 6y ago
        Anecdotally this is just wrong. My wife’s Dad was a real piece of work. In a country like SA she would never have gotten away from him. She met me online. The day after she graduated college, without ever discussing it with her father, she moved away with me across the country. Her choice. She decided to take my last name, for simplicities sake, but it was a rational choice we made. Every step of the way it was her choice. Amongst my peer group almost all married women are in a similar situation. The level of freedom is orders of magnitude difference IMO.
        DoreenMichele 6y ago
        I chose to take my husband's name and kept it when I divorced him. But the tradition is rooted in that idea that she left her clan and joined his. That's the origin story for it. I don't have a simple solution for that one. I don't think it's inherently bad that women typically change their last name. But the reason it is done is because the way women get treated the world over has some things in common. The level of freedom is debatable for Western women. But I already said Westerners don't like to hear that and it got downvoted and dismissed out of hand. So I'm not really up for trying to argue it, given the climate.
noman-land 6y ago
This is such an awesome mental image. "When the hall flooded with nearly 3,000 women, some as young as 13 and others in their 50s, it was a shock. “I definitely did not expect moms to come,” Felwa said. Back then, it was mandatory for women to wear the traditional black abaya, and often a headscarf, while in public. It was only when the women walked through the doors into the all-female space that their abayas slipped off to reveal an array of cosplay costumes."
- hammock 6y ago
  This is what weddings are like (minus the cosplay) and it happens every week across the world
  - groby_b 6y ago
    The "change into cosplay" part here is the relevant part. Thinking you're one of only a few, and for the first time in your life discovering that you're far from alone is an amazing moment. I wish that happened every week across the world, but most of us will be lucky to experience this once or twice.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
DoreenMichele 6y ago
Makes me think of a meme or cartoon: https://me.me/i/cmdr-rheon-magerheon-replying-to-griglager-thi-s-sug-is-c97c16ad6a7848c88ad40b703fd340cd https://me.me/i/cmdr-rheon-magerheon-replying-to-griglager-t... Though when I was a teen "gamer girl" -- mostly RPGs -- I looked like a cross between the two images. You can be a gamer girl and also be pretty and like nice clothes. I was usually the only girl there. Glad to see progress on this front across the globe.
baybal2 6y ago
Saudi Arabia is a Middle Eastern North Korea. America's fascination with it is beyond understanding. How can the world's most libertarian nation fawn over one that is the least free?
- yoda97 6y ago
  Is it really that hard to understand?
  - erik_landerholm 6y ago
    yeah, it is. I get that they have oil, that doesn't explain the fascination. I could see an attitude of necessary evil, but a lot of americans think the saudis are some kind of beacon in the middle east.
    - nerdponx 6y ago
      That's exactly what's fascinating about it. It's totally different from the American day-to-day experience.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      I've never had that impression. To me, it looks more like "we need them because reasons, therefore we celebrate every little thing they do that isn't reminding us of how terrible complicit we are in keeping the country where it is". Like a poet who will write songs about their patron, turning each small gesture into a divine act.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      Conventional American culture is that Saudi Arabia is a necessary evil. Useful as a strategic ally for location and oil. That's it. There is no love for the country, especially post 9/11.
    - adventured 6y ago
      > but a lot of americans think the saudis are some kind of beacon in the middle east. A lot of Americans so on and so forth, supposedly. For example, one could say a lot of Americans think Iran is better and are fascinated with it (I see that premise on a frequent basis on HN and Reddit). Why are some large groups of people in the US fascinated by Iran? Such statements are, at best, opinions. I'd say that Iran is not better, they're both similarly terrible on human rights, they're both extraordinarily violent theocracies (Iran murdered thousands of protestors last year, while the US media went out of their way to ignore it; contrast that with the Khashoggi coverage - which tells you everything you need to know about who is fascinated with Iran). In the US, the left is very sympathetic with Iran and they more strongly dislike Saudi Arabia; and that's reversed for the right. Such theocracies have dominated the Middle East since the end of the Islamic golden age, over seven centuries ago. In Iran they murder gay people and deprive their women of basic human rights as a matter of cultural routine, as in Saudi Arabia. Both aggressively sponsor terrorism and proxy wars all over the Middle East, fighting for influence and position. Some just pretend there is a difference between the two.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
outsider7 6y ago
I lived in KSA for about 2 months doing post delivery services on a project at the client's office. As I started befriending some of the personnel, I found one of them had a daughter from his first wife. He was very angry at her and blamed her for the child, basically saying that she had become pregnant on purpose so that he would have to cancel his trip to Europe where he was planning on finding his fourth wife. He was the fairer and kinder man of the bunch over there. Most of them were mostly busy making stunts to have some time off at work and look good, not caring at all about work or worst, create problems so as to gain leverage against our company for negociation. They separated the immigrants workers in poor shared offices from the KSA citizens. Offices were also missing drinkable water even thought it was in a capital city (I could see skyscrapers...)... Ever since that trip, while I hope they'll see some positive change for women's right, I fear the opposite might happen to our countries due to low demographics. I don't believe we are benefiting from a relationship with that country at all, there is not point in even taking time to deal with them.

90 points by woldemariam 6y ago

This reminds me of the gender-based discrimination in Banks’ Culture novel The Player of Games. It’s still astounding to me to see a country keep half of its population in effective slavery.

vertis 6y ago
I don't even remember that from 'The Player of Games', perhaps I need to re-read.
- webmaven 6y ago
  In the book, the dominant "apex" gender is quite blatant about its subjugation of the other two (males and females). In this way, Banks managed to present an extremely unequal society and its ills without having to refute any of the unfair critiques either a patriarchy or matriarchy would have prompted.
klyrs 6y ago
The death penalty is still employed against LGBT folks there, too. Pretty awkward when your company wants to do business in a country where an onsite could be a lethal endeavor. Maybe, just don't do business with these folks until they get with the times. It worked with South Africa.
sukilot 6y ago
It's not freedom, but it's not slavery.
- watwut 6y ago
  It is not chattel slavery. It is that far off to other forms of slavery.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    It's pretty far off from other forms of slavery as well. The slaves in Saudi Arabia are the foreign domestic workers, like in pretty much all Arab countries. It's an underdeveloped culture, women don't have equal rights by any means, but it's not slavery. Continuously reaching for superlatives just makes the terms useless.
    - watwut 6y ago
      The "not having equal rights" is euphemism too, it makes it feel like western 1950-1960 when women still had significantly more freedom. Inability to leave makes big difference. Especially when limts are enforced by police prisons and both state and private violence. It is hard to distinguish from ownership.
      - luckylion 6y ago
        I said they don't have equal rights by any means, in other words they're not close to having equal rights. But it's still not slavery. Navy blue isn't as light as aqua blue, but that doesn't make it black. I'm not arguing for Saudi Arabia here, I find most things I know about their culture and traditions to be disgusting (though they appear to be making progress, no doubt thanks to international pressure and the oil money drying up). But I'm strongly against this trend of constantly reaching for the most extreme words for dramatic effect. Saudi Arabia does have slaves, actual real slaves. But they're not Saudi women (they're often women, but they're from e.g. Malaysia or the Philippines and are forced to serve these Saudi women you call slaves). If you call the Saudi women slaves, what word would you use for their slaves? Slaves' slaves? Super slaves? Real slaves? Why not just call them slaves, and call the Saudi women something else, describe their situation with different words. Something like saying they're not given anywhere close to the same rights as Saudi men of equal standing, are not given the freedom that we consider a basic human right, and are forced to live in an underdeveloped society. That's bad enough, and I hope their situation improves, but it's not slavery.
        klyrs 6y ago
- klyrs 6y ago
  Women are effectively owned by men. They can do very little without permission of a male guardian. There's been a bit of progress in the last few years, but for example marriage is a contract between two men amounting to transfering ownership of the bride.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    That's not as radically different from Western culture as Western culture likes to pretend it is. We have traditions like a man asking her father for her hand in marriage. We change her last name to signify she has transferred identity from her father's clan to her husband's. We treat marriage as very much a financial contract and divorce tends to hurt women financially much more than it does men. Etc.
    - bitexploder 6y ago
      Anecdotally this is just wrong. My wife’s Dad was a real piece of work. In a country like SA she would never have gotten away from him. She met me online. The day after she graduated college, without ever discussing it with her father, she moved away with me across the country. Her choice. She decided to take my last name, for simplicities sake, but it was a rational choice we made. Every step of the way it was her choice. Amongst my peer group almost all married women are in a similar situation. The level of freedom is orders of magnitude difference IMO.
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        I chose to take my husband's name and kept it when I divorced him. But the tradition is rooted in that idea that she left her clan and joined his. That's the origin story for it. I don't have a simple solution for that one. I don't think it's inherently bad that women typically change their last name. But the reason it is done is because the way women get treated the world over has some things in common. The level of freedom is debatable for Western women. But I already said Westerners don't like to hear that and it got downvoted and dismissed out of hand. So I'm not really up for trying to argue it, given the climate.

noman-land 6y ago

This is such an awesome mental image. "When the hall flooded with nearly 3,000 women, some as young as 13 and others in their 50s, it was a shock. “I definitely did not expect moms to come,” Felwa said. Back then, it was mandatory for women to wear the traditional black abaya, and often a headscarf, while in public. It was only when the women walked through the doors into the all-female space that their abayas slipped off to reveal an array of cosplay costumes."

hammock 6y ago
This is what weddings are like (minus the cosplay) and it happens every week across the world
- groby_b 6y ago
  The "change into cosplay" part here is the relevant part. Thinking you're one of only a few, and for the first time in your life discovering that you're far from alone is an amazing moment. I wish that happened every week across the world, but most of us will be lucky to experience this once or twice.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

DoreenMichele 6y ago

Makes me think of a meme or cartoon: https://me.me/i/cmdr-rheon-magerheon-replying-to-griglager-thi-s-sug-is-c97c16ad6a7848c88ad40b703fd340cd https://me.me/i/cmdr-rheon-magerheon-replying-to-griglager-t... Though when I was a teen "gamer girl" -- mostly RPGs -- I looked like a cross between the two images. You can be a gamer girl and also be pretty and like nice clothes. I was usually the only girl there. Glad to see progress on this front across the globe.

baybal2 6y ago

Saudi Arabia is a Middle Eastern North Korea. America's fascination with it is beyond understanding. How can the world's most libertarian nation fawn over one that is the least free?

yoda97 6y ago
Is it really that hard to understand?
- erik_landerholm 6y ago
  yeah, it is. I get that they have oil, that doesn't explain the fascination. I could see an attitude of necessary evil, but a lot of americans think the saudis are some kind of beacon in the middle east.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    That's exactly what's fascinating about it. It's totally different from the American day-to-day experience.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    I've never had that impression. To me, it looks more like "we need them because reasons, therefore we celebrate every little thing they do that isn't reminding us of how terrible complicit we are in keeping the country where it is". Like a poet who will write songs about their patron, turning each small gesture into a divine act.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Conventional American culture is that Saudi Arabia is a necessary evil. Useful as a strategic ally for location and oil. That's it. There is no love for the country, especially post 9/11.
  - adventured 6y ago
    > but a lot of americans think the saudis are some kind of beacon in the middle east. A lot of Americans so on and so forth, supposedly. For example, one could say a lot of Americans think Iran is better and are fascinated with it (I see that premise on a frequent basis on HN and Reddit). Why are some large groups of people in the US fascinated by Iran? Such statements are, at best, opinions. I'd say that Iran is not better, they're both similarly terrible on human rights, they're both extraordinarily violent theocracies (Iran murdered thousands of protestors last year, while the US media went out of their way to ignore it; contrast that with the Khashoggi coverage - which tells you everything you need to know about who is fascinated with Iran). In the US, the left is very sympathetic with Iran and they more strongly dislike Saudi Arabia; and that's reversed for the right. Such theocracies have dominated the Middle East since the end of the Islamic golden age, over seven centuries ago. In Iran they murder gay people and deprive their women of basic human rights as a matter of cultural routine, as in Saudi Arabia. Both aggressively sponsor terrorism and proxy wars all over the Middle East, fighting for influence and position. Some just pretend there is a difference between the two.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

outsider7 6y ago

I lived in KSA for about 2 months doing post delivery services on a project at the client's office. As I started befriending some of the personnel, I found one of them had a daughter from his first wife. He was very angry at her and blamed her for the child, basically saying that she had become pregnant on purpose so that he would have to cancel his trip to Europe where he was planning on finding his fourth wife. He was the fairer and kinder man of the bunch over there. Most of them were mostly busy making stunts to have some time off at work and look good, not caring at all about work or worst, create problems so as to gain leverage against our company for negociation. They separated the immigrants workers in poor shared offices from the KSA citizens. Offices were also missing drinkable water even thought it was in a capital city (I could see skyscrapers...)... Ever since that trip, while I hope they'll see some positive change for women's right, I fear the opposite might happen to our countries due to low demographics. I don't believe we are benefiting from a relationship with that country at all, there is not point in even taking time to deal with them.