Althouse: "Sexual violence is a way of denying women journalists access to the story in Egypt... It’s not accidental. It’s by design."

October 22, 2012

"Sexual violence is a way of denying women journalists access to the story in Egypt... It’s not accidental. It’s by design."

Says Lara Logan — who was attacked, sexually, by an Egyptian mob last year — about a very similar attack this past weekend on French journalist Sonia Dridi.

40 comments:

Clyde said...: It's the story of the scorpion and the frog all over again: Doing those kind of things is their nature.

It's just another "unexpected" case of barbaric behavior in a Muslim country.; 10/22/12, 8:23 AM
Bob Boyd said...: In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.; 10/22/12, 8:30 AM
Big Mike said...: On Obama's watch Egypt went from the 20th century to the 12th.; 10/22/12, 8:33 AM
MayBee said...: I was fine with the idea of a Mubarek-less Egypt because I knew his political minions did things like rape women to keep them from voting.

I am saddened to hear that is still the way it is in the "new" Egypt.; 10/22/12, 8:33 AM
john sager said...: Religion of Piece.; 10/22/12, 8:34 AM
Mark O said...: If you are looking for a "war on women," this is where you can find it.; 10/22/12, 8:34 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: What a primative culture.

They've not even come so far as pointy green hoods and burning crescents.; 10/22/12, 8:50 AM
Cheryl said...: I hate that these journalists were attacked in this way, but she is very short-sighted if she thinks that sexual violence is used against journalists in particular to silence them. Sexual violence is perpetrated on all women, of all ages, to silence them in this culture.

It is too bad that Ms. Logan is framing the issue in this way. She has a powerful platform from which to speak. She could use it on behalf of all women in the Islamist culture. Her Western viewpoint and credible reporting would go a long way in jarring us out of complacency regarding this "religion of peace" and the culture it seems to foster.; 10/22/12, 8:50 AM
Salamandyr said...: That quote appears to imply a degree of forethought behind these attacks that I really do not feel exists. These mobs are made up of men who do not see women, particularly Western women, as fully human, and thus they feel entitled to do what they wish to them. Any denial of access is incidental to their desire to indulge their basest instincts.; 10/22/12, 9:04 AM
Anonymous said...: What a curse it must be to be born female in that culture.; 10/22/12, 9:08 AM
virgil xenophon said...: "Sexual violence?" In Moslem countries!? Who knew? 'Tis a puzzlement...in the lands of the "Religion of Peace?" Perish the racist thought..; 10/22/12, 9:09 AM
KCFleming said...: None of this happens if you just comply with Sharia.

Well, none of it gets reported, and if it does, the female is put to death for shaming the family.

I don't suppose they teach this aspect with the new public school instruction on Islam.; 10/22/12, 9:13 AM
Leland said...: I agree with Cheryl. It is no accident that the women were attacked, and it was to keep them from covering the story. It was also to keep all women from being out in public and being seen. It's not just about journalism. It is a "war on women" and the full story should be told.; 10/22/12, 9:18 AM
test said...: She's minimizing the issue. This isn't an effort to prevent women from getting a story, that's a myopic interpretation of the effect on female journalists. What we're witnessing is the enforcement of their cultural denial of full female participation in civil society. Women in their culture aren't supposed to undertake acts a/b/c, so when they do they're open game for mobs.; 10/22/12, 9:18 AM
Roger J. said...: Seems to me that if any woman in some islamicist societies dont understand the risks involved, they are simply ignorant of reality. I am not condoning what happened to them, but there are some significant realities that were overlooked and not understood.; 10/22/12, 9:21 AM
Bryan C said...: "What a curse it must be to be born female in that culture."

Yes it is. And it's too bad so many powerful women think making jokes about "binders" and lying to protect the President is more important than helping those women.; 10/22/12, 9:23 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: ... and lying to protect the President is more important than helping those women.

Hillary Clinton.; 10/22/12, 9:30 AM
Cedarford said...: There is also a false sense of entitlement that many female reporters believe they ARE entitled to the same rights and freedoms they have in the West most have anti-West views about when they go abroad to "report" in lands with quite different social values.

When they run into trouble, they are Shocked! and Outraged! that men treat unescorted females as pieces of meat and demand 3rd World cultures change accordingly to acomodate the entitlements the female reporters have in Western and Asian nations.

Even here, no matter how many "slut-walks" women do in safe white, mixed ethnicity, or hispanic areas a female has to be an utter fool to think that a drunk blonde in a braless tube top stumbling alone through a poorly lit high crime black 'hood, or an Asian woman walking with a load of cash after closing her store in the same ares (without some men giving her security) - is not at high risk of predation.; 10/22/12, 9:33 AM
edutcher said...: Lara Logan ought to be moderating the debate tonight.

She is not shilling for Zero.; 10/22/12, 9:33 AM
traditionalguy said...: Sexual rape of the women of the enemy is standard warfare in the Middle-east. That is what conquest looks like.

The superficial aspect is that she does not understand how totally Muslims despise all things Christian including the Great Satan's news teams.

The liberal world view assumes we are respected by Muslims...that is a silly joke.; 10/22/12, 9:33 AM
ricpic said...: Isn't there anyone with a smidgen of sense in the news bureaus of America or France who understands that you don't send a young female to cover a story in muzzie rapelands?; 10/22/12, 9:35 AM
Sorun said...: "What a curse it must be to be born female in that culture."

The women born into that culture must like it. If they didn't like it, they'd change it. All of those men have mothers.; 10/22/12, 9:42 AM
David said...: Not only is it by design, it's by government design.

The article makes it clear that there were many in the street who abhorred the conduct of the molesters and were willing to to act at their risk to assist Driri. But the Egyptian government, with its massive security apparatus, had no one present, nor does there seem to be much interest in prosecuting these cases,; 10/22/12, 9:47 AM
Nonapod said...: I think this idea that sexual violence against women journalists is somehow "by design" is giving these morlocks way too much credit. It's not some clever conspiracy, it's just a medieval mindset.; 10/22/12, 10:02 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: I thought Ayaan Hirsi Ali covered the pathologies pretty well for the last, oh, decade. Not sure why Logan was surprised that the Arab Springbreakers' hands were all over and in her. Anyone coming after Logan has to expect this is the norm.

These young Arabs live in a shithole with shit culture, repressed in every way, including sexual. And with modern communication, now they KNOW they live in shitholestan. May as well grab some western white ass if it's there for the groping.; 10/22/12, 10:03 AM
Anonymous said...: I was in Egypt several times during the 1980s. It's a barbaric mess of a country in every way. The way men regard women still sends chills down my spine but as a commenter here said it, if the women really hated it, they'd change it.

What this really reveals is that women as a class are masochists and as individuals are supreme pragmatists. As long as the individual woman maximizes her potential, she doesn't give a shYt about other women.

In other words, sisterhood is bullshit.; 10/22/12, 10:05 AM
Larry J said...: Mark O said...
If you are looking for a "war on women," this is where you can find it.

Contrast mob sexual assaults and the shooting of a teenaged girl who was advocating for educational opportunity with what goes on in America. The whole "war on women" meme for America is laughable. Oh my goodness, American women might have to pay a copay for their birth control! The horror of it all!; 10/22/12, 10:27 AM
Petunia said...: I used to think that all people aspired to freedom...of speech, assembly, to think for themselves, etc. I have realized that that, sadly, is not the case.

It was a trip that included two Canadian women that finally brought this home to me. They're happy to think for themselves on SOME issues, but are happy to have the government decide major things like what health care they get.

I can only imagine how much worse it is in primitive societies, where women aren't even given a CHANCE at freedom.; 10/22/12, 10:48 AM
virgil xenophon said...: MY question is: Why oh why are such things as Islam's sociocultural dysfunctions so easily intuitively obvious to some of us, while others whistle past the grave-yard despite a plethora of evidence regarding how Islam actually operates in practice given unfettered political/cultural power? Blinded by ideology is my only answer..; 10/22/12, 11:03 AM
Nomennovum said...: "What a curse it must be to be born female in that culture."

Too bad feminists don't agree with you. It's Western females that are oppressed by Western patriarchy.

Get with the program.; 10/22/12, 11:05 AM
Levi Starks said...: Which is more important? That we get an accurate Story delivered of what's happening in Egypt, Or that the story is brought to us by female journalists? I have no problem with women choosing to take any risk they desire, but when the risk is disproportionately based on their gender, they can no longer be objective in providing the story. Because the story must become one of "how women journalists are treated in Egypt"; 10/22/12, 11:09 AM
William said...: I don't know if these cretins are acting out some kind of Machiavellian plot against women. It's obviously a hostile act, but it seems more a crime of baseness than of political calibration.....It is said in those lands that when males wear western clothes that they are modernizing. When women wear western clothes, they are said to be corrupted by western influences.....The diminished status of women is part of the Islamic faith. There is, nonetheless, hope. Slavery is also part of the Koran. During the 18th & 19th centuries when the British pressed to outlaw this practice, there was countervailing pressure from religious people to keep slavery as an institution. The thinking was that which was permitted in the Koran could not be prohibited by law. Nevetheless, with the passage of time, even the most stubborn of the mullahs has come to see that slavery is wrong. Perhaps in time they will also see that the degradation of women does not serve the interests of Allah.; 10/22/12, 11:15 AM
William said...: I don't mean this as a pro Islam observation, but I was recently reading about Napoleon's conquest of Egypt. To westerners, Napoleon represented the force of equality and modernization. (Contemptuous snort.) It is worth noting that Napoleon did nothing to abolish slavery in Egypt. More tellingly, the slaves in Egypt had far more rights and were treated with far greater humanity than the slaves in the French West Indies. Let us also note that under Sharia law women had far more property and inheritance rights than under the Napoleonic Code......Muslims have much to learn, but western progressives have little to teach them.; 10/22/12, 11:23 AM
Nomennovum said...: "Muslims have much to learn, but western progressives have little to teach."

I kinda disagree. Western progressives taught Muslims a lot: How to use Western progressivism against the West (e.g. intimidating Westerners into enacting de facto Sharia via PC). How to avoid Western style societal decay which results from the application of feminist ideology (by keeping women out of the workplace, out of the voting booths, and out of the sexual market). How to control oil markets. How to blow shit up.

Muslims may be ignorant, but they're not stupid. And they do learn.; 10/22/12, 12:50 PM
Illuninati said...: William said:

" It is worth noting that Napoleon did nothing to abolish slavery in Egypt. More tellingly, the slaves in Egypt had far more rights and were treated with far greater humanity than the slaves in the French West Indies. Let us also note that under Sharia law women had far more property and inheritance rights than under the Napoleonic Code......Muslims have much to learn, but western progressives have little to teach them."

The myths about the benign Muslims continue. Anyone wondering how Muslims really treat slaves, here's a link to check out. http://home.comcast.net/~majerus-collins/slavery20081208uiou34253q15734264526265.htm

Just what rights did Mr. Bok have that you admire so much?; 10/22/12, 1:45 PM
wildswan said...: There were lots of Muslims, including men, willing to defend the woman reporter on that day. Her fellow reporter, people in a restaurant, some passers-by, the people who brought the van - all fought for her. That said, it shows a rotten society when men think they can behave like that to a woman who is just trying to be a free citizen. I don't care if it's traditional - one day women will get free in that region and then every group that went along with that kind of behavior will die out - suddenly and much to their surprise.; 10/22/12, 2:21 PM
Epiphyte - said...: If you're not obeying purdah - i.e. conducting yourself in a manner denoting visible submission to islamic law by veiling, segregating, traveling with mahram - you're a slut. Plus, only those women demonstrating submission to islamic law are afforded the protection of islamic law. Ergo, sluttiness defined as lack of visible submission to islam is a good defense to a charge of rape.; 10/22/12, 2:45 PM
Illuninati said...: For those who have bought into the myth that Muslims treat slaves well and give them civil rights, here is another story about a modern African enslaved by Muslims.

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/112/den100411.pdf

William, which rights did the Muslims give Ker which you admire?; 10/22/12, 3:54 PM
William said...: @illuninati: Sorry to be so late in making a response. Obviously slavery is an abomination however it is administered. Nonetheless, Bernard Lewis reports that in the 18th and 19th centuries most observers felt that slavery in Islamic lands was not so severe as in the west......Even in the west, there was wide variance in the lot of slaves. Sugar plantations were death mills. Tobacco and cotton plantations not so much. American exceptionalism applies even to slaves. North American slaves lived 25 years longer than West Indian and South American slaves.; 10/22/12, 10:21 PM
TMink said...: I do not think the violence against women is to silence them, those folks would have to value what women have to say in order to wish to silence them. I think this is best understood in terms of property rights and a view of women as less than human when you look at this section of the Arabic world.

Trey; 10/23/12, 8:58 AM