Love, Heartbreaks and Deal Breakers

A change in direction of blogging and embarrassingly inspired by Rebecca Ferguson, who was in the Metro today and said 'nothing is real but love'.

Two people who I hold in high regard in my life have recently had their hearts broken, both men and both good people who adored their wife and girlfriend. My friend is only 24 and has a marriage and a child under his belt, so clearly he is that rare breed of pro-commitment man. He slaved away working two jobs, putting in 60+ hours a week to pay for his rent, his wife and child, whilst she did not work at all. Then one day his pregnant wife simply informed my friend she wanted a divorce. He did as she requested, left, slept on his friend's floor and cried at the marriage breakdown. After some soul searching and prayer for a sign, he found one.

He checked her email and found that she had aborted their child. Returning home and giving her chances to come clean, she claimed and continued to maintain she had had a miscarriage. He also received verbal abuse from a mother in law who did not even bother turning up to their wedding and whom he had never spoken to prior to this particular ambush.

My cousin on the other hand, is not the committed type, he's in no way a douche bag to women but he has always been a free spirit and notorious in my family for most likely to stay unmarried. Yet he found a young lady who he considered his soul mate. He called her one time and asked her where she was, as you do, she replied that she was at a mutual friend's house, he then asked to speak to her as he had something to talk about with this friend anyway, and she promptly hung up.

It was later exposed that she was cheating, not only that but she offered that she was only with him because she felt sorry for him. My cousin is NOT the type to take pity on, he comes from a great family, with money, has had his own business before the age of 25 and has one of those charismatic, carefree and funny personalities. It's the equivalent of a girl 'taking pity' on I don't know, Robert Patterson, or George Clooney or insert your own heartthrob here.

Women often lament the lack of good men and quite rightly so for the majority of the time, but the women who do get the good men also seem to be fond of taking the piss.  

Sometimes all it takes is one epiphany moment to realise that the person you thought was THE ONE was not. The all-defining deal breaker. For me, one day I woke up and suddenly realised that the person I became, and the person I was with, was not the person my parents raised me to be and be with. And that was it.

See http://raraproductions.blogspot.com/ & http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/

Women's Role in the Arab World

*Inspired by the encircling & protection of women protesting in Tahrir Square*

Many in the West deride women's rights in the Arab world or lack thereof, I am not defending it but everywhere in the world there is sexism in various different forms.

In Yemen, the current president Ali Abdullah Saleh criticised women for protesting because this indicated that they were fraternising with the opposite sex. Firstly, this statement was clearly made in a pathetic attempt to deflect criticism from his own actions onto Yemeni women and secondly, any footage you see will show that the women protest only with each other and their children.

Women are oppressed in Nepal, a Buddhist country for goodness sakes, through avenues such as inheritance rights and access to education. There was even an incident where a nun was expelled from her sect and refused treatment at a state-run hospital, what was her crime? Having been gang raped then robbed by a bus driver and four others who were pretending to help her.

In Saudi Arabia, in 2007 a woman met up with a man, unaccompanied, apparently to retrieve some photos of her from him. They were then set upon by a gang of seven strong who gang raped her. The gang was inevitably punished with imprisonment for up to a measly four years, yet she was also sentenced to six months imprisonment and 200 lashes for meeting up with a man who was not her relative. She was eventually pardoned by the King of Saudi because of the media furore and global criticism it caused.

There was a recent report of a woman in Afghanistan who was raped at the age of 18, as fate would have it, she became pregnant from this rape. She reported this to the authorities, who charged and imprisoned the perpetrator. However the rape victim herself was imprisoned for her role in the 'moral crime', about half of the female Afghan prison population are there for similar so-called moral crimes. She has been in prison for over a year with her child in tow and she was offered early release if she marries her attacker. She was unwilling of course at first, but she says she is now willing to do so for the sake of her child to not be incarcerated any longer.

Although thank goodness there is not such overt atrocities in the UK, sanctioned by the state anyway, there is sexism in every country. Here, like other countries that continue to ignore legislation, women are still paid less for the same job as a man. They are also exploited nationally every day in the most popular 'news'paper in the country. Women in the entertainment industry must look as good as possible and say as little as possible, that is meaningful anyway. Despite all the advancements of women's rights in this country, what is the first thing that a man will say to a woman who he is having a conflict with? I have lived in a working class area my whole life and when any couple has a domestic on the street, even with kids in tow, the first thing he will call her is a slag, whore and the ilk. This sexism crosses class divides, a self-proclaimed Conservative activist hash tagged a North African journalist referring to her as an 'Arab whore'. The police refused to investigate the case, she cited selective investigation compared with the recent racist football spat. (see 'Why Are We All Racist?'). Also, let us not forget the worst atrocity against females, the biggest genocide in the 20th Century; the selective abortion of female babies.


Just as men would have women believe that they are all terrible drivers or they cannot do this or that, women will conform to stereotypes that men create. Women should not let men define what they should be, that should be for us to determine. One of the most important steps in the Arab revolutions, if not the most important, is for women to play a greater role, for when you educate the women, you educate the whole nation*.





See also http://raraproductions.blogspot.com/ & http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/

*Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)