Friday
November 17, 2000
Let's fix our problems
In reply to both Ms. Banafshe Piraste ["Happy
withoiut you"] and Mr. Cyrus Raafat ["Nothing
more than cows"] who have directied thier utmost anger towards
each other, I belive it is no good for either Iranian men or women to try
and ruin each other.
The fact is that if there are wrong elements in a culture (which to
some extent exist in any culture including ours), they are going to affect
men and women equally. As an Iranian man, I totally agree that Iranian
men's treatment of women is at times very abusive and cruel. This has roots
in our Eastern culture and it is not exclusively Iranian.
On the other hand Iranian women are not completely blameless either
as they themselves surrender to this type of treatment. Living in an open
society like North-America would in principle have to help both of us correct
some of these wrong behaviors and try to realize that we are both the same
as far as our desires and rights are concerned.
However, it is so unfortunate that this freedom has acted exactly in
the opposit way in most cases (no generalization is meant to be made here).
Women, in prticular, have used it as a means to retaliate for what they
have been suffering from throughout the entire period of their submission,
and this has led to lots of outrageous conduct which we sometimes notice
among them in this part of the world and is not usually seen among the
natives who have grown up through these freedoms.
On the other hand it becomes very difficult for men to recognize these
rights for Iranian women, rights so readily recognized for American women.
As a result Iranian men end up accusing Iranian women of being promiscuous
-- as if they are from a planet diffrent than American women.
In my openion, it would be best to agree that we both have wrong elements
in our attidude stemming from our native culture. We should take advantage
of this free society to try fix them.
K.A.
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