Young Adults 'Don't Want to be Defined by Gender, Orientation'

From USA Today - April 19, 2009

Young adults 'don't want to be defined by gender, orientation'

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

CHICAGO — Sexual orientation and sexual labels. Gender crossing and
gender bending. These aren't X-rated or adults-only topics but rather
subjects that young people talk about as they figure out where they
fit in, said a panel of experts at a weekend conference of the Council
on Contemporary Families here.

"Youth are saying they don't want to be defined by gender or
orientation," Chicago psychologist Braden Berkey told those attending
a panel on "Gender in the Next Generation" on the final day of the
conference Saturday.

Berkey is founding director of the Sexual Orientation and Gender
Institute at the Center on Halsted, which opened in 2007 to offer
support services and programming for the area's lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender community. He talked about the evolution of sexual and
gender labels and how young people today are trying to dissolve them.
He says the terms created in the early days, such as lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender, are giving way to other descriptions, such
as polygender or multisex. Young people, he says, reject narrow gender
definitions and say they don't want to be defined by their sexuality.

However, a presentation by sociologist Barbara Risman of the
University of Illinois at Chicago suggested that for the
middle-schoolers she's studied, attitudes about sexual orientation are
less open-minded, especially for boys. She says these boys fear the
label "gay."

Among boys, "homophobia in middle school is used to police gender," she says.

In-depth interviews with 43 students at an urban middle school in the
Southeast found vast differences between the sexes.

"Today, girls are free to do sports and be competitive. No one thought
they had to play dumb to get a boyfriend. The women's movement has
done great things for middle school girls," she says.

"It's another story with boys. I feel like we're in a time warp. We
have not dealt with men and masculinity in a serious enough way," she
says.

"Boys police each other. There's no room not to do anything not
traditionally masculine."

Risman says it's important not to generalize the findings to most
American children, but she says the fact that boys are labeled quickly
suggests that this is a developmental stage. The study, she adds, was
limited by many rules requiring parental permission for contact with
minors.

Risman says it's the stigma of homosexuality that looms among young
boys. Being emotional or caring too much about clothes or liking to
dance are reasons that boys give for describing someone as "girlish,"
she says.

Berkey suggests that we're living in a "post-gay world" where gay
celebrities can hawk products that traditionally have been marketed as
attractive to the opposite sex. He suggests that society has advanced
to the point that companies don't worry about anti-gay bias when
seeking spokespeople for products. As examples, he mentioned openly
gay actor Neil Patrick Harris as a spokesman for the traditionally
male Old Spice deodorant and lesbian talk show host Ellen DeGeneres,
who is a spokeswoman for Cover Girl cosmetics.

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Violence Flares at Protest Over Afghan Sex Law

Musadeq Sadeq / AP

Afghan women carry a banner reading "We want a law, but democratic one," during a march against a new conservative marriage law in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday.

Women hit by stones at rally against law critics say legalizes marital rape
The Associated Press

Wed., April 15, 2009

KABUL - A group of some 1,000 Afghans swarmed a demonstration of 300 women protesting against a new conservative marriage law on Wednesday. The women were pelted with small stones as police struggled to keep the two groups apart.

The law, passed last month, says a husband can demand sex with his wife every four days unless she is ill or would be harmed by intercourse — a clause that critics say legalizes marital rape. It also regulates when and for what reasons a wife may leave her home alone.

Women's rights activists scheduled a protest Wednesday attended by mostly young women. But the group was swamped by counter-protesters — both men and women — who shouted down the women's chants.

Some picked up gravel and stones and threw them at the women, while others shouted "Death to the slaves of the Christians!" Female police held hands around the group to create a protective barrier.

The government of President Hamid Karzai has said the Shiite family law is being reviewed by the Justice Department and will not be implemented in its current form. Governments and rights groups around the world have condemned the legislation, and President Barack Obama has labeled it "abhorrent."

Foreigners accused of meddling
Though the law would apply only to the country's Shiites — 10 percent to 20 percent of Afghanistan's 30 million people — it has sparked an uproar by activists who say it marks a return to Taliban-style oppression. The Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, required women to wear all-covering burqas and banned them from leaving home without a male relative.

Shiite backers of the law say that foreigners are meddling in private Afghan affairs, and Wednesday's demonstrations brought some of the emotions surrounding the debate over the law to the surface.

"You are a dog! You are not a Shiite woman!" one man shouted to a young woman in a headscarf holding aloft a banner that said "We don't want Taliban law." The woman did not shout back at the man, but told him: "This is my land and my people."

Women protesting the law said many of their supporters had been blocked by men who refused to let them join the protest. Those who did make it shouted repeatedly that they were defending human rights by defending women's rights and that the law does not reflect the views of the Shiite community.

'We want our rights'
Fourteen-year-old Masuma Hasani said her whole family had come out to protest the law — both her parents and her younger sister who she held by the arm.

"I am concerned about my future with this law," she said. "We want our rights. We don't want women to just be used."

As the back-and-forth continued, another demonstration of Shiite women who said they support the law began.

"We don't want foreigners interfering in our lives. They are the enemy of Afghanistan," said 24-year-old Mariam Sajadi.

Sajadi is engaged, and said she plans to ask her husband's permission to leave the house as put forth in the law. She said other controversial articles — such as one giving the husband the right to demand sex from his wife every fourth day — have been misinterpreted by Westerners who are anti-Islam.

TOPSHOTS An Afghan Shiite woman, her face covered, listens to a speech by Mohammad Asif Mohseni, a top Shiite cleric, during a press conference in Kabul on April 11, 2009. Afghanistan's top Shiite cleric defended a new law said to oppress women and accused Western critics of the controversial legislation of "cultural invasion" and violating the democracy they introduced. Mohammad Asif Mohseni also rejected a ministry of justice review of the law ordered by President Hamid Karzai, saying any changes would violate a constitutional provision for Shiite's to have their own jurisprudence. 10:35 a.m. ET, 4/11/09

Pakistan Agrees to Islamic Law in Taliban Area

Critics say agreement represents a dangerous surrender to militants

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, right, meets with U.S. Sen. John Kerry in Islamabad on Friday. Kerry held security talks with officials on Monday. Full Article from MSNBC.com - April 13, 2009

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Faisal Alam
alam.faisal@gmail.com

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
  — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Taliban Execute Couple for Eloping

Taliban execute teenager, man for eloping
Afghan clerics impose death penalty after pair are accused of immoral acts

The Associated Press

Tues., April 14, 2009

KABUL - Taliban gunmen executed a young couple in southern Afghanistan for trying to elope, shooting them with rifles in front of a crowd in a lawless, militant-controlled region, officials said Tuesday.

The woman, 19, and the man, 21, were accused by the militants of immoral acts, and a council of conservative clerics decided that the two should be killed, said Ghulam Dastagir Azad, the governor of the southwestern province of Nimroz.

Riflemen in the remote district of Khash Rod shot the man and woman with AK-47s Monday during a public execution, said Sadiq Chakhansori, the chief of Nimroz' provincial council.

In remote and dangerous regions of Afghanistan, Taliban fighters operate what are sometimes referred to as shadow governments, where militant leaders serve as government officials and run their own police units and pseudo court systems.

The Afghan government has no access to the remote region where the two were shot and killed, said Jabar Pardeli, the provincial police chief of Nimroz.

Harsh social rules

The two fled their homes and hoped to travel to Iran, but their parents sent villagers to bring them home, Chakhansori said. Once back home, the pair was either turned over to the Taliban by their parents or the militants came and took them by force, the officials said, providing slightly varying accounts.

The conservative Taliban movement ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001 and put in place harsh social rules that forbade unmarried men and women to talk or meet in public. Women were not allowed out of their homes without a male relative, and girls couldn't go to school.

Taliban fighters have widened their influence the last three years and now control many remote districts in Afghanistan where there are not enough U.S., NATO or Afghan forces to establish a permanent presence.

Responding to commanders' requests for more troops, President Barack Obama recently announced that the U.S. would send 21,000 more troops to the country this summer to bolster the 38,000 U.S. forces already in the country.

Afghan Law Does Not Allow Rape, Cleric Backer Says (But Starvation is OK)

Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni

From Reuters - April 16, 2009

By Emma Graham-Harrison

KABUL (Reuters) - A new Afghan law that has drawn Western condemnation for restricting women's rights does not allow marital rape as its critics claim, but lets men refuse to feed wives who deny them sex, the cleric behind it says.

Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni's Shi'ite personal status law sparked controversy abroad because of a provision that "a wife is obliged to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband."

This was read by some as an open door to marital rape, and together with clauses restricting women's freedom of movement denounced as reminiscent of harsh Taliban-era rules.

The law has been criticized by Western leaders with troops fighting in Afghanistan, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who called it "abhorrent."

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the law last month, has since put it under review.

But Mohseni said the law -- which only applies to the 15 percent of Afghans who are Shi'a Muslims -- has been misinterpreted by critics. Its sexual clauses aimed only to ensure men's sexual needs were met within marriage, because Islam prohibited them seeking satisfaction with other women.

"Why should a man and woman get married if there is no need for a sexual relationship? Then they are like brother and sister," he told Reuters in an interview in his recently built central Kabul mosque and university complex.

A man and wife can negotiate how often it is reasonable to sleep together, based on his sex drive, and a woman has a right to refuse if she has a good reason, said the bearded cleric.

"It should not be compulsory for the wife to say yes all the time, because some men have more sexual desires than others," he said, adding that husbands should never force themselves on their wives and the law does not sanction that.

But women do have a duty to meet their husband's needs.

"If a woman says no, the man has the right not to feed her," Mohseni said. The law allows women to work, so they could theoretically refuse sex and support themselves, but in mainly rural Afghanistan most women are dependent on husbands.

The law is milder than the severe restrictions imposed by the Sunni Muslim Taliban, who banned all women and girls from any work or study, and from leaving the home without a male relative. But opponents still consider it a step backwards.

They also want to strike down a provision that says women can leave their home freely for work, education or medical care, but otherwise require their husband's permission to go out.

Mohseni said this was not a final word -- if women want more freedom of movement, they can ask for it to be included in their marriage contract: "If he says no, she can marry someone else."

But in Afghanistan most marriages are arranged and women's low social status would make it hard for most to refuse a union.

MAKE-UP ON DEMAND

Another measure in the law described as demeaning by rights groups is a requirement that women wear makeup if their husbands wish. The soft-spoken cleric said this was to protect relationships.

"When men venture outside they see lots of other women with makeup, but he comes home and finds his own wife with a dirty face," Mohseni said.

"This is mentioned to encourage men to have more interest in a social and personal life with his wife."

Opponents of the law say it codifies traditional practices that are in fact not required by Islam.

Qazimiya Muhaqaq, professor of Political Science at Katib University and one of a group of women involved in a street demonstration against the law this week, told a news conference on Thursday the law makes women bow to their husbands.

"A woman and man must satisfy each other, it's natural, they are in a relationship. But this law states that whenever a man wants, the woman is obliged to satisfy her husband," she said.

Reuters asked Mohseni several times if he could detail the religious reasons for restricting women's movements, and requiring them to wear makeup, but he did not provide them.

Mohseni has been closely following the international debate about the law, condemning NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer for his criticism and saying U.S. President Barack Obama had spoken in ignorance when he called it "abhorrent."

The cleric had hoped that after speaking about the law last week its critics would seek him out to get a better understanding of its contents, but said he was disappointed by them.

"After my press conference I was expecting a delegation from the West to come and meet me but they are just playing politics." "Without proper reading people make their own opinions about the law, which I really regret," he added.

Istanbul's First Female Mosque Designer

Among the dozens of mosques in Istanbul stands a radical exception.

It is not only different in design but is also the first to be designed by a woman.

Known for designing hotels and bars, Zeynep Fadillioglu said she wanted to create something contemporary.

She spoke to the BBC's Sarah Rainsford as they walked through the building.

Heavy Metal Islam: Banned Rock Bands Come to Austin, TX

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

April 15: Musicians, from a variety of foreign countries, who are not allowed to play rock music in their home countries, because it has been deemed too political or too provocative in some way, can play here in the United States. As NBC's Amna Nawaz reports from a musical festival in Texas, band members, they are grateful to be able to play without static.

Video: Violence Flares at Protest Over Afghan Sex Law

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Picture of the Week: Islam's Soft Revolution

Olivia Arthur / Magnum for TIME

Stylish
Hala dons a pink hijab for a date on Valentine's Day. Muslim women's attitudes about the appropriate amount of make-up to wear and the proper amount of hair to reveal vary widely.

Related Article.

Afghan Women Protest New Restrictive Law

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images for The New York Times

About 300 Afghan women, facing an angry throng three times that number, walked the streets of the capital on Wednesday to demand that Parliament repeal a new law that introduces a range of Taliban-like restrictions on women, and permits, among other things, marital rape.

From the NY Times.

April 16, 2009

Afghan Women Protest New Restrictive Law

By DEXTER FILKINS

KABUL, Afghanistan — The young women stepped off the bus and moved toward the protest march just beginning on the other side of the street when they were spotted by a mob of men.

"Get out of here, you whores!" the men shouted. "Get out!"

The women scattered as the men moved in.

"We want our rights!" one of the women shouted, turning to face them. "We want equality!"

The women ran to the bus and dove inside as it rumbled away, with the men smashing the taillights and banging on the sides.

"Whores!"

But the march carried on anyway. About 300 Afghan women, facing an angry throng three times larger than their own, walked the streets of the capital on Wednesday to demand that Parliament repeal a new law that introduces a range of Taliban-like restrictions on women, and permits, among other things, marital rape.

It was an extraordinary scene. Women are mostly illiterate in this impoverished country, and they do not, generally speaking, enjoy anything near the freedom accorded to men. But there they were, most of them young, many in jeans, defying a threatening crowd and calling out slogans heavy with meaning.

With the Afghan police keeping the mob at bay, the women walked two miles to Parliament, where they delivered a petition calling for the law's repeal.

"Whenever a man wants sex, we cannot refuse," said Fatima Husseini, 26, one of the marchers. "It means a woman is a kind of property, to be used by the man in any way that he wants."

The law, approved by both houses of Parliament and signed by President Hamid Karzai, applies to the Shiite minority only, essentially giving clerics authority over intimate matters between women and men. Women here and governments and rights groups abroad have protested three parts of the law especially.

One provision makes it illegal for a woman to resist her husband's sexual advances. A second provision requires a husband's permission for a woman to work outside the home or go to school. And a third makes it illegal for a woman to refuse to "make herself up" or "dress up" if that is what her husband wants.

The passage of the law has amounted to something of a historical irony. Afghan Shiites, who make up about 10 percent of the population, suffered horrendously under the Taliban, who regarded them as apostates. Since 2001, the Shiites, particularly the Hazara minority, have been enjoying a renaissance.

President Karzai, who relies on vast support from the United States and other Western governments to stay in power, has come under intense international criticism for signing the bill into law. Many people here suspect that he did so in order to gain the favor of the Shiite clergy; Mr. Karzai is up for re-election this year.

Responding to the outcry, Mr. Karzai has begun looking for a way to remove the most controversial parts of the law. In an interview on Wednesday, his spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said that the legislation was not yet law because it had not been published in the government's official register. That, Mr. Hamidzada said, meant that it could still be changed. Mr. Karzai has asked his justice minister to look it over.

"We have no doubt that whatever comes out of this process will be consistent with the rights provided for in the Constitution — equality and the protection of women," Mr. Hamidzada said.

The women who protested Wednesday began their demonstration with what appeared to be a deliberately provocative act. They gathered in front of the School of the Last Prophet, a madrassa run by Ayatollah Asif Mohsini, the country's most powerful Shiite cleric. He and the scholars around him played an important role in the drafting of the new law.

"We are here to campaign for our rights," one woman said into a loudspeaker. Then the women held their banners aloft and began to chant.

The reaction was immediate. Hundreds of students from the madrassa, most but not all of them men, poured into the streets to confront the demonstrators.

"Death to the enemies of Islam!" the counterdemonstrators cried, encircling the women. "We want Islamic law!"

The women stared ahead and kept walking.

A phalanx of police, some of them women, held the crowds apart.

Afterward, when the demonstrators had left, one of the madrassa's senior clerics walked outside. Asked about the dispute, he said it was between professionals and nonprofessionals; that is, between the clerics, who understood the Koran and Islamic law, and the women calling for the law's repeal who did not.

"It's like if you are sick, you go to a doctor, not some amateur," said the cleric, Mohammed Hussein Jafaari. "This law was approved by the scholars. It was passed by both houses of Parliament. It was signed by the president."

The religious scholars, Mr. Jafaari conceded, were all men.

Lingering a while, Mr. Jafaari said that what was really driving the dispute was not the Afghans at all, but the foreigners who loom so large over the country.

"We Afghans don't want a bunch of NATO commanders and foreign ministers telling us what to do."