Mere Rhetoric: Hey Gals, Check It Out - Neanderthals Literally More Progressive Than Saudi Clerics

Here is an update from MEMRI about a controversy of some public traction that's taking place in Saudi Arabia this month. Apparently, there are several very noted Islamic scholars who claim that it is literally against God's law and the natural order for women to work outside the house - at all:

Public debate has flared up recently in Saudi Arabia over the issue of women in the workplace, following the government's decision to expand the number of areas in which women may work, as well as to allow only Saudi women to work as saleswomen in shops catering to women, such as women's clothing, lingerie and cosmetics shops. The government decision provoked opposition from Muslim clerics, who consider it to be against shari'a for a woman to work outside the home. On the other hand, the government decision was welcomed by intellectuals - both male and female - who see women's employment as an important step towards improving women's status in Saudi Arabia.

And here's a report from the science section of this yesterday's New York Times, which describes the division of labor situation that existed among our ancestors about 45,000 years ago

Unlike modern humans, who had developed a versatile division of labor between men and women, the entire Neanderthal population seems to have been engaged in a single main occupation, the hunting of large game, the scientists, Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner, say in an article posted online yesterday in Current Anthropology.

You know those Geico commercials about cavemen that get offended when various ad agency guys accidentally imply that cavemen are backwards or stupid?

Admittedly, that commercial annoys the hell out of us - but maybe there's a point there. Remember this the next time that you unthinkingly say that Islamic societies ruled by strict Islamic law are "primitive" - consider just where on the cultural time-line the idea of women never leaving the house at all actually falls.

Previously: Palestinian Control Means Subjugation of Women, Texting Pop Star Gets Lebanese Girl Savagely Beaten By Her Father, In Saudi Arabia, Doctors Who Touch Women Might Become Dirty - This Includes Handshakes

About

Omri Ceren is a PhD student studying Rhetoric at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. He lives in downtown Los Angeles.
Email: omri@mererhetoric.com
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