Blogging has opened a whole new world for us to say what is on our minds freely; it has given us an opportunity to voice out opinions that we did not before and it allowed us to communicate with people across the globe, isn’t technology great??

It is a good thing to be able to debate and maybe change one’s convictions about some of the beliefs he/she has and blogs about; this only happens when the debate takes place among mature individuals who stick to the main topic and discuss it in pure objectivity might their point get through and prevail.

Unfortunately; what is happening is quite the opposite, when someone writes about any topic, you find some of the commenters leaving the main issue and attacking the writer and trying to make him/her look bad and that he/she has issues that forced them to be like that. This can be true in some cases but it does not apply to all cases.

People reading some of my previous posts accused me of generalizing, of being bitter because I am overweight, angry because I am still single, unhappy because I am visually unappealing and that’s why I attacked men in my post. Some of the comments that were not approved said that I need a man and that I need to have kids and that I was a bad example for women in Jordan; all that because I voiced out my opinion and said that SOME men are jerks.

If you go to someone’s house and use their own space to sit and eat and do whatever a guest does, do you stand in the face of your host and start calling them names? Do you attack them because they do not agree with you or if they state out their opinion in general? What makes blogs any different? This is my space and I am entitled to say whatever I want on it, and I am not hiding myself; it does not give anyone the right to come to my space and attack me personally while hiding behind a fake identity and an unknown IP; things do not and should not be like that.

You don’t like what I am saying; that is your right and I cannot deny that or take it away from you, but discuss rationally, show me your point without insulting me or trying to make me look bad on my own blog, you do not have the right to do that!!

Some of the readers were kind enough to answer the bashers and try to explain to them that things don’t work this way, for that, I thank them and appreciate what they did and tried to do.

I never generalized, show me where in particular did I say that ALL men or Arab men are not worthy? You have read that in the comments and not in the post. This episode started when Qwaider accused us (Arab Women), or girls of today as he puts it, of wanting soft boys to marry and forgot about the real oriental man; I was simply giving him examples of reasons why the “Arab Oriental” adjective was not that appealing to some of us. Reasons that can apply to a large sector of Arab men in our society and I never said ALL, do you hear that? I never said ALL, yet; I was accused of generalizing.

The two stories I added later were also examples of my real life to support what I said earlier , and like you have many positive stories from your own experience, I still have tens of stories like the ones I mentioned.

Many of you forgot the main issue and attacked me getting too personal and saying things that have no truth to them; to those I say: your comments will not be published as long as they are disrespectful, if you don’t like that, don’t visit my blog, don’t read what I say and most importantly; do not leave a comment unless you are prepared to take responsibility for it; be accountable and say who you are, then you will be more than welcome to give your opinion. Speaking of your opinion; if it did not contain value to add to the topic at hand; it will not be published either; this is my blog and I call the shots here.

Back to GOOD OLD ARAB GUYS out there; some of you are jerks just like all the men in the world, and some of you are great people, however; we all know that bad things always are more apparent than good things. I did not mean to offend all of you; I just wanted to point out to Qwaider and everyone else who commented on his blog and mine that men share responsibility and blame for the dysfunctional relationships and marriages that we have in our society today; that’s all and I hope you get the point now, end of story … turn the page please!!!

Everyone was wondering why I had my views about SOME Arab men; I was even accused of not having a single successful relationship in my life and that’s why I was so bitter and hated Arab men; I was accused of being a psycho and that I am generalizing while I stated all over the post that what I said did not apply to everyone but I guess people read and take only what they want and start reacting accordingly.

One commenter said that since I have a weight problem and reaching my mid-thirties while still single are valid reasons to hate Arab men and that if I was not overweight and visually appealing, I would have had a successful relationship and I wouldn’t have been so angry, but hey; he does not blame me for feeling bitter, gosh; that was so kind of him/her.

So, does this mean that all what Arab men think about is how their future wives looked? Doesn’t that prove my point that Arab men (some of them) do not know how to pick their wives and use the very wrong standards to doing so? Doesn’t that prove that these guys are clueless and selfish? But this is only my humble opinion and no one has to agree with me.

I want to share a couple of stories with you; they are very real and happened to people in my surroundings.

First story:

This girl got married traditionally at the age of 18; since her husband was not rich or anything, she ended up living with his family. They had a house that resembles old Syrian houses in their structure, where they share an open space in the middle and rooms are all around. They had this huge iron door to their bedroom.

Every morning; this guy would wake up very early to go to his work; he worked in the vegetables market and had to rush out very early to get his goods for the day and go around to sell it using his car. So far, so good.

The problem is that this guy locks the door on his wife before he leaves; she cannot leave her room even if she tried and she did not have a separate key. She has to wait for him till he comes in the evening and opens the door for her so that she can get out and breathe some fresh air. Forget about all the possibilities of something bad happening like the house catching fire or the wife needing help or something.

The story gets better as the wife was pregnant with her first child. That day; the guy did his daily routine and locked the door, left his wife at home (9 months pregnant) and unfortunately that day; he forgot his mobile phone at home, and we wonder where these authors get their stories from!!

Anyway; during the day, the wife goes into labor and she has no one around, she is home alone, she does not have a phone, no way to contact her husband and an iron door as heavy Gail bars. She started calling out to her mother in law, any one; she had to call out to people from the window to ask them to call any one from the house to help her. She was suddenly surrounded by people, some where trying to break down the heavy iron door but it was too strong they decided to call a blacksmith to try to do something. On the other end at the window; they called a doctor to walk the girl through delivering her own baby on her own, and yes, this really happened.

The doctor kept giving her instructions on what to do and how to get the baby out, and this poor young locked up wife had to deliver her first baby on her own and live through the window for the whole world to witness. No body was able to open the door; she delivered her baby, and they all waited for the husband to come back to unlock the Gail and have his wife and newborn kid taken to the hospital to be attended to!! What a wonderful Arab man!!

I will let you judge for yourself; you might say that this guy is not educated or whatever; but read the second story:

Second story:

This one is about a teacher; she was married to this nice educated and highly sophisticated guy (or that’s what she thought). They had 3 kids, 2 girls and a boy. They built their own house and worked together to make it a good home. This almost sounds like a great story of a successful family.

After they finished paying for their house; she and her husband discussed the possibility of having another kid before it is too late for them to try. He was totally against it saying that he does not want more kids; the girls will be married in the future and they will have their son live with them in their big house; he did not need new responsibilities. She reluctantly agreed because she knows that soon she will not be able to have kids even if she wanted to, but if that’s what her husband wants then why ask for trouble?

One day, he comes to her and suggests that they build another storey and make a new flat, she argues that they do not have the money for that and that they do not need another flat; he said that this is like an investment; they build the new flat and move in it, and put the old one for rent, this will pay for the money they have to borrow to build the new flat and it will be a good option for their son in the future. She was worried about where to get the money from; he suggested that she asks one of her brothers to give her some guarantees in the bank to get a loan; her salary would be installments to pay back the loan until the old flat is rented.

She does that and does not disappoint her husband; and they build the house. When it was finally ready and she was preparing to move to the new flat; she gets the shock of her life, her dear husband has married another wife and brought her to live in the new flat. When he was asked why he got married; he answered that his wife can no longer have children and he still want some more; Allah has given him the right to marry another wife for this purpose so he has a clean conscious and is convinced that he did the right thing! Another wonderful Arab man from my surroundings!!

I will not add another word here and you be the judge; these two stories and true and happened exactly as I heard them.

P.S. I have turned on comments moderation because there are some people out there who do not differentiate between me allowing them to speak out on my space and insulting me personally which is unacceptable, so forgive me my devoted readers for doing this but I am sure you understand!

Women’s right to equal citizenship is guaranteed by the majority of Arab constitutions, as well as by international law. Yet across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the Gulf, women are denied their right to nationality – a crucial component of citizenship.

In almost every country in the MENA and Gulf regions, women who marry men of other nationalities cannot confer their original nationality to their husbands or children. Only fathers, not mothers, can confer their nationality to their children.

The Women’s Learning Partnership joins with partners in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf to call for:
1. Legal reform enabling women to confer their nationality to their husbands and children without condition
2. Full implementation of reformed nationality laws and equal access to these laws for all women
3. Recognition of women as equal citizens in all areas of life

Read the Citizenship Campaign blog here

Sign the petition here

Isn’t this a cute kid???
Just listen to what he wants to do for his wife … very funny indeed

Hope you enjoyed it

I really don’t know what I would do if this was me

That was really bad …