Sometimes, the gaps between Yemeni and American cultures don’t seem so large. Other times, they look enormous… My friend Diana just wrote a decent blog post (http://fullbrightest.wordpress.com/) about some legislation she was working on. She works in some women’s advocacy group here and they were trying to get some of the laws on rape changed. Sounds like a good thing, rape laws all across the middle east are really screwed up. Here was the thing that they were hoping to get passed into law:
If a man rapes a woman and she becomes pregnant as a result, he would be required to marry her.
Now doesn’t that sound like a great idea? Diana writes about her reaction really well. The ladies there sat her down and explained the idea behind the law. You see, if a child does not have their father’s name, that child will have a very difficult time in life. The idea is that if the rapist marries the woman, the child will have an easier life and he will be forced to take care of the child financially.
Wow, talk about a different world view… Notice that the woman that was raped isn’t mentioned at all? Those reasons only make sense if the woman that was raped is totally disregarded. In addition, I’m dubious that that a rapist will suddenly become a good muslim and support his new wife and child… The legislation wasn’t passed, but is it a good thing or a bad thing? Neither myself nor Diana has a really good grasp on that. How can you possibly approach problems like that when our priorities are so different?