Re: [SG 2] Infantry weapons combinations

Hi,

On Wed, Dec 22, 2004 at 05:41:55AM -0500, John Atkinson wrote:
> > Laserlight, so I can know for my IF mercs in the IC service -- does
the IF
> > take female soldiers?  I'll include them if the IF sends them.
> 
> It would take a total sea change in Islamic culture for there to be
> females in any meaningful role other than farm labor and childbearing.

I've personally known a number of women in the medical profession,
hailing
from Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon and Syria. Mostly dentists, oddly. Don't
quote
me, but I'm fairly certain these countries comprise at least a part of
"Islamic Culture" :-)

As well, I believe Turkey and Malaysia both have female soldiers---there
may
be others, I don't know.

In any event, the concept of a monolithic and unchanging Islamic culture
is
clearly deeply flawed in most respects.

> Islamic views regarding women are worse than European views on women
ca. 600 AD.

Respectfully, I fail to see how one could possibly have a worse view of
women than that of sixth-century Europe.

> And they havn't changed, nor can they change as they are explicitly
> stated in the Quran.

This view of Muslims blindly adhering to every letter of the Quran is
rather
overplayed. It is certainly true of the Wahabbists, and other
reactionary
fundamentalists, and these factions have certainly gotten much more
vocal
recently (to put it mildly). But it would be foolish to compare the
Islam of
the Ottomans, say, to that of the "modern" reactionaries. Islam has
always
been subject to a great deal of interpretation---how else to explain the
differences between the Wahabbist and the Sufi?

Cheers,

M.