Saudi Cleric Pummeled On Twitter For Claiming Driving Damages Women's Ovaries

An anonymous reader writes "CNN reports, "Sheikh Saleh Al-Loheidan's widely derided remarks have gone viral ... 'If a woman drives a car,' Al-Loheidan told Saudi news website sabq.org. 'it could have a negative physiological impact. It would automatically affect a woman's ovaries and that it pushes the pelvis upward.' ... 'We find that for women who continuously drive cars, their children are born with varying degrees of clinical problems.' The controversial comments were widely interpreted throughout Saudi Arabia as an attempt to discourage women in the country from joining a popular online movement urging them to stage a demonstration by driving cars on October 26. 'This is his answer to the campaign,' Saudi women's rights activist Aziza Yousef told CNN. 'He's making a fool of himself. He shouldn't touch this field at all.' Al-Loheidan's words have been ridiculed mercilessly via social media. An Arabic Twitter hashtag called '#WomensDrivingAffectsOvariesAndPelvises' was quickly created to make fun of Al-Loheidan — underscoring just how widely the call for Saudi women to defy the driving ban has resonated thus far. And while numerous conservative voices have supported Al-Loheidan, many Saudis believe this was an extremely clumsy way of trying to counter the popularity of the October 26 campaign.'"

Comments

Where to start with this one...?

[Ragnarok89]

And driving is bad as opposed to sitting when: reading? eating? watching TV? listening to the radio? any of the other myriad of activities done while seated? What an idiot.

Re:Where to start with this one...?

[Sponge Bath]

He must be a liberal democrat!

His unscientific view of women's anatomy more closely resembles that of Republican Todd Akin, who claimed women have magic body parts that prevent conception when "legitimately" raped.

Re:Where to start with this one...?

[Slashdot Parent]

I'm pretty sure he wasn't the only republican to agree with that philosophy.

Well, considering the backlash that former Rep Akin received from the Republican Party after making his ridiculous commentary, I'd say that Akin's in a small minority. His shockingly ignorant statements cost him his seat, so I'd say he paid a fair price.

Around the time that he made his commentary, I tried to understand what would make him want to believe such a thing that made no sense. What I think it boils down to is a basic conundrum for pro-lifers: You can't ban abortion in any effective fashion if you make an exception to the ban for rape and incest, because if you do, women who are seeking abortions will simply lie about the circumstances of their pregnancies in order to obtain legal abortions. Allow those exceptions, and you haven't outlawed anything. In order to address this loophole, it is necessary to outlaw all abortion for any reason (except, perhaps, if the mother will die if the pregnancy continues), but this position of eliminating the rape/incest exception is unpalatable to the American public.

Once you understand the issue from their perspective, it's easier to see how they could believe such a ridiculous notion, that a woman's body will somehow prevent a pregnancy from occurring if she is raped violently (for brevity, let's ignore the 'legitimate/forcible rape' issue). They need some way to close that loophole, and this is one such way to do it: a belief that if a pregnancy occurred, then she must not have been raped. If that bit of medical fiction were true, then we could know that the pregnancy was not the result of rape, so no exception would be granted.

So that's why such a theory is so seductive to some, in my estimation.

you know...

[buddyglass]

As crazy and wrong as this guy is, his claim isn't completely out of left field. One of my physics teachers in high school (who had worked as an engineer at Bell Helicopter) related the story that, apparently, some of the helicopters initially used in the Viet Nam conflict happened to vibrate at the resonant frequency of the human kidney, causing pilots to experience organ damage. They had to add material to the seats to cancel out the vibrations. Here's a page from the Canadian equivalent of the U.S.'s OSHA:

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/phys_agents/vibration/vibration_intro.html

Re:Self-driving cars

[Captain Hook]

of course not, because the issue is not really about driving it's about independance.

Re:Fundamentalist Religions: Oppressing Women Fore

[ArcadeMan]

If Sarah Silverman had said it, we would be laughing at her joke because that's a stupid thing to say.

Re:eh...

[NeutronCowboy]

When you actually look at the demographics [nytimes.com], the Tea Party crew are actually more educated than the average American

Let's make sure we know what educated means in this context: more degrees than a similar population of average Americans would have. To some extent, this matches my experience: tea partiers - or those who espouse the libertarian aspect of the Tea Party - have more money than average, and have at least a Bachelor Degree, if not a Master. No PhDs among the ones I know though.

However, there's one area where they are spectacularly ignorant, to the point where I'm starting to think that there's some specific cognitive effect at work: they all think that they made it on their own in the world, think that Government should be run like a business and think that the purpose of Society is to make their life better. Keep in mind though that they the vast majority come from wealthy families, have businesses that fail, are full of cronies and family members, experience how shoddy and shady businesses can be, and live in one of the most stable environments in the world.

Even the mainstream Tea Partiers that I know - or at least those who profess no ideological attachment, but pretty much recite Tea Party and Republican political platforms verbatim - indulge in a massive misunderstanding of how society operates, what the role of government is or even what made their own success possible. Top that off with a complete lack of understanding what the debt ceiling is (a badly set up part of the budget process), and even the "moderate" Tea Partiers can come across as complete lunatics. For my friends who are part of this group, I treat them like the crazy uncle - they're always welcome, but certain topics are forbidden, unless everyone consents to "lively" debates until 4 AM.