The Times, They Are a-Changing

Via Instapundit comes this heartening sight. Yeah, yeah, part of me recognizes that this is going to further antagonize segments of the domestic population. But most of me says "screw 'em; those folks have to get out of the middle ages sooner or later anyway."

Comments

[JSM]

So what else do you do on the side, Julian? When I clicked on H&R, I thought I had another porn popup!

[Ruthless]

Praise Allah!
She can eat crackers or crumble pita bread--whatever, as long as she wishes, on my side of the rack.

[thoreau]

This picture means that every Taliban prisoner in Guantanamo can plead insanity at his military tribunal. No sane man would want women like her to cover up. Even gay men would have to agree that she looks fabulous!

How long before we get "Kandahar Girls Gone Wild"?

[David Tomlin]

. . . I still like the symbolism.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I'm wondering if this really has anything to do with "changing times". The Miss Earth pageant could have been featuring scantily clad Afghan expatriates for years.

[Geotech]

I'd say the sight is as much "hardening" as it is "heartening".

Couldn't resist that one.

[Click here for the article]

"The Miss Earth pageant could have been featuring scantily clad Afghan expatriates for years."

Turns out that's not so.

Afghanistan's minister for women's affairs isn't happy though.

[Julian Sanchez]

Di-
Yeah, I saw that, I guess I still like the symbolism.
-js

[Larry]

Actually, it would be a pretty big step if "those folks" caught up with the middle ages.

[interested_bystander]

How long is it before we have dour-faced newscasters reporting on Kabul's new bulimia epidemic?

[David Tomlin]

There were anorexics in the Middle Ages. They were revered because God had given them the gift of fasting. Some were believed to literally eat nothing at all.

It would be interesting to learn if eating disorders are less common in societies where most women wear burqa/chador type garments. Think NOW would fund the study?

[Andrew Lynch]

Julian, is your tongue firmly in cheek? I hope so, because if moving out of the dark ages means we get to objectify even more women, then I'll take the darkness any day.

[chthus]

Andrew,

Odd, I don't recall you chiming in on horrible it was that Arnold had spent most of his career being objectified, and how nice it was to see people respecting him for his mind as he ran for office. But perhaps you are simply a sexist who hates men and only cares about women being objectified as they use their looks to get things in life.

[Anonymous]

Andrew, let me get this straight. Not allowing women to read, to go to school, to walk outside unaccompanied, to choose their own clothes, to drive, to pick a husband, to own propoerty, to practice law or medicine, to sign contracts--all these things are better than beauty pageants?

[Anonymous]

Tali-BAM-BAM-BAM!

[Mark S.]

Oh yes, how horrible it is to look upon a healthy, sexually attractive woman. We should take our cue from the dumpy, butch, dungeree-clad woman studies professors who tell us that appreicating the physical beauty of a good looking women like Ms. Samadzai" is somehow wrong. We hetrosexual men should, for some reason, be perfectly happy with sexual gradification from ugly, overweight, women in order to satisfy a standard of sexual egalitarianism that can never be met.

I hate to break it to Andrew and David, but men are genetically hardwired to WANT women who look like this. Just as women are hardwired to want muscular, handsome men. (It has something to do with raising healthy offspring that will survive to reproduce themeselves one day.) No amount of leftist brow beating will ever convince us that lard-asses like Rossane or Starr Jones are, in any way, sexy.

[Anonymous]

More proof that Reason has been taken over by goddless libertines.

[Douglas Fletcher]

What you don't realize is that Andrew is really a dumpy, butch woman.

[nm156]

Cute, but she's no Salma Hayek.

[David Tomlin]

My last girlfriend was bigger than Roseanne, and I assure you she found ways to be sexy.

[Anonymous]

Lary: "Actually, it would be a pretty big step if "those folks" caught up with the middle ages."

Not sure who you are referring to by "those folks". But if you meant Islamic countries. Then, I got news for you. Women in some islamic countries are presidents and prime ministers (e.g., present: Indonesia, past: Pakistan). So I guess if any one need to catch up with respect to women's rights, it is the US of A.

[Anonymous]

thank god for godless libertines!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lonewacko: I Blogged Across Am]

Benazir Bhutto is somewhat attractive as well. All countries have some percentage of pretty women, and a greater percentage of dogs. There are a lot of attractive Iranian and Armenian women, for instance.

The problem is that once they hit America most of them become Americanized.

But, at least pictures like this might keep them from other things.

[Adam]

The symbolism:

Having failed to successfully install ex-pat heads of state in Iraq and Afghanistan, we finally settle on an achievable goal: Install an ex-pat beauty queen. Declare victory on the "War on Terror".

[digamma]

Miss Afghanistan, Vida Samadzai walks during the presentation of the 60 candidates for Miss Earth 2003 international beauty pageant in Manila. The 25 year-old Kabul born beauty left Afghanistan in 1996 to live in California. Samadzi who is taking up international business at University Cal State Fullerton plans to visit Kabul soon. Miss Earth coronation night will be held 09 November.(AFP/File/Romeo Gacad)

So it's not like she just pulled off her burqa in 2001.

[pills]

"The 25 year-old Kabul born beauty left Afghanistan in 1996 to live in California."

That explains why she is so skinny. The girls in Afghaistan get more calories than California models. But she is still cute....

[joe]

Being aware of a person's attractiveness, even acting on that awareness, is not "objectifying" that person. Behaving as though their attractiveness (or unattractiveness, or physical strength, or disability) is their defining characteristic is objectifying them.

[J. M. Brescia]

Excellent, a beauty pageant..the last thing the Middle East needs. Way to piss off our enemies even MORE. *sigh* I do not know if our misunderstanding of the world could be more egregious than it currently is.

[Ken Silber]

Excellent, J.M.'s post above...pure distillation of cowardice and defeatism. Do what Islamic terrorists want so they'll be LESS angry. *sigh* Could some people's misunderstanding of terrorism be more egregious than it currently is?

[joe]

If there are not at least 1 billion people enraged at us on any given day, then the terrorist have won.

Why does that sissy-assed appeaser in the Oval Office insist on trying to win hearts and minds, anyway?

[Warren]

Spindly limbs, bony hips, ribs poking out. It's perverse that this woman is considered attractive. And it's jus crazy talk to refer to her as 'healthy'.

[joe]

Good on you, Warren!

[Xmas]

Mar, if I understand the social policy line coming from the women's studies departments, heterosexual intercourse isn't supposed to be about gratification, it is only meant for reproduction.

[Lonewacko: I Blogged Across Am]

Here's an XXX porno link some might find of interest: "Years of oppression in cruel male dominated society have made them angry. Now they are ready to get even!..."

[Anonymous]

Adam, from your cynical, fatuous remarks, one would think you're on the side of the terrorists.

[Mo]

Mark,
Some societies find large women to be attractive, so it's not a universal hard-wired concept. Attractiveness is more closely linked to the symmetry of features than being thin or fat.

Some studies have found that poorer societies and sub-cultures find larger women more attractive and rich cultures find thinner to be more attractive. In poor areas large women are seen as hardy and more able to pass on genetic material, when in rich societies, fat women are seen as lacking self-control. I don't have a link, so I know this is the equivalent to "I heard from a friend," but based on my observation it seems to be true.

Nevertheless, Vida's beautiful.

[fyodor]

Mo,

Good point about criteria for attractiveness varying among cultures. BUT, the more relevant issue to what Mark was saying is whether men are hard-wired to prefer SOME sort of standard of beauty over others. If so, and I think so, then it doesn't matter what exactly that standard or set of criteria is. Some women are going to get preferred over others on the basis of their appearance no matter what. And men are going to look at women matching the criteria that their society prefers and go, HUBBA HUBBA. Which to feminists and leftists is committing the sin of "objectifying" but which some of us, including me, say is natural and inevitable. Disagree with that?

[Douglas Fletcher]

She doesn't even look that great to me without my glasses.

If she gets the proper nutrition I think she'll probably have a fine looking daughter.