Several years before the start of the Afghan conflict, Barbara Walters of 20/20, wrote a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan. She noticed women customarily following five steps behind their husbands.
She noticed that women were still walking behind their husbands, when she recently returned to Kabul. Walters wondered if the women were happy to adhere to the old customs. She stopped a woman and asked, ‘Why do you now seem happy with an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change"?
“Land mines,” the woman said without hesitation.
Women in New Guinea also walk behind their men, but for a very different reason. It is well known that crocodiles take the last person in the line.
However, in Japan, women don’t even enter into many men’s minds, except as a stuffed doll.
Ta-Bo has taken the idea of women being subservient to men to a new level. This 45 year-old engineer has collected nearly 100 hundred silicone dolls. Ta-Bo has spent over $170,000 on his collection, on what many call ‘Dutch Wives’. One life-like doll can cost up to as much as $6000.
“A human girl can cheat on you, or betray you sometimes, but these dolls never do those things,” Ta-Bo says. “They belong to me one-hundred percent.”
Eating sushi off a woman’s naked body is known as traditional Nyotaimori, or ‘female body presentation’
Now, however an English couple have introduced Nyotaimori into London. For approximately $400 you can consume unlimited alcohol, which includes champagne on arrival, followed by a 10 course authentic sushi dinner, eaten form the naked body of female model.
Arriving at various secret locations around London, which can range from a grand mansion, to an unoccupied warehouse, diners are ensured privacy and exclusivity. Numbers of guests are limited to between 12 – 24, with only one sitting a month, until March 2010.
Nyotaimori also has an underground following in the United States, with celebrities such as Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
Many believe that any society that marginalizes women, can only be doomed. Education is the only lasting way to make a difference and lift every member of the society to a place of dignity and honour, regardless of sex, religion or colour.
Dr Wendy Stenberg-Tendys and her husband are CEO's of YouMe Support Foundation (http://youmesupport.org) provide high school education grants for children who are without hope. You can help in this really great project by taking a few minutes to check it the Tropical Island Treasure Chest at Win a Resort (http://winaresort.com) It really will change your life.
Feel free to contact Wendy on admin@youmesupport.org
