Egypt Ranked as the Worst Arab Country for Women | The Rubin Report

you may remember the Arab Spring this is you know where all these rights were going to come in and everyone was going to be treated equally and there was going to be democracy in the Middle East basically started in Egypt then they got the Muslim Brotherhood then they overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood but we don't call that coup because we kind of like the guys that were sort of in in the first place anyway well new study has come out and Egypt which led this thing which once was the heart of the entire Middle East that yes Egypt is the worst country in the Middle East for women let's take look so yeah the worst five the worst five Arab countries for women Egypt Iraq which probably has little something to do with us Saudi Arabia which we did story on two weeks ago that women still cannot drive there they'll be able to vote in couple years but guess they won't be able to drive to the polling stations Syria no surprise there and and Yemen so let's just start with this the word men is in there feel like there should be funny BuzzFeed article somewhere in here where it's like top 10 outrage things you wouldn't see and it's just all these phot know the picture that was just in the back which just remind me of bad BuzzFeed parody article because you just know all these countries are going to have terrible policies against women you know that these countries are all in such flux and their governments are crumbling constantly so it's almost like now parody like what do you expect right and you don't expect more so the last couple weeks here on the show we've been doing these kind of things like couple weeks ago it came out that Kuwait is using system of gayar kid you not to keep gay people out of Kuwait don't gar technology from that no surprises there no like is it just one gay guy at the door like he's gay right so okay so we have gay so gays obviously not treated well in the Middle East as general rule right so then if we also have Saudi Arabia is one of our biggest allies although we're having some issues with them and women are not treated equally there now Egypt which I'm not sure where our alliance is right at this moment but we have all these countries that don't even have the sort of basic human rights not not everyone has to be treated great not everyone's treated great here but should we have just basic human your women have to be just relatively equal is that walk through the town square you shouldn't expect to be penetrated which it actually said in this article that 90% of the women who've walked through the main Town Square have at some point had clothing ripped off them or have been penetrated and then it went to say some of them were even raped they're not even including between the uprising and square me 99% of women have said they' experienced sexual harassment and not just like whistling from construction workers like harassment so but half the people know of people watching this will say the US has no right to tell anyone what to do and we don't treat our people that great and blah blah and think that's legit and and clearly the way our foreign policy is we're getting out of all these places walk down Main Street USA without the expectation of being sexually assaulted yeah mean mean women are still seen as second class citizens in this country so mean it's it's it's it's an uphill battle for women all the time but mean these are cultures that are ancient cultures that have not have never moved through the Age of Enlightenment mean there there's no sense of that that part of the evolution the Human Rights of Man is not conversation they've had in their culture yet so this is you know ancient cultures and this is how they you know women are absolutely second class citizens just to start with and so but you know we've been doing this for hundreds of years you know our policy is well you know we'll you're you're an important resource for us whether militarily or oil or whatever it is so we'll look the other way and but then do you help them okay so that's interesting when you said never thought of it that way that they're not at the stage of enlight like maybe they're basically on survival and food and shelter if you look at like maso's pyramid and you look at people's needs moving up it that's good point because it seems like they're still at Food Water Shelter stability all those but they're more like Tri they're tribal cultures mean the mid East is tribal culture and tribal cultures are not even it's not about democracy you know in tribal cultures women for the most part are you know treated as as do we care now that we're global village and we have access to this information and know people are suffering is it up to us now to go there and help them with these basic needs so they that's the part that's the part that think is particular interesting that never ever Works what works is the people in Tahir Square who originally did this Uprising are people who were educated in the west who are younger Generations who are attached to the global village through through the internet and and do have different point of view and they were trying to bring some new energy into their country Unfortunately they didn't have the political stability or foundation and when you you know when you take dictator away from these tribal cultures look at Iraq you take dictator away the tribes go go crazy and and they go back 500 years basically is what happens and so when you take the the kind of the the the oppressive forces off of culture like that chaos ensues and when chaos ensues women are victimized and and Egypt is the perfect example of that because for 30 years they had dictator who gave women basically no rights then they tried democracy and it got worse for year and then they revolted against the democracy and now they have the same military in that was the mo and not only that but it's wor it is worse now because even you know basam ysep who's the John Stewart of Egypt he's now been taken off the air he at least was on air it's terrifying see that's what when when we're talking about okay understanding that these are tribal cultures and that they're going to you know when they're in chaos and when they don't know what to do we're going to revert back there and that they have to do kind their own infrastructure and we can't help them disagree because our government is still aiding these other governments and are now taking journalists and people basically and taking them away from the people so if they can't have ever have an uprising if they can't have women speaking out to protect themselves because their government is being empowered and funded by people like the US the UK anyone else who's giving them money then we are indirectly in some way still influencing them so we can fund them we should help save them or not fund them at all and not save them just completely leave it alone but you can't do both but this doesn't this go to the fundamental difference between we want people to have rights so let's say as United States we'd like women to have equal rights but we also want Saudi Arabia's oil so we're constantly negotiating how do we do with that or even in Egypt right now we'd like them to have more rights but can we say to these guys who just came into Power again after not coup can we say well guys you know you're really otherwise cuz we're already taking some of the money away but this is the nature of politics politics is compromise and it has been since day one men have been trading things to to influence in power and and and you do you compromise with your enemy your enemy's enemy becomes your friend and all of that and it's very very complicated it's not black and white and we're not all going to stay on our borders and be isolationists and say we're not playing with anybody so you know unfortunately we have to go out on the world and play and make these compromises and it's horrific and it's not fair and they whoever said life was going to be fair on this planet that's the other thing but you think about our democracy here in America you know when it started only white male land owners were citizens and could vote so we have made progress It's not perfect but we have stuck with system but it takes lot of commitment to to try this system called democracy and Egypt tried for year mean come on it's going to take long time yeah and can just say it's pleasure to have two women when who we you know you guys are allowed to think and do all that stuff and with your boobs and all that good stuff