Blunt ramblings about cultural differences I think are ignorant

I would like to vent. One of the girls told me that they were told in dorm worship that they shouldn't open their legs more than what looked like a 40 degree angle because then they might not be virgins anymore. Excuse me? They might not be virgins anymore? Man, I would hate to lose my virginity to... stretching or playing basketball or riding a bike... or accidentally falling down. (Was that too explicit/blunt/just rude/completely inappropriate?) You are a virgin until you have had sex. Oh goodness. I would like to thoroughly educate the world about hymens and how easily they can tear. Beth was telling us that during her rotation in OB, a baby was born with her hymen not in tact. Do not teach these poor girls that they are unfit to be married because they tore their hymen while running too fast. In very traditional Egyptian places, the parents come the morning after the wedding night to see the bloody sheet. Excuse me? Mind your own business. What is our way of determining his virginity? There is none. But I guess it doesn't matter what he does because it's not his fault if the girl is "asking for it." Leave the poor girl alone, and go home because you cannot see the sheet. I'm planning on talking to Pastor Tom about having a time when we can divide the girls and guys and just talk to them about certain things. I will tell Alec exactly what I want the guys to know. I want it very clear that a man determines the sex of a baby and that unstained sheets don't convict her of harlotry. I would like to speak very directly about hymens, anger management, physical and sexual abuse, female circumcision, and many more things. Oh poor girls. I've felt like such a feminist today. No... I feel like I'm just realistic. These girls are flabby and in terrible health because they "might not be virgins" if they actually move. Seriously?

I have come to see that a lot of people who are considered "good people" seem to believe that their goodness is allowed to be dependent on others' goodness. One girl told me that a guy was being inappropriate, and this guy is--so it seems--is one of the most upstanding guys in the school. She told him to leave her alone, and his response was something to effect of his actions being okay because it was her. That made me sick. I was absolutely infuriated. I vented and lectured whichever poor students were around me, and I ingrained in their minds that if they EVER EVER EVER EVER hit a girl, I would come back to Egypt and beat them. I was thinking that the only reason to ever get violent is because the person has no other way of controlling the situation. "My wife won't do what I want her to do or say what I want her to say, my boss yelled at me at work and I have no control, so let me hit my wife." I made it so clear that only weak men who don't know how to get control hit people weaker than them. (At least I made it clear that that was my opinion.) One of those guys asked me later to tell my class what I told him today. It gets me so worked up. I also considered that if a man is incredibly protective of his wife/girlfriend out on the streets, so protective that he would rip off his belt and beat someone for calling her a moza, and then he goes home and hits her, then his protection for her in the first situation was really only about himself. It was for his pride. No one should ever call his woman a disrespectful name. They had better not believe that he is weak enough to let someone do that. It reminded me of what I read in my book on Egyptian culture that my dad gave me to read before I got here. It said women should not sit in the front of a taxi. If they do, it is basically giving the cab driver permission to touch her leg because "no respectable Muslim woman would put herself in that place." I'm sure that not every guy feels this way, but it was just incredibly disappointing, and it makes me so very protective of my girls. I don't really get angry when it comes to things about myself, but if it concerns my sisters, my campers, my students, anyone who is "mine," oh... you'd better look out.

Tina is coming in May, and I'm so excited. I gave a worship thought on Proverbs 31:30--"Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." I said that the pretty girls will one day be hags, and when you've had a bad day at work and come home to screaming kids, would you rather have a beautiful wife or a best friend? When you're too old for sex (I didn't say this part) and you just want someone to talk to you and encourage you, will it matter if she was pretty when she was twenty? As soon as I finished talking about this, I said that I was so thankful that Tina is coming to visit. The first thing that they shouted out was, "IS SHE BEAUTIFUL?!?!?!?!" Ya merari.

Much love to all of you. :)