"Please help me to tell the world to leave
the woman's body the way God created it."

The Nakedness of Woman is the Work of God
Why mess with what God has made (in my opinion) damn near perfect?
I could not agree more with the young lady below!

From: DeltaNet Form Processor
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 97 02:11:23 GMT
Name=Rairo
comments=As a child I SAW A GIRL who was circumcised at the age of 10 and and she died during the process.
My aunt can't have any kids becuase of this primitive attitude.
I can't enjoy my womanwood simply because man in my culture they think women will be prostitutes.
Please help me to tell the world to leave the woman's body the way God created it.
How is life treating you=Not bad
Age=26
Country=Australia

The following is from an interview of the Algerian feminist Khalida Mesaoudi by French journalist Elisabeth Schelma. Mesaodi comments on the political implications of Islamic fundamentalism for women. Mesaodi has been sentenced to death by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS, according to its French acronym) terrorist group in Algeria.

Khalida Mesaoudi : When I read Columba by Prosper Mérimée, it reminds me of the status of women in traditional Algerian society. Yet, Columba is Christian, and we are Muslims. One should not look for the answers in religion as a faith. Besides, Algerians have been Muslims for fourteen centuries, but emotional and sexual destitution has become an alarming social phenomenon only in recent years.

Elisabeth Schelma : If Islam is only a pretext, as you suggest, then what underlies this fixation?

Khalida Mesaoudi : Sexuality. The fundamentalists, like any totalitarian movement, want to exercise absolute control over society, and they fully realized that the place to start was by seizing control of women's sexuality, something Mediterranean-style patriarchy facilitates. In addition, like all purifiers, they hate and persecute difference, which inevitably accompanies democracy. Now, what women represent is desire, seduction, mystery, trouble, and also alterity, which is immediately visible on their bodies. That is why the Islamists are so anxious to hide the female body, to veil it, to make biological difference disappear from the body's external signs. The women who refuse to submit to this become perfect targets, because they embody the Other that the fundamentalists need to mobilize and rally people to their cause. This was even easier in Algeria during the time when the fundamentalists were gaining influence, because women were the most vulnerable members of society and had been made even more vulnerable by the pre-existing systems, colonization and then the F.L.N. [National Liberation Front, the official single-party in control of the Algerian government].