Pants: women should not wear them

I do not think this has to do with interfering in the culture of people.
It has to do with trying to save a little girl to be screw to death by a grown up man, who in our society is more or less seen a pedophile.
Just like women should be saved from female genital mutilation <FGM>.
Or do you find that is ok that women has to go thru that?
Or that girls are sold by their parents as brides and have no chance what so ever to go to school? Do you find that good?
If you say yes to this, you help to support women being oppressed

You take for granted I am a white person - how come?

I did make the assumption that you are White based on your point of view and what you have revealed in the the time I have interacted with you. You are probably correct that you have never said this directly.

I will find it amusing if I am wrong. Please tell me

Of course this has everything to do with interfering with the cultures of other people. There are many cultures that involve young girls being married to older men. These include indigenous cultures in North and Central America that were wiped out by European colonizers. The Marriage customs of indigenous cultures was one of the reasons given by colonizers that these cultures were inferior and should be replaced by European culture.

Let's look at the word "pedophile". You and I both understand that a pedophile is a pervert. He or she deviates from our cultural views of normal sexuality and does great harm to their victim in the process.

Do you really think that applying this word "pedophilia" to the normal cultural practices of Native American peoples, or African cultures is appropriate?

Is this a justification for wiping out these cultures? (Which, in fact we did). I don't. I don't believe that the White European culture is superior, nor to I believe that it is our right to stop cultural practices that clash with our specific set of moral values. Wiping out other cultures we see as inferior is something that we have been doing for hundreds of years... and something that I am ashamed of.

There are still peoples in Brazil and other parts of South Africa that have been untouched by European culture. We have agreed to leave them alone. There is a very good chance that some of the marriage and sexual customs of these tribes would shock and offend you... and yet I still suggest that we have no right to ruin their way of life.

How can you judge that Glennn?

You are a White woman from a Western culture (correct me if I am wrong). Who are you to decide what the lifestyle of women in indigenous cultures. What about women who choose to live in these indigenous cultures?

Can you accept the possibility that native Arab women, or Native American women, or Native African women might actually like their cultures and want to keep their own cultures in spite of the disapproval of White women?

Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi from Pakistan and India got the Nobel Peace Prize for the fight for the right of women and children
They are fighting for their own country and are happy for every help they get from outside.
Read this if you can without getting sick - and I tell you the women in these countries are happy to get support from outside. So are the men. Strangely more women are for FGM than men. Somehow as if they want their daughters to suffer just as much as they did
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation

At least you can see part of the paradox of your position.

India and Pakistan are ancient cultures that were colonized by European powers who considered their original culture to be barbaric. Do you believe that these cultures are better off because White people came to tell them which of their practices they should give up?

There is a problem here.... European culture has felt a superiority for centuries, it is part of European culture that it is their duty to bring civilization to the indigenous cultures of the world.

Do you think that as a whole, the dominance White European culture over indigenous cultures has made the world a better place? That is what you are talking about here.

Yes, as a Westerner myself I have a natural admiration for Malala and Kailash Satyarthi who are standing up for my values and being opposed for it. They are exceptions rather than the rule, and as you point out many people are choosing to push back against Westernization to various degrees.

There is not always an easy answer to these questions... but I am deeply troubled by the effect that Colonialism has had on indigenous cultures, and I am troubled that the push to Westernize ancient cultures still continues.

Child marriages, FGM and many of the other practices you mentioned make me sick too. And I personally don't give a damn about 'culture', mine or theirs. Reason, logic and free will dominate my judgements on all maters.
As you point out, many women of those 'cultures' are in favor of these insane practices.

Free will means you can choose to abandon reason and logic therefore the only legitimate intervention one culture should impose on another is information. If upon receipt of that information they choose to adopt better practices then I would support them morally and to the extent that it is possible, materially.

I think we (the United States) has overstepped our right to intervene and missed our opportunity to inform and educate in many cases. The internet is probably the greatest force for good in that respect, better than any government program.

There are organization to help these women to get a better life.
I think men would also profit from it. Would it not be nicer for a man to have a wife whom he could discuss with, who would enjoy having sex with him.
A marriage where two people respect one another, also like one another.
When you together can bring up children to a good life.

Don't you think that this is possible outside of a Western cultural context? Pre-colonial Native Americans didn't have these organizations, and many of them had arranged marriages.

I suspect that women in these cultures (as different as they were to our own culture) thought they had a good life. As you point out there are many modern women still rejecting Westernization. The Native Americans very well have had good marriage and enjoyed having sex with the men they were married to.

... of course we can't ask them because the Europeans who came to civilize them wiped their cultures out.

I think you mix up things.
You find the colonizing by Europeans all wrong.
Trying to change others culture wrong.
Still you think that the culture keeping women uneducated, child marriage,
FGM, forced marriage (that of course also includes the man), honoury killing
should continue to be part of a country`s culture.
It has nothing to do with colonizing and very little with culture - only traditions to keep women on a level lower than the domesticated animals.
Several years ago one of my collegues married a man in north Africa. She got a blood poisen and nobody took her to a doctor. A new wife would cost less than a visit to a doctor. She survieved and thanks to the firm´s good connection to an airline she got back home.
Another one also married to north Africa and has had a wonderful marriage and all the children are well educated. This thanks to the high level of her
husband´s and his family´s education.
One of my relatives married to Africa and that did not work out at all and one married a man from Iraq. The marriage certainly is far from good. Let me be fair. It is her fault - not his.

It isn't mixed up at all. How do you change the definition of a core cultural practice, such as marriage, in someone else's culture without causing upheaval?

If you come to another country and say "Oh my God, these people are barbaric. We have to save their women", then you are going to have an excuse to drastically change a perfectly functional culture. That is exactly what you are suggesting we should do.

The practice of polygamy that was present in many pre-colonial American cultures was given as a reason that these tribes needed to be Christianized by European colonizers. Missions were built all along California for exactly this purpose and the result is that these cultures no longer exist.

I am admitting that these issues aren't simple. Often there is no way to reconcile one's own cultural beliefs with the practices of other cultures. And you have zeroed in on practices that I agree (according to cultural beliefs that you and I happen to share) are barbaric. You are bringing out cases where old cultures have already started the rocky process of being colonized and are partially under the influence of Western culture.

But that doesn't change the fact. Child marriage has been practiced in many cultures throughout the world for millennia.

If you consider the practice of child marriage to invalidate a culture, then you have invalidated the hundreds of indigenous cultures... and you have justified colonialism.

You can't stop child marriage without imposing your cultural values on indigenous cultures. Do you think your White European values are important enough that forcing damaging changes on cultures you dominate is worth it? History shows that I am right. The attempts by White Europeans to force cultural values (such as eliminating child marriage) have had drastic, sometimes devastating impacts on these indigenous cultures.

Wow.
This pants thread sure has legs.
Whowuddathought?

So in your opinion, a marriage between an adult male and an emotionally immature female is perfectly acceptable. Do you imagine that the girl made a good choice . . . or even made the choice. You want to lessen the inappropriateness of this kind of thing by calling it culture. You call it a cultural thing when it is actually a male oriented desire.

I'm not even going to open a discussion of female genital mutilation because there is no way to hide it behind culture when attempting to justify it. It's a perverted practice that harms females.

What about the women who would rather not?

No one has said that one country should invade another country to force them to change their perverted ways. But that doesn't mean that how they treat children and how they mutilate the genitals of females is simply a matter of cultural differences between them and us.

That statement is true without what you put in parenthesis. Cultural beliefs don't change the nature of barbarism. Nor do they lessen the suffering of the recipients of that barbarism.

HA!! Pure gold!

Glennn, You and I are taking about two different things. Your posts are about what behavior is appropriate relating to marriage and gender roles in 21st century Western culture. And you and I mostly agree on this. Since you and I are both part of the same 21st century Western culture and were raised with much of the same influences and values, it is not surprising that we agree so much.

As long as we live our lives only within a 21st century Western culture, than what you are saying makes perfect sense.

I am trying to broaden the discussion. My question is what behavior is appropriate relating to marriage and gender roles in pre-colonial indigenous cultures.

Do you accept that these two questions have greatly different answers... and that specifically the women who lived and raised in their own cultures would have vastly different, and equally sincere opinions on these issues then you have?

If you aren't willing to step out of your own cultural perspective, then having this discussion isn't very interesting since within the cultural perspective we don't disagree enough to make it interesting.

I still believe that pushing Western ideas of marriage and gender onto indigenous cultures is a problem.

Of course cultural beliefs change the nature of barbarism. The definition of barbarism depends on your cultural beliefs and different cultures will have different ideas on what is barbaric.

Barbarism is a charge that members of one culture make against another (usually weaker) culture. I doubt that any culture has ever referred to itself as "barbaric".

You and I have differing ideas when it comes to when a female is psychologically and emotionally mature enough to be with a man.

We also differ in our beliefs concerning whether or not mutilating the genitals of females is barbaric. You believe that if that's what the culture dictates, then it is appropriate and really not barbaric at all.