On Britney and bride kidnapping

I’ve decided that this blog has turned into some sort of a ranting blabber but I promise, I’ll try to write about more light-hearted topics soon.

Anyhow, I was watching PBS the other night and they had a story about bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan. I saw the second half of it, I had to see what the Britney and Kevin hoopla was all about. Not surprisingly, it left me feeling nauseous. I admit, there may have been other causes for the nausea, but watching K-Fed tongue-ing Britney, who was chewing gum at the same time, was fairly repulsive.

So when I switched to PBS, a young Kyrgyz lad was on a look-out for his soon-to-be bride who essentially is some chick he thought was cute. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find her and decided to kidnap her friend instead whom he hadn’t met before but thought she would do fine. The translation of his thoughts about her was something along the lines of: “I liked her looks.” Anyways, his parents were really excited about the kidnapping, especially the mother who apparently needed someone to tend to the family’s flock of sheep. Yep, life in Kyrgyzstan is never dull. So they bring the poor girl to the family’s hut and the girl is crying the whole time, saying that she came to the big city, Osh, to earn some money and attend the University; clearly, sheepherding wasn’t her plan. After some persuasion, which to me seemed really acted out, they let the girl go who then proceeded to run like the wind. OK, I made up the running part.

The story goes into a tragic event where a woman was kidnapped and a week later, the body was delivered to her parents’ house. Apparently, she had committed suicide and the father suspected that she had been raped.

But the narrator ends with a more uplifted story about a woman who got kidnapped and now lives happily ever after with her dashing Kyrgyz husband and is now 2 months pregnant. The wife said something along the lines of: “Being kidnapped is not so bad. Now I have someone to dream with.” And the female narrator comments that despite feminist views of women’s rights, perhaps bride kidnapping is not so bad after all.

Which brings me to the point of the day (which I then decided to discuss with my friend on the phone and I have a feeling that she thinks I am on crack. Which I am but that’s a new post). You hear a lot about these traditions that emphasize male dominance. But then you learn that some women (not all but a fair amount) are actually happy with the tradition and want to keep it going. In fact, during the story, a mother said that she wouldn’t be opposed to her daughter being kidnapped because bride kidnapping is in “Kyrgyz blood.” So essentially, according to our standards, bride kidnapping is wrong, against women’s rights and those who subject themselves to it, don’t know any better and blindly comply with traditions.

But who says they’re wrong?

I tried to bring this point as far as female genital mutilation (and I already predict that there are a whole lot of people out there already rolling their eyes, that is if they even get to this point), which is not much different from our ways, mainly make-up, cute outfits, maybe even plastic surgery, to make ourselves more desirable for the object of our desire. Of course, at the same time, I don’t want to say that I am all about tearing out a woman’s clitoris and sewing her vagina shut. That hurts. A lot. And for a long time. Not to mention other awful consequences and lack of any sort of enjoyment of sex. But my point is that a lot of this is driven by the human desire to be attractive, to be accepted, to be desired, and, ultimately, to be with another human companion. Whether being cut or kidnapped or wearing a mini-skirt with uncomfortable high heels.

And men undergo similar process, although they don’t cut their genitals (unless they decide to convert to Judaism to impress a lucky lass) but I know a whole lot of men who do things to make themselves be more desirable, whatever desirable means for them or women they are lusting after.

So ultimately, as long as there is a choice, especially when it’s something as drastic as genital mutilation, a tradition is a tradition. Despite the fact it may make someone uncomfortable. As a side note, several societies in Africa have stopped practicing genital mutilation with the help of men who spoke and took action against mutilation. Yet, despite this, women continue the practice.