Taking Issue with Article: The Dating Game

"According to Goldman, who puts on parenting workshops for adults throughout the academic year, several factors explain the double standard. First is the influence of the Islamic culture that, some critics say, dictates the second-class status of women."
Wrong and even if it were true why would a community nearly 10000 miles from those nasty Moslems and after 30 years would still choose to practise backward Islamic customs in place of their tolerant Jewish ways?

""The woman's job was to be subservient," Goldman said. "She had to stay home and take care of the children."
My word, has this lady met any Iranian women? I mean to say, The mere hint of male chauvinism in our family would be enough to start WW III. Ms. Goldman should look closer to home for cultural bias towards women. God bless the United States of Amnesia.

"Women must still wear the traditional head covering, the chador, and are forbidden to ride bicycles in public parks and streets."
They are forced to wear the head scarf which is not the same as the chador by the fanatics in power. We should send Ms. Goldman to Southern California or indeed BC, Canada to see for herself the heights reached by Iranian women in academia and employment. Remember the first female tourist in space, Anoosheh Ansari? Paid for the trip out of her own vast wealth made from selling her telecom company. How about Nazanin Afshin-Jam? Does she look oppressed to you? Dr. Fariba Sadri, the head of computer science at Imperial College, London - I mean to say, Judging by her CV she does come across as a shrinking violet who couldn't manage her life without a man.
"A second factor is class, Goldman said. In Iran, a country based on a class system, the upper echelon could afford to send their male children abroad for education. Thus the men had greater opportunities and freedom to mingle with Western women."
I can think of at least a dozen families who sent their daughters to places like France, Germany or the UK for university education.

"A third factor, according to Goldman, is the fact that Jews in Iran were a minority and consequently adhered more to their cultural ways. Most considered pre-marital
sex and intimacy unacceptable, as stipulated by Jewish laws."
Wait a moment! Ms. Goldman has just contradicted her earlier statement. So which is it to be, Islamic ways force-fed to Persian Jews or Jewish customs that impose these social inequities on Jewish women?
"Here in America, Jewish Iranians again represent a minority community. "But because mainstream American
culture is so different, some values are played out more strongly than they were in the homeland and adhered to with greater tenacity," Goldman said. In Iran this system seemed to work well, observers say. But America is a different story, especially for the new generation of youth born and reared in a culture so different from that of the older generation."
Does this not represent a different issue, that is to say, the inherent hostility in the U.S. towards anyone or anything different to the morality of Sex in the City? Let's all jump into bed with each other and pick up VD but who cares? We're Americans. The world is America and the rest of the planet a theme park which must live up to American standards.
I am getting fed up with the likes of Ms Goldman who on the surface purport to speak for reason and progress but in reality care for nothing but their own political agenda. I remember once reading one of these blogs in which the author referred to "Kalimi as a pejorative term. Kalimi means the people of the word of god. Of course, idiots like him do not care about the truth. Their aim is to blacken Iran and Iranians, as if we don't get enough negative publicity in the mainstream media. The picture created is often that of a country which is the ultimate Islamic paradise and the very symbol of hate and repression for everybody else. Only the other month the UN published a report condemning the treatment of Soofis in Iran. There's been no mention of the situation in the media here in the UK.
When I was little everyone was Iranian first and Moslem, Jewish, Christian, Baha'I etc. second. We could all get together under the same roof and eat Iranian food, laugh at Iranian jokes, listen to Iranian music and, well, gossip about other Iranians. Will we be doing the same thing in 20, 30, 40 years?
Islam, Judaism Christianity, they are all words of Allah, according to the Koran. Allah, a derivative of allam,that is, the ultimate universal set from which everything originates and which is represented in everything. The Persian word for God, Khoda is perhaps the closest you can get to the semantics of the concept. Just think, Khod-a, from within; the universe within. That's what it's all about and not a bunch of bearded blokes up there in the heavens who send down miracles or disasters to their respective followers.
Laurence Aryan