Hard to compute this, even given my usual condemnation of fundamentalist religions’ efforts to suppress women.
Seems that Turkey’s deputy prime minister issued a … well, what should we call it? It isn’t an ukase, exactly, nor an order. It isn’t even really a fatwa, because don’t those things come with serious penalties like death?
Nah, it’s more on the lines of a really dumb, heavy-handed “suggestion.” (Either that, or this dork is auditioning for a Turkish Monty Python.) The suggestion?
Just as fast as Turkey’s deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç declared that women of his country shouldn’t tarnish their pure image by laughing in public, so the women of Turkey are responding by laughing and tw**ting about it, laughing at Muslim Leisure Fascist Arınç at the same time. And some men are supporting them.
Our “pure image” tarnished by laughter. Oh-kay.
Brave, Turkish ladies and hey I’m laughing with you.
And thanks, Jerry Coyne and his Why Evolution is True, for giving me this story: Turkish women defy deputy prime minister by laughing publicly « Why Evolution Is True.