{"id":12062,"date":"2011-11-03T18:01:46","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T14:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=12062"},"modified":"2011-11-05T16:54:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T12:54:00","slug":"twitter-and-mothers-breaking-saudi-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/region\/gcc\/saudi-arabia\/twitter-and-mothers-breaking-saudi-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter and Mothers: Breaking Saudi Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Set to trend – who doesn't love their mum?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A group of Saudi users of Twitter are looking to break a Saudi social custom of not using their mother\u2019s names in public. (The tradition also extends to using one\u2019s wife\u2019s name.) The group points out that by making mothers (and other women) invisible, it strips them of a great degree of power and undermines their ability to be seen as individual human beings with a full suite of human rights.<\/p>\n

This is how custom gets changed: People simply refuse to honor a tradition anymore. This, too, is likely how the \u2018tradition\u2019 of women not being able to drive will change. Instead of waiting for some higher authority to authorize or bless the activity, women will simply say, \u2018Enough\u2019 and start driving. We\u2019re seeing this already, on a small scale. If it were to happen on a large scale, then change would be effected.<\/p>\n

Tweet your mother\u2019s name to show love and pride for her<\/a>
\nRIMA AL-MUKHTAR | ARAB NEWS<\/p>\n

JEDDAH: Saudi tweeters have created a hashtag called IsmOmi (Arabic for \u201cmy mother\u2019s name\u201d) in an attempt to break a longstanding taboo that prevents Saudi men from mentioning the name of their mothers.<\/p>\n

The hashtag enables them to say their mother\u2019s name and allows them to bypass a critical society.<\/p>\n

Hashtags are created by adding # to a \u201ctweet\u201d on Twitter. They are terms invented to add to tweets on a given subject and build a community of tweets or build toward a \u201ctrending topic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saudi tweeters see this as a way to express their love and gratitude for their mothers. It is also considered a step toward empowering Saudi women. Saudi tweeter Khalid Al-Ahmed believes the hashtag is a healthy way to break down some of the social customs that he sees have unnecessarily burdened Saudi society for decades.
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CROSSROADS ARABIA: This is how customs change: People simply refuse to honor them. Women not driving will go in the same way…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":12063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,10,63],"tags":[366,18275,166,133],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}