Ashley Smith period 6 Journal: Fred Bridgland 1. The author of this work is Fred Bridgland.

The title of this work is the title of this work is The Real Crime is Being a Woman. 2. This work was written in 2002. 3. This work is fact. It is an article from Scotlands National newspaper The Scotsman, as well as a Japanese news magazine called Shichosha (Foresight). 4. The connection I made was to the Scarlet Letter that we had to read last year in English. The stories have the same storyline that a woman has sex outside of marriage, gets pregnant and is punished for being an adulterer, but in both stories neither male is punished even though it takes two to make a baby. 5. The basic summary of this work is that a woman named Safiya is having her punishment being determined for having a child out of wedlock, even though she claims she was raped. The sentence that was decided for her was that she was to be buried in the ground neck deep and have stones hurled at her head, only by men, until she is dead. It then goes on to tell about her life from a poor family and how she was married off at the age of 12 to and illiterate herb doctor, and she also had absolutely no education herself. IF she had not been forced to marry and then had sex outside of marriage, according to the law, she would have only gotten 100 lashings, but because shed been married it was considered a bigger crime, punishable by death. Then the article goes on to tell about how corrupted the government is and how they preach the law by day and break them at night, and that the laws are only ever inflicted on the poor and mainly the poor woman at that. Safiya eventually goes on to change her story to htta she had consensual sex with her 2nd husband who had divorced her two years before, because the law states that its not considered adultery to up to 7 years after the marriage is dissolved. (230) 6. The work makes the point/ argument that life as a woman is hard, especially in third world countries like Pakistan, where women have as much legal standing as a goat pretty much. It also makes the point that the law is only for the poor and the woman, and that the punishments being given are justified as being what Allah wants, but the article says, Allah is merciful,Sharia law not so. (72) 7. My overall assessment of this work is that I liked how the author talked a lot about the double standards that were happening during this trial for Safiya, and how it made her look even more innocent in all this because she probably was raped for all we know, and his writing made me feel so bad for the women in countries like this because it seems like they have next to no chance when it comes down to who is right and wrong, especially with the government.