Reply #24: Precisely what a lot of us meant in this thread.from a few days ago

[SoCalDem]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4067158

SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-10-05 07:42 PM
Original message
It's really all about the women.
Radical Islam, The Taliban, The Religious Right, The African "Troubles".

The (mis)treatmment of women by any society is the measure OF that society.

In days gone by, societies were closed off and people didn't know what was happening a village away. Modern life has brought the whole world into their living rooms. Cloistered women in locked-down societies can now see that other women are treated better than they are, and they don't like it.

Even in western society, women have only been "equal" for under 100 years. Some would say that even now, in America, women are not equal...and they would be right, BUT women have it much better here (as a group) than anywhere else.

This is what is scaring the militant males of the world. Whether they are Taliban, Islamic, African..whatever.. they fear the rise of women, because it means they will lose power.

For centuries, males have been able to use females, and discard them at will.

Western culture frowns on this, and in order for non-westerners to be accepted, they must stop mistreating women.. They are not willing to do this. They want nothing to do with modernity if it means their women will stop obeying them.Nothing we say or do to them will change their minds...and they ARE willing to kill to preserve THEIR way of life.

In the US, we may not have honor killings" and arranged marriages, but women are still kept under the thumbs of men...and if the religious right has their way here, women will retreat to the sanctity of the kitchen and the car pool.

Women are the majority, but we have yet to act like it...