[WCUSP] Is Islam Really Stuck in the 12th Century on Women's Rights?

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY - 8 MARCH  2008
http://www.internationalwomensday.com/


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March 8,  2008
AlterNet

Is Islam Really Stuck in the 12th Century on Women's  Rights?
by Joshua Holland

Before 9/11/01, the media relegated stories  about women in Islamic societies
to page B27, below the fold. Ever since  9/12/01, those same stories have
screamed from the front pages in 100-point  type. The shift in discourse
coincided with the launch of Bush's global "War  on Terror," when various
hawks began using the plight of women in Islam to  illustrate the supposed
perfidy of our "enemies," and to justify a series of  military
"interventions" -- invasions -- by Western powers. . . .

But  I've seen no empirical data to suggest that an Islamic majority  itself
correlates with the subordination of women better than other  co-variables
like economic development, women's ability to serve in  government, a
political culture that values the rule of law or access to  higher education.
. . .

Support for equal rights is robust in all  Muslim countries. Large majorities
say it is important in Iran (78%),  Azerbaijan (85%), Egypt (90%), Indonesia
(91%), Turkey (91%) and the  Palestinian territories (93%). . . .

Like the promotion of human rights  during the Cold War, there is a
geopolitical goal being served. The United  States has been in a state of
permanent war since the 1940s . . .

We  had a seamless transition from World War II to Cold War to Drug War to
War on  Terror, and in every instance, the unadulterated evil of our
opponents has  been a consistent theme, as has been our ability to turn a
blind eye to the  same offenses when perpetrated by the United States or our
allies.

And  now our existential enemies are the spooky brown people of the Muslim
world,  with their frightening and alien habits and supposed tendency  towards
"Islamofascism." The problem with that storyline is clear: the  Western,
predominantly Christian world has far more economic and political  influence
than the "Muslim world" -- much of which escaped the yoke of  colonialism
just in the past 50-75 years -- and, more significantly, it has  hundreds of
thousands of troops on the soil of several predominantly Muslim  countries,
whereas the reverse does not obtain. In other words, the "threat"  of an
Islamic takeover of the West is as realistic as the threat of my  sweet
grandmother beating the Hell out of Mike Tyson. . . .

The truth  is that universal suffrage came to Iran in 1979, five years before
women in  Liechtenstein got the vote. It came to Bahrain in 2002, 12 years
after the  Swiss Supreme Court ordered the stubborn Canton of Appenzell
Innerrhoden to  accept women's suffrage. Portuguese women got the vote in
1976, Swiss women  in 1971 -- both in my lifetime -- and in my baby-boomer
mother's lifetime,  women in Italy, Belgium and Japan first got the
franchise. . . .

And  when comparing apples and apples -- among economically developed  Western
democracies -- the United States has very little standing to  criticize
anyone else about the status of women. We rank 71st in the world in  terms of
the proportion of women serving in our legislature, with just 16  percent.
That's significantly worse not only than the European countries,  it's also a
poorer showing than Sudan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates  and
Uzbekistan. . . .

According to Harvard's Project on Global Working  Families, the United States
is one of only five countries out of 168 studied  that doesn't mandate some
form of paid maternal leave. The only other  advanced economy among those
five was Australia's, where women are guaranteed  an entire year of unpaid
leave. That puts the United States -- the wealthiest  nation on the planet --
in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and  Swaziland. . . .


FULL TEXT AND MORE at  http://www.twf.org/News/Y2008/0308-Women.html



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