The War On Women

by Eduardo del Buey

Hello all. Today I will discuss the war on women with David Gollob, former CBC, BBC, and NPR correspondent in Central America and national news editor for the CBC national news. If you enjoy these articles and interviews, please invite your friends to subscribe. Ciao for now!

The War on Women

The war on women is a sad reality today.

It continues apace and is based on social, religious, and cultural reasons. Women are complicit in many cases and persecute other women for the same reasons.

Two weeks ago, the Iraqi parliament legalized marriage between adult men and nine-year-old girls.

Last week, the Afghan Taliban passed a law forcing all women to cover themselves from head to toe. They must wear gloves and cover their eyes at all times. They are also forbidden to sing, dance, work, study, look men in the eye, or leave the house unescorted.

Women and girls over 12 are banned from schools, and prevented from sitting most university entrance exams. There are also restrictions in the work they can do, with beauty salons being closed, as well as being not being able to go to parks, gyms and sport clubs.

While in Iran, girls and women are routinely arrested, tortured, and murdered for showing their hair or even for not wearing their hair coverings completely.

Saudi Arabia continues to treat its women like chattel.

In many other countries, Islamic women are forced to partially or completely cover themselves because sixteen hundred years ago a group of men in the Arabian peninsula decided that this was the best way to control women.

Female genital mutilation is prevalent in many societies. Men believe that depriving women of sexual pleasure will ensure their fidelity. In fact, it is no more than a way for men to dominate women. Sadly, many women cooperate in this practice.

Trafficking women and girls is also an ongoing common crime these days affecting thousands of women and children. In many cases, politicians, police, and judicial officials facilitate the movement of victims abandoning them to a tragic fate.

Some societies continue to allow the buying and selling of women for marriage or as concubines – perfectly legal and religiously sanctioned. Others, like Shia Islam in Iran, allow men, including imams and ayatollahs, to enter “temporary marriages” to allow them to legally rape women and girls at will.

Femicide is another issue that kills thousands of girls and women globally every year.

Honor killings are another horrible practice in many societies. Male family members murder girls and women who go against their “code”. Female members of the family often participate in these gruesome crimes and the law often turns a blind eye.

In North America, radical Christianity is a core constituency of the U.S. Republican Party and the Conservative Party of Canada. They demand an end to legalized abortion. This policy prevents women from exercizing their reproductive freedom.

Many American states have already made it next to impossible for women to get legal abortions or medications to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Some have also made it illegal for women to travel to states that allow abortions under threat of prosecution and imprisonment. These laws apply across the board with no exception, regardless of the cause of the pregnancy (rape, incest, etc.), or the threat to the mother’s life.

Religious and legal authorities in many countries of the world permit violence on women to maintain the family’s “honor”. Many women are complicit in that they allow violence against themselves and their female relatives or submit to beatings or rape. They are defenseless because their society or religion permits it. This normalizes this type of behavior in the eyes of their children, who continue this behaviour from generation to generation.

What can be done?

In the case of radical Islamism, very little so long as the regimes that sponsor this ideology remain in power and so long as Islam doesn’t reform itself and leap from the 7^th to the 21^st century.

But much more can be done in the West.  

Governments can better and more selectively screen immigrants to ensure that they do not subscribe to beliefs that propagate violence against women.

Radical Islamists should be deported as soon as they show violent tendencies. This is a process that will require will and determination by the authorities and the implementation of the legal surveillance and prosecutorial framework within which to operate.

And so long as corruption at all levels of society is not eradicated, traffickers will continue to make fortunes that they will share with crooked politicians, police, and judicial authorities. As long as clients exist for their services, traffickers will continue to ply their trade and endanger women and girls.

Voters in democracies must always be aware they their votes carry consequence that can affect the liberties and rights of women and girls.

In the U.S., Americans have a choice this November to vote for a party that fully defends women’s rights or one that seeks to reduce them.

Former President Donald Trump had promised to issue a nationwide antiabortion law if he is elected in November, and in this he is supported by women who vote for him and for his party.

As well, Trump has been found guilty of rape in civil court. Yet over fifty million Americans — men and women — are poised to vote for him in November — an indication that they consider it acceptable to have a rapist in the highest office in the land.

Given Vice President Harris’ entry into the campaign, he is now walking back his views in order to not lose women voters. However, his base remains vehemently antiabortion despite his flip flopping.

So long as voters elect governments that espouse violence against women, girls and women will continue to suffer.

One can understand this happening in dictatorial or autocratically run countries.

However, in western democracies, political parties and voters will need to re-think the implications of allowing the war against women to continue unchecked and unopposed.     

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