Gonna write on that topic all day long today. mmm.
Let's start with a piece in USAToday a few days ago about the number of countries which still have laws explicitly discriminating against women. A snippet:
The report found it alarming that many countries, including Algeria, Israel, Japan, Mali, Sudan, Tanzania, and Yemen, have been unwilling to repeal laws that grant women secondary status within marriage. These laws include providing for unequal rights in marriage and divorce, prescribing male guardianship over women, permitting polygamy, and requiring wives to be obedient.
In Singapore, for example, the law allows a man to rape his wife if she is aged 13 or over, and in Iraq, the law requires a woman to get the approval of her male guardian or husband to obtain a passport, Bien-Aime said. In Israel, religious law prevents a woman from getting a divorce unless her husband gives his approval, and in Saudi Arabia women are still banned from driving, among other restrictions.
The report expressed concern that in many countries amendments to discriminatory laws have been partial, incomplete or merely cosmetic, resulting in little change to legally advance women.
For example, it said, Syria amended its "honor killing" law in 2009, but failed to put such killings on a par with other murders by allowing a mere two-year minimum sentence for offenders. Although India's domestic violence law of 2006 gives women the option to bring a civil case for marital rape, India continues to exempt marital rape from its criminal law, it said.
What is great about the International Women's Day (IWD) is that stories like this actually get published during that one day every year. Don't you agree? The day serves as the news hook, fishing, fishing for something to say about that forgotten enormous mass of people.
Do you smell the sourness in my writing? I bet. It has all to do with having read the comments attached to the above piece. Let's go down into the sewers:
What's wrong with discrimination?
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Hey, the U.S. is not exempt from this criticism. Not one state law that requires a women to view the contents of her womb before an abortion requires the co-creator to be exposed to it or, with her, listen to an oral narrative of what a technician sees there. .... But what is really galling, and I only discovered this recently and quite by accident, women have no wall hanging urinals in their public restrooms. Not even for those that go both ways.
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The world was much better off when women had no rights.
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Maybe around the world but not in the US. Life is a cakewalk for women here.
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ascari (5 friends, send message) wrote: 17m ago
If the right wingers, religious radicals and the fanatic fringe had its way the women would still be under their thumb.
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Sir, you are incorrect. Just the big mouthed femi-nazi's like pelosi, clinton and the other witches. hahahaha
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And we talk in the US? Equal rights for women, but not for men seems to be the goal here. My neighbor was taken to a hospital, then jail because he tried to protect himself as his wife beat him with a bat. (REMEMBER, there is never any excuse for beating a woman {or a man}). My father suffered mental abuse for years from his new woman- he finally moved outside into a tent (in New Hampshire) for two entire years to get away from her. A woman pretty much automatically gets the house and kids here if she's the least competent at lieing. Boys who are raped by older women are laughed at; the other way around and its major jail time. Gender relations will never improve when one side is overlooked and the other side gets all the pity.
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Not all comments are like these, but I would argue that the tone of the thread is. The hostile responses are of three types: First, simply argue that women should not be equal. Second, make a big joke about the oppression of women. Third, argue that it is the men in the U.S. who are truly oppressed and that they should have 365 days a year instead of 364.
Sorry for falling on the level of that thread in my arguments. That made me also forget the fourth response in that thread which is that if women in other countries live under oppression, well, they must like it. Otherwise they'd get up and do something to stop it, and who are we to tell them how to live.
Grrr. Now go and read this very funny rant from Down Under in honor of the IWD (found in this list). It uses naughty words but since my blog is supposedly pron you can take it.