Bravo eyejaw! Feminists here are indeed too preoccupied with tying up the loose ends of the 1970s' feminist movement rather than dealing with the terrible plight of women in other countries, many of which are Muslim but by no means all.

Eyejaw
The term sexist has lost its sting since feminists in the western world have demonstrated that women are just as sexist as men, just as ready to use a double standard, just as desirous of power for its own sake, and willing to use power to obtain unequal benefits at the expense of others. So there’s no reason why one should not be sexist, since the alternative, apparently, is to be sexist.

The underlying purpose of not being sexist is so that the sexes can be “equal”. But no-one will offer to explain how this literally meaningless expression could be possible in the first place, why it should, or how it could be, and how the use of political power to achieve it could ever result in anything but arbitrary violation of people’s peaceable freedoms. But if you can, go right ahead.

The author is hoist with his own petard in presuming the ultimate legitimacy of democracy. If it is ultimately legitimate, then if a majority of legally qualified electors in a particular jurisdiction vote for the oppression of a minority, that is fully in accordance with standard democratic practice and no different from the situation in the west, where the minority who disagree with any opinion, are forced to obey, and to pay for policies unequally biased against their interests.

But if there is some standard of human rights over and above democracy, which majoritarian rule can or does violate, then there’s no reason why majority rule should be the ultimate ethical and political standard in the first place.

The author presumes some states as more legitimate than others. But since majoritarian rule, of itself, cannot provide the criterion, how is this to be judged? I think the USA has become a rogue state, and Australia is participating in aggressive wars and rampant systematic violations of liberty at home. All the democracies operate unethical double standards which, rhetoric aside, amount to nothing more than “might is right”. What makes anyone think the more-elective dictatorships are in any ethical position to lecture the less-elective dictatorships?

Peter Hume
Spare us the nihilism please. As for women becoming sexist, well maybe some have, but not the majority. We remember the discrimination we experienced and see no point in foisting it on the other sex. And it pales into insignificance anyway alongside the gross sexism by men against women in many other countries that the author of this article so aptly described.

The common practice of demonising Arab peoples, but in this case Arab women, raises its ugly head, yet again. One should be familiar with such comment by Mr. Meyerowitz-Katz as he goes about his regular sayanim duties. The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in the March session did criticise the ‘Israeli occupation’ for ‘breaching human rights’ after having made a favourable comment about Iran.
It is obviously this fact that motivated him to quote from UN Reports, selectively of course, as suits his purpose in life.

But did he mention for example that Israeli Jews oppose mixed relationships, particularly relationships between Jewish women and Arab men with Jews believing intermarriage is equivalent to a ‘national treason’?

The threat to any advancement by Palestinian women is as stated by the UNCSW that Israel as the occupying force was “holding back the advancement of Palestinian women”.
No level of imagination is required about the oppressed women of Palestine as their main function is to stay alive, feed their families, not to follow a career path in a country where any such opportunities have long since gone, a direct result of planned ethnic cleansing by Israel.

If, as he has stated that Iranian guards have been guilty of raping women before execution, a distasteful thought, he should also remember the cold-blooded killing of thousands of women in Sabra and Shatilla under the command of Ariel Sharon who was held personally responsible but who went on to be the Prime Minister of Israel. That’s how they reward such people.

Crimes against women, wherever they occur, whether rape or cold-blooded murder as well as limiting opportunities, are still crimes and as we all know in places like Palestine, it has been going on for 60 years.

So with such suitably chosen UN statistics, too many to mention in this reply, a discourse on the employment and equality of “Arab women”, (as if he cares one iota), be they right or wrong, with shortcomings or otherwise, make such comment in this indecently biased and selectively arranged article a familiar practice by this writer.

"....only 33.3% of Arab women 15 years and older work, compared to the global average of 55.6%..."

Of course, this is a Western definition of "work" which is undertaken outside the home. Any "house-work" is not defined as work at all - in fact, it is almost totally devalued by our society as there is no monetary remuneration attached to it.
Therefore, any woman that chooses to raise a child and attend to household duties apparently represents no economic value.

The raising of children and care and maintenance of homelife are of fundamental importance to any society.
Notwithstanding problems connected to patriarchal attitudes, Westerners shouldn't be too hasty in underestimating the pertinence and power of Middle-Eastern womanhood.

The cat is well and truly out of the bag as far as Middle-Eastern society is concerned. They are the ones who have produced a demographic where six out of ten people in the region are under 30 years-old.

The West persists in its patronization of the region. For how much longer, I wonder, will we wring out hands at the plight of women and children while we simultaneously drop bombs on their heads....for their own good.

Times are changing....

I have some sympathy with Poirot in that I do not regard a mother who stays home to bring up children as not being workers because they are. But Poirot then seems to go potty. Is she/he really saying that having six out of ten people younger than 30 is a good thing? There is no way that having a huge percentage of the population dependent (and if 6 are less than 30 then say three are of school age. That is a shocking strain. If Poirot admires fast breeding countries then I advocate Niger. There the poor blooming women have, on average well over 7 babies each. I remain unconvinced that those women have real choice in the matter. For Poirot's delectation I proffer the highest breeding countries, Poirot can decide if they are desirable places to be a woman or even more so a child:All of the following have fertility rates greater than 6 per woman: Niger, Guinea Bissau, Afghanistan, Burundi, Liberia, Congo, East Timor, Mali, Sierra Leone, Uganda,Angola, Chad, Somalia and Burkino Faso. Can Poirot please explain how it is that those countries are generally poor?
The facts all point to the idea that where women are educated and empowered they choose not to have a huge number of children. Does Poirot really think that women in those countries choose to have so many children?