JohnJ and Sharkfin,
A number of regimes currently in power in certain countries seem to want to divide up the world according to religion.

The author seems to want to divide up the world according to gender, with a woman being defined as someone who has a “loose head covering”, wears “makeup” and has “manicured fingernails”.

The author is a teacher apparently, but the situation of feminism in education has reached such extreme proportions in this country that recently a high school teacher in QLD held up a large photograph of teeth marks in a chocolate bar and said that the photograph represented “men’s violence against women”.

When asked by a student in the class “How do teeth marks in a chocolate bar represent men’s violence against women”, the feminist teacher said that they “didn’t know”, but the feminist teacher still continued to hold up the photograph in front of the class and later stuck the photograph on the wall of the classroom.

Iran could well be the feminist state in reverse.

Re:Our reality here in the industrialised West is not 'the reality of all women' 'Our reality?'

You must mean our public reality? In fact. aren't even almost all 'civilised countries' places where women have few real rights (real rights - not supposed rights) if they are victims of violence, particularly in relationship violence? (and for the gender squirrels - so far male violence against women is still a major issue but not as severe as male violence to men)

Where the rights of an accused are important but the victim's rights are not? Where the victim cannot have a lawyer or barrister but the accused can?

Where state agencies cannot respond to the workload so dont?

Where therefore the evidence is a mishmash and result is more pain for the victims? Where in death by violence, the rights of an accused reign supreme (unless they are very 'broke').

So cut this boring crap about gender, and get some equal human rights for the people of this country. Then perhaps we might inspire the women of Iran and elsewhere to get legal equality with men, and even justice for all. Until then, I am ashamed that we are so arrogant as to assume that our 'democratic way' is sufficiently pro decency as to be a model for anything. If they model themselves on what we have achieved they will be very sorry.

Vanna <a number of regimes currently in power in certain countries seem to want to divide up the world according to religion.>

As I said once before on OLO I have never seen a religion yet that did not want to control the fertility of women. The power base of these religions is created by their control of women. They want as many children born as possible who they can indoctrinate at an early age and so maintain control of the minds of whole countries.
This keeps priests in positions of moneyed power and makes them the rulers of countries.

People working in countries for the equal human rights that you speak of, that is human rights for men and women have noted that when women are educated the whole of these societies change for the better. If the men only are educated, nothing changes, the injustices and human misery don’t alter for men,women or children.

I have my own disagreements with the views of some feminists on different issues but I do believe that the empowering of women in oppressive societies has been the one thing inextricably linked to more humaneness in those societies.

Sharkfin,
Applying a logical question if I may (if logical questions are not too "male"). How do you define a person as being a woman or a man?

There is no scientific way of doing it. Gender testing was dropped at the Sydney Olympics, and has never been carried out since at any major sporting event (too much variation in the genes within the X and Y chromosoms to scientifically determine who is male and who is female).

So if there is no scientific way of determining who is male and who is female, then how does an academic feminist decide who is a woman and who is a man (and which one needs to be supported and which one doesn't).

<"The author seems to want to divide up the world according to gender, with a woman being defined as someone who has a “loose head covering”, wears “makeup” and has “manicured fingernails”.>

Since it's only women who are requied to wear head covering and so on; it wouldn't seem to me that it's the author or any "academic feminist" (whatever the hell that's supposed to be) who is dividing up the world by gender, but the dominant society of Iran ie: a masculinist state, just as elsewhere.

Are you saying it's AOK with you that women are forbidden from dressing and grooming as they judge appropriate?

(You sound like a nut)

Also, very good article - thank you.
Also, I think that Feminism not only needs to continue in the West, but that it must remain vigilent to any erosion of recently acquired (formally but not necessarily practiced) human rights for women. Thankfully, I think that many men are appreciative of the benefits of feminism to society as a whole; but there are still many men andsome women who will do whatever they can to take us back to some idealized vision of the 50s.

Pynchme,
So how do you define who is a women and who is a man? (considering there is no scientific way of doing it).

I would define an "academic feminist" as someone who preaches feminism in the classroom. Maybe they should be preaching feminism (or any other "ism") somewhere else.