Figure 1.--India is a country deeply rooted in tradtion. And throughout India, women are mistreated, both within and without the family. This has begun to change, in part because there are no Hindu scriptures (unlike Islam) which make it difficult even dangerous to challenge traditional beliefs, including attitudes toward women. These New Delhi women gathger for a prayer viction for the victim of a vicious gang rape (December 2012). We see nothing like this even when women were beaten at raped before the national and international press in Tagir Square.

HBC focuses on children, but a range of feminist issues touch upon children. This is especially the case as women in most countries are primarily responsible for child care. Even in Western countries most affected by the Women's Movement, it is women that are primarily responsible. And the mother-child bond since the volution of humans has been one of the most critical, if not the single most relationship, in a child's life. As a result we want, to discuss some of the feminist issues here. One of these critical issues is is violence against women. Here we are developing some country pages.

Asia

India

India is a country deeply rooted in tradtion. And throughout India, women are mistreated, both within and without the family. This has begun to change, in part because there are no Hindu scriptures (unlike Islam) which make it difficult even dangerous to challenge traditional beliefs, including attitudes toward women. This all came to the forefront in a tragic incident in South Delhi. A group of men conducted a vicious gang raped and brutally beat an attractivev young university student on a New Delhi bus. Not content to rape here, they beat her savagely and she subsequently died of her injuries. The attack tragically was not unusual or remarable. The public response was. There was nation-wide outpouring of grief and outrage. There were calls not only for the prompt punishment of the perpetrators, but for changes in the legal system and public attitudes. We know of no similar outcry from a Muslim nation for such an incident. Even when women were beaten and raped by bearded assailants (meaning Islamiciss) under the eyes of the Egyptian press in Tagir Square during the Arab Spring uprising, there was no outcry from the Egyptian press or press in other Muslim countries. Rather the primary concern seems to be to protect Islam from critisms. ????? was a 23-year old physiotherapy student. Her body was flown to New Delhi and received by Primeminister Manmohan Singh and Presidnt of the ruling Vongrss Party Sonia Gandhi. Following Hindu tradition she was cremented hours later. India's national concious was shaken as horific details of the assault became public. Six men in a bus picked up the woman and a male companion, a 28-year old software engineer. They began beating the two as the drove around South Delhi. The beaten pair were stripped and the gang rape began. Finally, the attackers satisfied with their work, threw both out of the vehicle on to the sreeet. The woman's genitles and intestines were severely damaged, apparently when an iron was inserted in her vagina as a part of the rape. She died of organ failure in a Sinapore Hospital. Indians who like to present their country as a moderizing nation commited to equal rights and opportunities to all citizens, including women, were jared as the details of the attack appearing in the press and national media.

Middle East

The mistreatment of women in the Middle East, mostly Muslim countries, has been widely reported and is enshrined in the Koran making it particularly pernicious and difficult to address. Rarely do crimes against women arouse great concern, such as the rape of women in Tagir Square during the Arab Spring protests (2012). It is sad that one of the defining monents in the Arab Spring included vicious attacks on women. Such attacks are commonly hushed up by the Arab or Muslim press. Al Jazeera which rarely passes the opportunity to report attacks on Muslims (except in Darfur) while it often ignores attacks by Muslims, commomly avoids reporting on attacks on women if the attackers are Muslim. Notably attacks on young women such as throwing acid on the faces of school girls (Afgahanistan) or shooting girls on their school bus (Pakistan) are undereported in Muslim countries and do not engender demonstrations or other forms of mass protest. In my discussins with Muslims (mostly Pakistanis) these incidents are seen as either manufactured by the West or over reported by the Western press and not representative of conditions in their country. Many insist that such attacks on women are much more common in the West where women are not as well traeated as in Muslim countries. Many Muslims appear to be satisfied with the mandatory statement that Islam is a religion of non-violence and love. Attacks on women are of course not limited to Muslim countries. They are common in most traditional societies where women are not seen as people of lesser capabilitis and value as men. The problem in Muslim countries is many of the traditional values which depreciate women are enshrined in the Koran and thus not subject to question are legal action. It is why many Muslim countries objected to the United Nations charter and today have law which fundamentally challenge the Charter. Interested readers should look at what the Koran has to say about women.

Egypt

The Arab Spring protests in Egyopt center ion Tagir Square in Cairo. They were begun by liberal minded, university educated Egyptians. Islamists at firt did not want to challenge the Mubarack regime, but as the movemnent gathered momentum, did so. And when they did so they were offended by the educated young women they found there. They launched a wave of attacks ond rapes on these women (November 2012). The attacks are well doumented. The press was there. There was no outrage in Egypt are procecutiojns. In fact, the Muslim botherhood responsible went on to win the subsequent national election. A respected Egyptian Salafi preacher, Ahmad Mahmoud Abdullah, known as “Abu Islam,” explains why there was not national responding to the stining criticisms in the intgernational press. In an online video, he charged that women protesters who were raped and sexually harassed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square got what they deserved. He called them “crusaders” who “have no shame, no fear and not even feminism. They tell you women are a red line. They tell you that naked women -- who are going to Tahrir Square because they want to be raped -- are a red line! And they ask Mursi and the Brotherhood to leave power!” He insisted that the women were not assembled to protest, but instead wanted to be raped. According to Abu Islam, "They have no shame, no fear and not even feminism. Practice your feminism, sheikha! It is a legitimate right for you to be a woman. And by the way, 90 percent of them are crusaders and the remaining 10 percent are widows who have no one to control them. You see women talking like monsters … You see a woman with this fuzzy hair! A devil! Devils called women. Learn from Muslim women, learn and be Muslims. There are Muslims and Muslimix." “Muslimix” is apparently his term for liberal Muslims.

North America

United States

President Obama in the 2012 presidential campaign began charging that the Republicans were waging a war against women. This charge of a non-existent war against women was fascinating in that the President and his spokesmen have refussed to recognize the Islamist war against America. Upon taking office, President Obama ordered officials to stop using the term 'war on terror'. Rather they were ordered to use the term 'Overseas Contingency Operations' or 'Man Made Disasters', incredible linguistic formulation only George Orwell could fully appreciate. Major Hasan and the Fort Hood killings were labeled work place violence by the PC administrators running the Obama Pentagon (2010). The same PC Pentagon officials have denied the victims Purple Hearts. Thorougly PC New York Mayor Bloomlberg assured us that the failed Times Square attempt was right-wing violence protesting Obamacare and nothing to do with Islamic terror (2011). And in the flood of TV talking head discussion of the Boston Marathon Bombing, no one dared suggest that Islam and terror aimed at the West could be at the heart of the plotters (2013). We were assured that the plotters were perveting Islam. But these same talking heads chimed into support the President's outrageous charge of a war against women.

Created: 8:37 PM 5/22/2013
Last updated: 8:37 PM 5/22/2013