Least Shocking Study Results Of The Day: Muslim Treatment Of Women Stinks

One of the reasons that most Islamic societies are backward and will remain backward for the foreseeable future is the way that they treat women.

Sure, you can argue that things aren’t perfect for women in the Western world. But, if you compare the treatment of women in a country like say the United States to other real countries, as opposed to some perfect ideal that has never existed and never will, you’ll find that women do extremely well in this country. In fact, in many respects, you could make a fair argument that they get preferential treatment to men.

Additionally, some people may point out that many issues with the way women are treated in Muslim nations have more to do with culture than religion. Certainly, culture can be a factor. Women usually don’t fare well under the sort of tribalism you see in places like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, certain practices like the burka or clitorectomies are more traditional than Islamic. Yet, when you look at the actual numbers, it becomes impossible to deny that there is a very strong correlation between the poor treatment of women and Islam:

The World Economic Forum last week distributed its annual Global Gender Gap Report, a review of how 134 countries have succeeded in closing gaps between women and men in four areas — economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival.

While some non-Muslim countries do poorly, the vast majority of the worst-scoring countries are Islamic, most of them Arab states.

Seventeen of the 20 countries at the bottom of the gender gap scale are Islamic — Lebanon (placed at 116), Qatar (117), Nigeria (118), Algeria (119), Jordan (120), Oman (122), Iran (123), Syria (124), Egypt (125), Turkey (126), Morocco (127), Benin (128), Saudi Arabia (129), Mali (131), Pakistan (132), Chad (133) and Yemen (134).

The three non-Muslim countries in the bottom 20 are Nepal at 115, Ethiopia at 121 and Cote d’Ivoire at 130.
Another 13 Muslim-majority countries appear higher up in the ratings, with the five scoring the highest Kazakhstan (41), Kyrgyzstan (51), Brunei (77), Bangladesh (82) and Indonesia (87).

Honestly, I’m a little surprised that Turkey is so low on that list and Kazakhstan, which is most famous for being the birthplace of “Borat,” does so well. Still, it’s no surprise that women fare so poorly under Islam.

It would be great if liberals, especially liberal women, started making an issue of this instead of just glossing it over because conservatives have a problem with a radical Islam. One day, liberals may learn that the corollary of that old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” saying is often, “The enemy of my enemy may very well be my enemy, too.”

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