A rchive Date
[ 11-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Religion ]
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[We've Got A Long Way To Go, Baby
By LYN COCKBURN
Winnipeg Sun
June 7, 2000
I'm not Roman Catholic. Doesn't mean I cannot get mightily pissed that the male hierarchy of this religion refuses to allow women to become priests. This fact, evidently, stands as a major stumbling block in the joining of the Anglican and Catholic churches.
I'm not East Indian either, and yet I am outraged at the practice which, in spite of laws against it, sees a number of women killed each year because their dowries are considered too small.
I am not from any of those dreadful cultures which practise female genital mutilation; I am not from Afghanistan where the Taliban has literally put women under house arrest.
I am not an aboriginal woman, but I can decry the sexual abuse in residential schools.
I am not Jordanian or any of the other nationalities which sanctions "honour" killings in which a male member of the family may get half an hour in jail for killing his sister, wife or whatever female member of his family if she is seen kissing a boy or doing anything else which besmirches the so-called honour of the family. God help her if she is raped and becomes pregnant - she is still at fault and may be killed.
There are at least 40 women in jail in Jordan right now, not because they have done anything wrong but because the men in their family believe they have and will kill them. One woman has been in jail for five years for her own protection.
In a television interview, her face covered, again for her own protection, she said, "We are treated the same as the prisoners. It is awful."
Before we get too self righteous here and dismiss all this violence as a product of less enlightened cultures, let's own up to the fact that each year in Canada several women are murdered or maimed by the very men who supposedly loved them.
And I'm not Jewish. Yet I have every right to be annoyed that women are not supposed to pray aloud at the Western (Wailing) Wall in Jerusalem. According to ancient tradition, women are meant to be as silent at the wall as they are in an ultra-orthodox synagogue - carefully separated from the men so as not to distract the poor dears.
I have been to the Wall, I have prayed at the wall. Afterwards, I tried not to think about the very obvious fact that the men's section is much larger than the women's. And I succeeded. What I didn't know then was that had I tried to pray aloud, I would have been spat upon.
For that, in the past, is exactly what has happened to those women who dared pray aloud at the Wall; they were reviled, spat upon and had rocks chucked at them. Now a law passed in the Knesset has awarded them permission to pray. Out loud.
We shall pause here to contemplate the thought some women need permission to pray.
In retaliation, the ultra orthodox, who wield an inordinate amount of power in Israel, thanks to the fact the country is run by a coalition government, are trying to ram a law through Parliament that will make praying aloud at the Wall an offence for women punishable by a seven-year jail term.
"If this law passes we will become Afghanistan or Iraq," said an Israeli woman on TV last night.
Said one ultra-orthodox man, "They have no respect ... " Said another, "These are not women, they are all lesbians ..." Then the camera settled on the group of unprepossessing women praying at the Western Wall. They were young, middle-aged and old - ordinary people, daughters, aunts, sisters, mothers who want to pray aloud at the one of the holiest places in Judaism. And among the group there may have been a lesbian or two. Who knows, who cares?
Oh, by the way, a week-long United Nations conference on women's equality opened in New York on Monday. Some who rant against feminism would have us believe such conferences are not necessary.
Oh yes they are.
Lyn Cockburn can be reached by e-mail at lcockburn@wpgsun.com]
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