What a stunning article in today's New York Times about 300 women demonstrating for their rights in Kabul, Afghanistan.
See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/world/asia/16afghan.html?scp=2&sq=afghanistan%20women&st=cse.
They were asking Parliament to repeal a new law signed by President Karzai that restricts the rights of Shiite women, requiring them to get their husband's permission to work outside of the home or to go to school and requiring them to "dress up" if their husband asks them to. It also makes it illegal to reject a husband's sexual advances.
These women began their march at a school run by a leading Shiite cleric. Hundreds of men ran outside to counterdemonstrate, shouting "Death to the enemies of Islam."
Although most of the women demonstrating were covered head to toe and appeared devout, simply protesting new restrictions makes them "enemies of Islam" and "whores" in the eyes of these men.
An ironic note: at the top left of the same front page was a photo of some twenty Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and cardinals celebrating the installation of a new archbishop in New York.
Everyone in the photo was male--women can hold no ordained office, cannot use birth control or chose to end a pregnancy, or even end a marriage with the approval of the church.
We in the west are only inches ahead of our sisters in the east. Much work and prayer lie ahead of us world-wide.
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