Women remain oppressed.

• Author: Layng, Anthony
• Position: Religion

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THE GROWING political influence of religious fundamentalism in the world has encouraged many of us to revisit the subject of women s rights. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, feminism and liberalism in general were popular American perspectives, and there was much concern m the media and elsewhere about discrimination against women. At some point, those of us who were committed to ending male chauvinism began to realize that feminism and liberalism had lost popular appeal. Regarding the status of females, some seemed to believe that "women's rights" had been achieved, and that glass ceilings and sexist humor no longer warranted protest.

Following the lead of Margaret Mead, many anthropologists had stressed the primacy of culture in determining gender roles but, in the 1980s and 1990s, scientific research began finding a good deal of evidence indicating that women and men were, by their biological nature, quite dissimilar, implying, sometimes overtly, that it was not entirely inappropriate to treat them differently. At the same time, clothing fashions, high school proms, and popular literature all seemed to take us back to a pre-feminist era.

The issue of discrimination against women resurfaced, however, when several nations in the Islamic world further restricted the activities of their female population. The Taliban in Afghanistan was perhaps the most extreme case in point, but we soon became aware that other governments, in Iran and Saudi Arabia, for instance, were treating women in a highly discriminatory fashion--there was, of course, the widely publicized 2007 case of the 19-year-old Sandi who, after being gang-raped by seven men, initially was sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes.

Concern for the rights of women had evolved from focusing on an American problem in the 1970s to condemning traditional Muslim culture in the 21st century. According to the Koran, women socially are inferior to men and appropriately are beaten if they misbehave. Additionally, women easily are divorced from their husband and children, and can inherit only half as much as their brothers. Moreover, men are instructed to separate themselves from menstruating women.

Among those American leaders who appear most indignant about how females are treated by fundamentalist Islamic regimes, there is little expressed awareness about how Protestant fundamentalism, an expanding influence in the U.S., could affect the status of women in this country. It seems that contemporary Americans have been quick to recognize sexual discrimination when it is promoted by Islamic dogma, but far less inclined to notice such discrimination when it is based on Christian beliefs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the most quoted suffragettes in the U.S., insists, "The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of woman's emancipation." Is this statement fair? After all, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is portrayed in the Bible as admirable in the extreme, so much so that she has millions of devotees throughout the world. Of course, her popularity has everything to do with the fact that she gave birth to Jesus, and it is difficult to consider her a realistic role model since she did so while retaining her virginity.

When the...