We’ve come a long way towards equality. And if you think that talking about ‘glass ceilings’ or women’s rights shouldn’t even be necessary in 2020, almost ‘21!!!, then think again. And think about Loujain al Hathioul. Who I’m sure is never far from your thoughts anyway. She’s the young Saudi woman who protested that women should be allowed to drive in that most unenlightened of countries. And has now been sentenced to 5 years in prison. By a ‘terrorism court’. Because Saudi is a seriously fucked-up place? Or because anything that upsets the status quo could be defined as terrorism? Along with speaking, thinking or (if you’re a woman), breathing improperly.

And its nothing 3rd worldy, Saudi is one of the most disgustedly and horrendously rich countries on the planet. It’s not about poverty causing a lack of understanding. No. It’s about God.

The last bastions of female repression and absolute patriarchal dominance all have one thing in common. God. The more religious the country (or state or community), the more restricted and male dominant they are. And it doesn’t really matter which religion. Yes, Islam is a prime example, in all the ‘religious states’, where restrictions on females is just their ‘way of life’. But the Hindus don’t do too well either, with virtually no one ever prosecuted for rape in India, even though its horribly common.

The Jewish religion is inadequately represented in terms of countries, as we only have one and it is passionately sectarian, with just a bit of lip-service to the extremists to try and garner their votes. Thus Israel has laws about equality and its a free and equal society. Yet the extremists within it remain mired in the old, biblical ways and thus live according to those rules in their isolated communities where women are indeed treated as goods, chattels and possessions of their menfolk. All you have to do is grow a beard and they ‘give’ you a woman.

And I’m gonna guess that the Bible was written by a man. Hence the views held and proposed within it are not exactly ‘woke’.

Christianity seems on the surface to move with the times a little more comfortably (in that it moves at all). Maybe because Jesus was a model of cool and tolerant understanding, or maybe because modernism sells, puts more bums on seats and their marketing dudes have more flexibility. I don’t wish to sound too cynical. Even though I am, and passionately so.

The answer is simple; we have to take God out of the equation. He (or, dare I say, ‘She’) seems to be the single most destructive force for progress for about half the world, which is mired in His/Her way and thus adheres to the views which keep the men who make all the rules, in charge.

Well I’m glad that’s sorted then. What time’s the football start? Mel? MELLLLL???? Where’s my tea and slippers????

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx