Here's what she had to say about each place a woman should avoid, due to the severe lack of rights for women there.
Turkey:
“You cannot bring women and men into equal positions; that is against nature because their nature is different.” So said Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking last week in Istanbul at — of all places — a women’s conference. In the speech, delivered on Nov. 24 to the Turkish Women and Democracy Association, Erdogan indicated that a woman is incapable of doing every job that a man can do because “it is against her delicate nature” — specifically citing pregnant women and nursing mothers.
“You can’t tell this to feminists, because they do not accept motherhood. They have no such concerns,” said the conservative leader, who’s advocated for women having at least three children. We wonder what Beyoncé would have to say about that.
Indonesia:
As if being a policewoman weren’t tough enough, in Indonesia, a report says the government forces female recruits to undergo “virginity tests,” which involves a doctor examining applicants to see if their hymens are intact. The reason? Policewomen in Indonesia are required to be virgins, to ensure that they are morally fit for duty.
El Salvador:
...[T]he country also has some of the world’s strictest anti-abortion laws — abortion is illegal for any reason, including rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. A side effect is that women who suffer miscarriages or stillbirths have been accused of trying to end their pregnancies — and have been sentenced to prison for aggravated homicide, a charge that carries up to 30 years. A 2012 report from the Central American Women’s Network listed 628 El Salvadoran women currently imprisoned for having abortions, and noted that “women . . . are regularly reported to the police following a miscarriage, stillbirth or premature labour.”
Saudi Arabia:
Last week, numerous restaurants posted signs banning single women from entering. Why? Because they smoke, “flirt” and speak on their cellphones — behavior that one restaurant owner called “mentally unstable.” It’s just one of a long list of things women are prohibited from doing by law in Saudi Arabia. Those include: voting, driving, and visiting a doctor without a male chaperone.
Utah:
Basing its tabulation on three major categories — economy, leadership and health — 247wallst.com came to the conclusion that “Utah is the worst state for women.” Here are just a few reasons: A typical man in Utah earned more than $50,000 in 2013, while most women made 70 percent of that figure — one of the largest gender-pay gaps in the nation. Less than 31 percent of management positions were held by women in Utah (the second lowest rate in the US). Only six women occupy the 75 seats in the state’s House of Representatives, and Utah has just five female state senators — a huge underrepresentation of women in government.
For its rankings, wallethub.com took 10 key metrics into account and declared Utah 49th in gender-based disparity. Among its findings: Utah had the biggest educational attainment gap and was second to last in workplace equality.
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Well, when she puts it that way, she does have a point.
I read that article and was surprised to see Utah ranked (and compared) with those countries. But really not all that surprised.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see the article written about comparing the states in the U.S. Not to diminish the importance of the underlying message -- I agree that women in Utah probably would do well to have a sense that they have a real possibility of achieving the same leadership and economic successes as men in the state. But I think it is drastic to lump Utah's economic inequality and underrepresentation of women in government and business leadership with countries with philosophies and laws that are physically and emotionally harmful to women. It might be argued that women in Utah have emotional challenges related to the culture, but this is nothing to compare with what the women in the other countries cited experience.
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