Afghan men can starve wives into sex

[TheDMshouldbeRivened]

here
I see the invasion made fuck all difference then

So what do you want done then dittany?

I am all about trade sanctions. I think if we don't like how a country works we should have nothing to do with them until they pull their socks up. This will not happen though because the Middle East has the oil, we want it, so we will overlook what they do (while saying that we are not) in order to get it and if they won't sell it to us we will take it by force.

I don't think any country has any right to cross another's border with an army and if we do we can not then complain when that country retaliates.

Women are often treated as passive and stupid and needing protection, men do this as do many modern feminists. It pisses me off, why can't we protect ourselves? We are not stupid and we are not children, we are as capable of violence as men.

How did western women get power? Not that we still don't have a bloody long way to go.

Us getting power was a slow process, remember that a man could legally rape his wife in the UK until 1995.

I think education has to be the place to start. Followed by economic power - which iirc married women in the UK got in the 1960s

Worth remembering that development doesn't just go in one direction. We need to protect what we have.

I think the taliban was supported by women because they offered stability that wasn't there before.

Admittedly I base my evidence on one interview with a couple of rural women I saw on the news once. Hardly conclusive. They were saying that they felt safer and less people were being raped. Which I guess would happen here if women weren't allowed out of their houses.

Less people were being raped by strangers perhaps, Wonderstuff....when it's not a crime for a husband to rape his wife, who's counting?

As much as I do wholley accept there are some areas that can be better and a couple that have gotten worse (rape prosecution for a start), I also think it is really disengenuous and - dare I say it, insulting when western women say they don't have power, or that we live in a misogynous society, when these women really know what that means - or they would if they were allowed an education. It might have been impossible for a man to legally rape his wife before 1995, but attitudes didn't change over night. It took 40 years of feminist consciousness raising to get the law changed. And importantly, it was. That shows that our culture is commited to egalitarianism and fairness even if it is slow to come and if it means admiting certain structures and laws were wrong. That is how I personally judge democracy, not by its perfectness, but by its ability to see it was wrong and do something about it. Whats happening in Afghanistan is powerful men treading a familiar path of privledge - this becasue in polygynous cultures, there are a hel of a lot of men getting no opportunity to marry. The violence in polygynous cultures is fierce and its why you find many of these states politically unstable.

Where did I say that western women didn't have power??

riven posed the question how did we get here, and I was pointing out that actually women have only had equality before the law in this country very recently. I think that women, probably quite rightly, take our freedom for granted but it is worth remembering when we are dispearing of the situation in Afganistan that our grandmothers, and even our mothers didn't enjoy the same rights and freedoms that we have.
And when we are talking about rape worth remembering that most rapists in this country get away with it.

Totally appalled

I think that the Taliban is supported by women more through fear than anything else.

I think that extremism can only thrive when people are desperate. If we could find a way of delivering peace and a way of people being able to feed, clothe and shelter their families without relying on military organisations then the situation for women would improve. Not sure how we get there but I worry that the UK/USA are too focused on fighting the war and need to look at how they build the peace.

Yes, I think we do take our freedoms fro granted too. I don't know if this is right or wrong. It is usually not wise to take anything for granted. Yet we do, and complain a hell of a lot despite our freedoms.

I don't under stand what you are saying re the past. Yes, 'lest we forget' and all that - it's essential, but lets not also celebrate how far we have come. And how further we can go. We are the empowered ones. If we deny that, we also deny that we can help ourselves and these women. Isn't this the main goal of feminism? To help women, not beat them down into wallowing in victimhood, especially when we enjoy 'rights' these women would barely recognise as fairy tales.

Build peace? How do you build peace with the Taliban constantly baying from the hills?