Libby Purves in The Times today on religious orthodoxy and women

[ErrolTheDragon]

Her column today stems from the easyJet discrimination against a woman in favour of a religious man but has a somewhat wider scope than that.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/religious-orthodoxy-is-rooted-in-fear-of-women-ks9k5tvbd?shareToken=d65219cd1fea476dc33b0205845d41da

Some of it was a bit 1980's for me. I think she's right about humour but I found it depressing that she didn't consider how in poor and rural communities religious strangleholds are unlikely to be loosened. The restrictions on what people have access to in terms of education means that Women will continue to be valueless.

Brava, Libby! Absolutely correct.

As a woman, and as a woman of an Orthodox Jewish background, and as a woman who is involved in interfaith initiatives, and as a woman involved in religious education, I agree.

I do wish she'd used sex not gender, although to be fair perhaps the Israeli text uses gender, having not read it I don't know.

The misogyny gets these women coming and going though.

It's all very well saying support women to say no to their culture, faith, family, male relatives, community and religious leaders because this is unacceptable misogyny....

what does Libby think happens to those women when they do?

A friend of mine lived in fear of being seen doing anything social with our work group which involved two male colleagues in a group of nine people. Lunch, going out together, absolutely not ok, she used to sometimes lie and say she was going to a meeting, but was in terror of anyone from her community or place of worship seeing her and reporting back. She had been deserted by her husband but was not permitted by her male relatives to live alone, and was supervised by them including one taking it in turns to sleep in her flat. It was not uncommon for her to come to work in dark glasses with an eye blackened, but she couldn't turn to the police because in that area members of her community and place of worship were in the police force and would report back on her. And shared a belief with her male relatives that as a misbehaving woman, she'd deserved it.

We've had Lily Madigan and another poster on here just today say women like her should just drop their religion if it's inconvenient or oppressive, and shouldn't co operate with misogyny. Naivety in the extreme.

Yes, very naïve. But there's no magic wand that will free women from the boot heel of religiously-sanctioned misogyny. And when secular companies such as EasyJet and ELAL fulfil male passengers' illegal and misogynistic demands they send the message that such behaviour is acceptable to the secular world as well.