Is Religion the Biggest Obstacle to Gender Equality?

I was lying in bed and listening to the radio this morning when this topic came up on BBC’s World Have Your Say: ‘Is Religion the Biggest Obstacle to Gender Equality?’

They had a rabbi, an imam, a representative of some obscure woman’s rights organization in a spokeswoman for Freedom From Religion on the show. There might have been another but I can’t remember now so I’ll just cut to the chase.

The first three – or four – claimed that religion is not an obstacle and any subjugation of women has been the result of the predominance of patriarchal societies. They also argued that men and women were created equal by Gawd and therefore have different roles to play. (I suppose this explains why the bloody Arab world treats women as little more than sheep and do not allow them equal rights and opportunities. )

The rabbi was particularly obnoxious. He said that the removal of two female cabinet ministers from a press photograph is necessary to preserve the violation of female modesty. He justified this laughable assertion by saying that females have a ‘very high role’’ and therefore should be spared from public scrutiny. When the BBC presenter wanted to speak to his wife and daughter to hear their views on the matter the rabbi made a sorry excuse saying that ‘their English was not very good’ and refused to let them on air.

While the spokeswoman for Freedom From Religion was talking, the rabbi kept interrupting her. Listening to the show I felt fucking pissed off and if I were in the studio I would have fucking told the Jewish charlatan to shut his fucking trap or I would shut it for him. This is obviously a pig that does not respect women. My wretched cold cleared a bit – I suppose my anger helped – and as I listened to the programme I felt even more enraged at the bloody moderates who called it and said that women were never oppressed by religion.

So at 1.30am, I switched on my computer and accessed the World Have Your Say page. I left my comments on the blog. I just had to do something. I was practically trembling with rage. I couldn’t think coherently, and my fingers kept hitting the keyboard and I had to take off my earpiece to allow myself to focus. They didn’t read out my comments but I had to make a point whether anyone liked it or not.

Sandy from Singapore called in. She described her experience in a Catholic church and said that although the nuns have been working very hard they never received the same recognition as the men. She further said that religion never treated women as equals and I applauded her. For that brief time she was on air I was not ashamed of my cuntry. It was refreshing hearing a Singapore woman – I don’t regard women as inferior; I just have a low opinion of the local women in general – speak with such intelligence. She is a pearl indeed. I hope I can get to meet her one day.

Unfortunately after she ended a few moderates called in and defended religion. I was quite disgusted with the BBC. Why did they get so many bloody religious adherents and parasitic moderates to comment on a topic that rightly should not be discussed in this time and age? They should have gotten more atheists on the show. Possibly a few anarchists as well.

I felt like hitting some sod after the programme ended. I am still pretty pissed off.