by Colin Donoghue
Daily Lobo columnist
In the beginning, a woman supposedly cast humanity out of Paradise because of her disobedience to God.
The misogynistic distortion and sexist slant that permeates our history in religion, politics and society still define our culture to this day. Another religious example of this would be the story of Mary Magdalene, who was actually the "Apostle of the Apostles" - a founder of the Christian religion, yet many today still believe she was a prostitute, a story created by Pope Gregory in 591.
Beyond the historical distortions, we have the humanity-shaming brutality that women have faced since the beginning of civilization. Modern Homo sapiens have existed for thousands of years, yet the treatment of women throughout the world is often regressive and barbaric.
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The most disturbing example of this is the raping of women, still the most common crime against women. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women has stated that rape "remains the least condemned war crime; throughout history, the rape of hundreds of thousands of women and children in all regions of the world has been a bitter reality."
It's not that bad anymore, you're thinking? Known as the worst mass rape in history, hundreds of thousands of girls and women, mostly German, were raped by Allied soldiers - mostly Russian - in 1945, after the defeat of the Nazi regime. During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, at least 250,000 girls and women were raped. During the same time period in Bosnia, tens of thousands of incidents are known to have occurred, and in Bhutan, countless Nepalese girls and women were raped during an ethnic cleansing campaign by Bhutanese authorities.
The list of examples is profuse and most receive little media and governmental attention. Mass rape has always been used as an instrument of war, and the patriarchal power structure has consistently avoided its prevention and condemnation.
Even worse, rape is only one example of the brutality women face today on a regular basis. There is also the horror of domestic violence, which kills tens of thousands of women every year. There are mass kidnappings - like those in Juarez, Mexico - female circumcision, forced marriages, forced prostitution, pervasive refugee abuses and denial of protection from disease and unwanted pregnancy.
Many of the laws in countries such as Iran, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia still treat women essentially as legal minors for their entire lives, always under the control of their male family members.
There are signs of progress, however. The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa was ratified in 2005. It specifically protects women's human rights, giving new protection against rape, domestic violence and forced marriage, as well as giving more equal opportunities for property ownership and participation in government.
Also, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women has set out principles on the rights of women and prohibits all forms of discrimination against them. The women's rights organization Equality Now marked the 10th anniversary of this landmark convention by examining discriminatory laws in 45 countries that the group had identified five years before and found that only 13 countries had repealed or amended these laws.
The year 2000 was set as the deadline for all United Nations member states to sign the treaty, but so far, only 177 of 191 states have endorsed the convention. Sticking with their anti-progress stance, the United States has still failed to ratify this treaty. Our Republican-controlled Congress once again resists the call of the majority of the world's people for change, even for something as benevolent as women's rights.
The need for a feminist movement in the United States is still unambiguous. American women still earn approximately 25 percent less than men across all professions for the same work done by men. Women doctors can earn up to 40 percent less for the same work, according to the Department of Labor. Our modern-day East India Company, Wal-Mart, is facing the largest class-action sex discrimination lawsuit in American history.
If you think feminism has no place in the 21st century, you're not in touch with reality. The patriarchal ideology has managed to persist despite the movement against it, and it exploits the female contributions to society while greedily preserving power in the hands of men.
Women have been demonized and abused by the ignorant since the beginning of civilization. It is time for us to discard old and unintelligent patriarchal myths and instead bite the apple of the knowledge of good and evil, so we may discover the truth of our history as a species.
We must face the stark reality that the fall of man has been caused overwhelmingly by men, not women, and the sooner we can bring true justice and equality for women and have more women in positions of power, the greater the chances are that human civilization will survive into the 22nd Century.
