There was a time, as late as the early twentieth century, when women in the west weren’t allowed to vote, when leading universities like Cambridge and Harvard didn’t give them equal status (women students went to Radcliffe, not Harvard, and Cambridge didn’t give out degrees to women students till 1947, though they were allowed to sit for exams!) and when their main role was to be a homemaker. If at all women entered the work area, it was as factory workers. Factory girls, in fact, were proud of their profession, since they considered themselves emancipated from the drudgery and powerlessness of being a housewife. Fortunately, a lot has changed since then. In America, women make up more than 50 percent of the workforce. 60 percent of the degrees awarded by universities in the US and Europe went to women, major corporations like Pepsico and W L Gore have women at their helm. More than 40 percent of the members of the Swedish Parliament are women. In the Spanish Cabinet there are more women than men. It can be generally agreed that in the last 50 years, women in the west have made giant strides in both education and the workplace. Soon, in the US, for instance, there will be more female than male enrolments at university level.

It is no coincidence that in all the countries where the lot of women has improved so dramatically, the political system is democratic. When there is free choice, every citizen has access to the same level of service, and the artificial barriers that disadvantage some sections of society are automatically dismantled. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom to choose one’s profession, all articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are only possible in a democracy. And so is equal access to the law.

I live in a country where this realisation is happening gradually, where we are moving towards equality before the law and where we all, men and woman, will be free to choose our profession. Though India is a democracy, yet the rights of women are severely curtailed. There are far more men than women in the workplace, and the gap between male and female literacy, though narrowing, is still significant. And yet, constant media attention to the issue of female disempowerment, particularly in the rural areas, ensures that the political class is kept on its toes where women are concerned. Protests, campaigns, media reports, are all methods by which the status of women is constantly highlighted in the public sphere. India is not even close to what the west has achieved in the last fifty years, but freedom of expression, the cornerstone of any democracy, is ensuring that more and more women get their due in society. The growth of the service sector in recent years and the explosive speed of urbanisation has also enhanced the contribution of women to the formal economy and brought it into the limelight.

Contrast this with the situation in the Islamic countries. In Saudi Arabia women cannot drive, are not allowed to work where there are men and can only attend segregated schools and universities. The Shari’a, and not civil law, governs personal and social contracts. Women have to seek male approval for every act. There is no concept of equality before law. A woman witness’s testimony is given half the weight of that of a male witness. In Iran, a woman can inherit only half as much as a man, and a female victim of an accident is entitled to only half the compensation awarded to a male. All women are required to cover their heads, though they can show their faces. In Pakistan, female literacy rate is only half of the male literacy rate, while, in Afghanistan, it is only one third.

The world, as a whole, is nowhere near granting women equality. The rate of progress is uneven, to put it mildly. And with increasing Islamisation over the last fifty years, the threat to female advancement is increasing.

Cultural backwardness is closely related to the social status of women. Societies where women have succeeded in becoming empowered have advanced in every field of life, art, culture, literature, science, and economically. These are the societies that do not hesitate to question entrenched shibboleths and succeed in advancing through new discoveries. On the other hand, societies that continue to treat their female population as chattel have nothing new to contribute to the world, and have nothing better to offer to their members than centuries-old regressive practices.

When we talk of the rights of children, the first issue that arises is that of the rights of their mothers. Deprived, disadvantaged, dispossessed women cannot bring up strong children. Female backwardness only leads to the perpetuation of backwardness, for how can an uneducated woman bring up an educated child? Would Iran and Iraq have had so many child soldiers in the Eight Year War if their mothers had been granted equal status in society? In Pakistan, would so many children have been taught in fundamentalist madrassas if their mothers had been empowered to contribute to their education and to Pakistan’s economic progress? And so, would so many terrorists have been born? What are the chances of women priests preaching radical, political Islam in mosques across Europe? Since there are no women priests, the question becomes moot.

The Islamic countries wish to become world leaders. How can they when one half of their population remains enslaved? Leadership, in the modern world, can be wielded only through greater participation, and not the sword. In any case, the tide in favour of modernisation has now reached a point where it cannot be turned back. Nations and societies that recognise this, and go along with the imperative of female empowerment, will necessarily keep progressing, the tyranny of the bomb notwithstanding.

The role of organisations like IHEU, which courageously fight against advancing Islamisation in fora like the Human Rights Council, becomes all the more critical, for one of the outcomes of their plea for modernity will be the increasing emancipation of women, and greater access to human rights around the world.

Sangeeta Mall is Editor, IHN