There are a number of extremely conservative religious groups that refuse to allow women to be treated as equals. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive a car or share a classroom with male students; male professors can address them only via closed circuit television.
I would like not to think of my own religion, Judaism, as harboring such ideas, but there are ultra-orthodox strains in Judaism that are just as bad. One group operated a bus line in New York City with women segregated to one part of the bus. Still, I never expected them to go as far as the latest thing I read of.
It seems that an ultra-orthodox paper called "Di Tzeitung" (a Yiddish-language weekly published in Brooklyn) does not publish images of women in its pages. And when a photograph of members of the executive branch of the government being briefed on the killing of Osama bin Laden was sent to the news media, "Di Tzeitung" edited out Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and another woman from the picture! Obviously, anything that might hint that a female could be in a "men's" position is taboo to this paper.
How far will religious extremists go?
I would like not to think of my own religion, Judaism, as harboring such ideas, but there are ultra-orthodox strains in Judaism that are just as bad. One group operated a bus line in New York City with women segregated to one part of the bus. Still, I never expected them to go as far as the latest thing I read of.
It seems that an ultra-orthodox paper called "Di Tzeitung" (a Yiddish-language weekly published in Brooklyn) does not publish images of women in its pages. And when a photograph of members of the executive branch of the government being briefed on the killing of Osama bin Laden was sent to the news media, "Di Tzeitung" edited out Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and another woman from the picture! Obviously, anything that might hint that a female could be in a "men's" position is taboo to this paper.
How far will religious extremists go?
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