Opinionated News

For women, the right to vote has been a long struggle and for many women in the world, the struggle isn’t over.  There are countries where the rights of women are trampled on by men who give little or no recognition to women other than as a possession, a chattel to be used and abused at will.  Some of these countries don’t officially ban women from voting but they have traditions and laws that make it unlikely that a woman can turn up and vote on their country’s election day without having met strict “pre-conditions”!  Countries such as the United Arab Emirates are beginning to move towards a situation where women will vote, other countries such as Saudi Arabia who have no use for women’s rights have outlawed the right to women to vote.  Countries where women have that equal right to vote need to have their voices heard by voting for the person they think is going to promote that equality and not threaten the progress that’s been made.

Yesterday news broke about a woman who was stoned to death by a mob of men.  Her crime was that of adultery.  Is the person she committed adultery with to be put to death?  Of course not, this is in Sudan where women count for less than the men’s shoes on their feet.  Countries that are linked to the stoning of women are Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Nigeria.  While it’s likely that many women in the western world don’t agree with the adultery, it’s to all women to look at not the crime, but the viciousness of the punishment given to one party of that crime.  There was a case in Saudi Arabia last year where a married woman was taken and gang raped by a group of men, and although they were later brought to justice and sent to prison for the rape, the woman was also sentenced to be whipped and imprisoned - when an appeal was made against the sentence, the amount of lashes she would receive as part of the punishment was increased.  Her crime?  Not having a “male guardian” with her at the time she was raped.  Women are “honor killed” and whipped for crimes that would go un-noticed in our culture, and often these are at the hands of their own communities because there isn’t a legal system in operation to protect the women.

These things are happening in other countries, but they happen because women don’t have a fair say in how their country is run.  It’s not just the religion, it’s the legal system that can make the difference, and that comes from government.  When any government tells a woman how her life is to be, or turns a blind eye to the wrongs committed against women by the men of their country, that government is overstepping its boundaries and in most places in the world we can get that government out of power next election, they know that, and they are careful not to tread on the rights of the women voters.

This isn’t about having a woman president, although one day that should happen in the US as it already has in supposedly less developed countries; this is about ensuring that your voice as a woman is heard by putting your vote in the ballot box on Election Day 2008.  Make sure that the person you want to run your country, the person you think best represents your interests, the person that you think respects women as equal, gets your vote.  Don’t let apathy keep you away.  Women sacrificed themselves in many ways to get you the vote, as other women around the world are continuing to do.  You have the vote.  Remember those women who don’t, and use it.