Every day, misogyny kills women around the globe in two ways: directly through violence and indirectly through apathy, said David A. Grimes, MD, clinical professor of ob-gyn at University School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, who delivered his lecture “Misogyny and Women’s Health” this spring at The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ 59th Annual Clinical Meeting. Let's stop here for a moment and understand who Dr. David Grimes is. He is a champion for women and has been a tireless worker for women's human rights. He is a special angel for women and the world is a far better place because of his work and passion.
Now back to his lecture:

According to Dr. Grimes, women are dying needlessly because societies just don’t value them. Examples of misogyny—literally “hatred of women”—range from lack of equal treatment to emotional and physical abuse to murder. “Maltreatment of women has been institutionalized by governments and religions for millennia,” said Dr. Grimes. “This maltreatment often manifests itself as domestic violence, rape, rape as an instrument of warfare, sexual harassment, child marriage, and ‘honor killings’,” he said.
More:
Approximately 343,000 women worldwide die each year from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, an average of one death every other minute, said Dr. Grimes. Nearly all of these deaths are preventable. Notably, half of these maternal deaths occur in just six countries (Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan). These societies have yet to make the decision that these women’s lives are worth saving, he said.

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Ah, this brings us to a big question. Should we throw more money (billions to date) at aid to women in such countries, or should be spend heavily on promoting cultural changes that will end the problem before it starts.

Point in case: fistulas. A huge problem for women in many countries whose culture favors men over women. So many reasons why fistulas occur--many if not most are cultural reasons rather than medical reasons. So the question is: do we keep shipping MDs overseas to fix after the fact fistulas or do we prevent them in the first place?

Easy right? Except to prevent them means talking bravely about the culture that breeds the problem. Dr. Grimes gave it straight talk saying :
societies have yet to make the decision that these women’s lives are worth saving.

To make this worth anything we have to be brave enough to talk about the culture and the religion behind the cultures that foments hatred and intolerance towards women.

Now no one likes to be picked on, so it is always nice to mention the other cultures that have issues with intolerance to women and hatred to women --all of them for the most part--but let's face it, if there is one case of swine flu in one country and 5,000 in another which country should health officials focus most of their attention on?
A no brainer right. Right. Standard issue medical procedure.

Now, in thinking about this, I came across this months's issue of the Atlantic magazine. Very telling. Very compelling. A pair of furtive eyes stare out of a slit in a head covering and the accompanying cover tag line asks: IS THIS THE FACE OF ARAB DEMOCRACY? It was refreshing to hear Liberal Dude Nation finally asking if the Arab Spring will be become the Century of Our Discontent for Muslim women.

This is not about the love that dare not speak its name but rather the intolerance/hate that we dare not speak by name. This is about the tendency for Islam dominated cultures to put the hurt on women.

A while back an op-ed item in the NYTimes asked "Fair to Muslims?" and in it Akbar Ahmed celebrated the Congressional hearings on Islamic radicalism as a chance to educate Americans about Islam. He said: "Muslims should embrace the chance to explain their beliefs fully and clearly. We have nothing to hide."
NOthing to hide? Really?
The rest of the op-ed talked about many things but not once did it mention the things that Islam does try to hide--it's mistreatment of women.
Not one mention of women under Islam and the intolerance to equality they endure in the reality of their lives as opposed to the scholarly talking points folks like Mr. Ahmed.

How I would like to have Mr. Ahmed on the other end of a conversation with me. You can believe that we Would TALK about the injustices done to women in Islamic cultures.

Yes we CAN talk about misogyny! God help us if we don't.

Mr. Ahmed laments that Americans often ask if Muslims can be "good" Americans.

the Muslim community is frequently obscured by ignorance and mistrust. We were often asked by non-Muslims whether Muslims could be “good” Americans.

But there is the rub. "Good Americans" has the universal standard of equality under the law.
Islam has found many ways to subvert equality under Sharia Law.
to wit, a few collected items:
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A great read:
What isn’t wrong with Sharia Law?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/05/sharia-law-religious-courts
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In general, Islam allows females half the inheritance share available to males who have the same degree of relation to the deceased ~wiki

Wives are required to inform their spouses before leaving home, and get the consent of their husbands.~wiki

In actual practice and outside of Islamic judicial theory, a woman’s right to divorce is often extremely limited compared with that of men in the Middle East.[75] ~wiki
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Now a while back The New Agenda was very active in pushing back at the American Pediatrics Society as the mulled an idea for doctors in the US to do a ritual cutting of female genitals to avoid Muslim parents from taking young girls overseas to see worse mutilation.
The issue was a slippery slope, but there is nothing but harm done in providing such cutting. It is a valid argument that only a good American doctor would first do no harm.

And do we want to legitimize the procedure to lend credence to mother's overseas who insist their daughters be mutilated? I happen to think that all Good Americans should believe that a woman should be allowed to keep her clitoris and have a satisfying sexual life. (Matter of fact, my orgasms are a high point of most weeks) So that is a conversation to have. I also happen to believe that Good Americans allow their child to choose who and when they marry. I also believe that a woman should not need four male witness to her rape for the case to be considered under the law. I could go on, but you get the point.

Now I'll close with this observation about liberals. Have you all watched the Killing on AMC. I have and i'm amused. Did any of you really think that the liberal dude media would allow a Muslim black man to be the killer of a young girl? It was a ridiculous waste of time to try to take us down that road. Liberal media will not do that. Period. But the wishful thinking of how AMC exculpated the black Muslim man from the murder was just hilarious. He with another male member of a Mosque were not up to foul play, but only spirting a young girl to Canada to prevent to eradication of here clitoris.
Yeah, right, the fight against female genital mutilation is being waged by male Muslims.
Pause for the long long laugh here.
Just not happening, but in la la land of liberal dude nation that is the dream so why not foist it off on us as the reality. Only one problem. All they do is make it that much harder to eradicate the problem. Nic Kristoff said loudly that FGM is torture. Grimes is unafraid to talk about societies that have intolerance to equality for women. Dude saying out loud. It is time for women to be so brave.

A video from CRR

In Harm's Way: Unsafe Abortion in Kenya from Center for Reproductive Rights on Vimeo.

Sharia Law
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jnHVfx3o8
op ed
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/opinion/09ahmed.html