Every day in the news there is something that just reinforces what a shocking Patriarchal world we live in.
The latest horror story is from the Sudan where a woman – who is a doctor and eight months pregnant, has been sentenced to death for Apostasy – she supposedly converted from Islam to Christianity and married a Christian. BUT her mother was a Christian and her father deserted them both when the girl was 6. So, the absent father is the one who decides the religion? Oh how wonderful.
I do wonder whether this woman being a Christian and a doctor, and in Sudan where 88% of women are sexually mutilated, has spoken out against the practice (which is not written about in the Koran) and has annoyed the Imams who see female genital mutilation as a way of controlling women’s sexuality. It is shocking that in the world today someone can be sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. The Death Sentence itself is barbaric- but for “changing” your religion when it is your mother’s anyway? I haven’t heard Justin Welby say much about this. Or our government threaten to cut aid to Sudan – and the UK is the second largest provider of aid (to a country where 88% of women are sexually mutillated) Oh, but I forgot, our government is mostly made up of men, who have a more fortunate time with Sharia Law.
Surely Aid providers have a bargaining tool?
Surely as a tax payer I too have a say how my country uses its money?
There have been lots of petitions, which I have signed, on the internet. Thank goodness for Social Media – it does force the politicians to address certian issues the public care about… (However, I do wonder if we are living in the Paradise Age of the internet at the moment and soon all this freedom and power will be constrained – as it is now in China and North Korea…)
So women still belong to their fathers in parts of the world today…
Interestingly enough on Woman’s Hour Caroline Criado-Perez was talking about Marriage Certificates. These date back to 1837 – when English women belonged first to their fathers and then became part of their husband’s chattels on marriage.
This piece of paper work hasn’t been updated since.
On a Marriage Certificate it is required to put the name and profession of the father only – with no provision for the mother. I had forgotten this: it was such a big deal to everyone when I got married that I wasn’t going to change my name that if I had kicked up a fuss about that aspect of the Marriage Certificate my husband’s family would have probably walked out! Anyway, Criado-Perez is challenging this and working for change ( 1837 most certainly calls for an update). She refuses to get married in England or Wales until this is revised and altered but interestingly she can get married in Scotland where both names can be added. I am half Scottish – perhaps my millitant female awareness is from these genes. Indeed my mother has her own mother’s maiden name in her own name and when she married my father, she refused to have ” love, honour and obey” mentioned in the service! Well, certainly not the obey bit.
A lot of people have said to Criado- Perez, “It is only a piece of paper!”, but this isn’t the point.
Women are no longer a man’s possession in the UK – but they still are elsewhere in the world. We need to change all aspects of our culture that relate back to female enslavement in the hope we can influence other societies and cultures. Women do need to stand up and challenge the system – otherwise nothing ever changes.
Change only happens if the system is challenged.
No one likes to be challenged and the people who challenge are disliked.
So the Challengers need to be strong.
And I must finish my degree before I start the challenging…
