It’s hard not to give a muted cheer on learning that, from June next year, women in Saudi Arabia will be allowed to drive. It’s equally hard to account for the fact that this change is taking place in the 21st century… rather than the early years of the 20th. In terms of gender equality, Islamic countries are lagging so far behind.
As Christopher Hitchens said, "The cure for poverty has a name: it's called the empowerment of women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some religious doctrines condemn them, and then if you'll throw in a handful of seeds, perhaps some credit, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and optimism will increase. It doesn't matter; try it in Bangladesh, try it in Bolivia. It works every time. Name me one religion that stands for that, or ever has”…
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