AN article in a Hamas daily accuses women of spreading a recent outbreak of swine flu. The columnist blames women for being transmitters of epidemics due to a predilection for congregating in groups to exchange news and rumours.
He suggested that outbreaks could be averted if men imposed more limitations on women's movements. These claims might be dismissed as laughable, but they are not isolated allegations of female culpability.
Iranian cleric Ayatollah Kazim Sadighi warned women who did not dress modestly could promote adultery, which in turn increased earthquakes. A Nigerian woman was brought before a sharia court and accused of initiating a girl into witchcraft.
A Saudi cleric believes that women who wear a full veil with slits for the eyes still look too seductive with eye make-up, and he ordered that they cover one eye.
Claims that women are blameworthy also serve as pretexts for Islamist extremists who wish to strengthen gender restrictions based on religion.
Furthermore, the tribal culture favours boys over girls from birth. Women must be contained to curb their potential for causing social strife, and undermining the reputation of men. As men's reputations are linked to the sexual behaviour of their wives, mothers and sisters, "honour" killings and domestic violence are treated leniently.
Widespread discriminatory laws give men privileges through polygyny, forced marriage, child marriage, temporary marriages, unilateral divorce, segregation of women in the public space, regulated clothing, male guardianship and court testament worth half that of a man's, to name a few.
In Saudi Arabia and Iran, where religion is the principal source of law, "morality police" have the power to enforce Islamic dress and sexual segregation.
Misogyny is evident in the Islamist and culture-based oppression of women in rural areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Women are bartered like land or animals. In Afghanistan, they are targets of attack by warlords and the Taliban.
Stoning to death for adultery, assassinations of reformers and acid attacks on girls attending school still occur in Taliban-controlled areas.
Under Islamist occupation, women in Mali have suffered flogging and gang rapes for not wearing a face covering. In Indonesia, the Council of Ulema, one of the largest Islamic organisations, has rejected a UN resolution to ban female circumcision, and in Aceh province Islamic regulations demand that women are fully covered in public.
No similar discrimination in laws and cultural practice would be acceptable in the West even though sexism is far from eradicated there. The litany of restrictions would seem an obvious cause for feminist campaigners.
However, the Western feminist movement that was once an inspiration for human rights has become a shadow of its former self and, in its postmodern form, third-generation feminists are silent on Muslim women's rights.
Instead, they are preoccupied with issues dear to the far Left, such as radical versions of moral relativism, post-colonialism and anti-Americanism.
The movement has sunk into hypocrisy and double standards. It has allowed an alliance with the far Left to trump women's rights.
Sadly, feminists have ignored the victims of patriarchy, and abandoned the reformers battling to reinterpret religious texts in favour of sexual equality.
Choosing to share their bed with Islamist misogynists, feminists are betraying their Muslim sisters. At the same time, they forgo historic feminist ideals based on absolute values and guarantees provided by international protocols. Hillary Clinton has pledged continued support for Afghan women's rights. Perhaps she could also lead a new wave of feminism.
