What the world needs now – Viva!life 88

…is more women – or at least total equality for women! Without their influence, it seems, civilisation does not advance and barbarism takes hold

Featured in Viva!Life 88/Summer 2024

What an irony! Iran is reckoned to be the cradle of civilisation and dates back to about 4,000 BC. You’d have thought that after 6,000 years, women would have achieved some kind of equality with men. The death of a 22-year-old woman, Jina Amini, at the hands of Iran’s morality police in 2022 for not wearing her headscarf correctly, kind of signifies there’s a long way still to go.

In 1979, the autocratic Shah of Persia (the country’s previous name) seemed to have got up everyone’s nose and was overthrown. His belief in women’s suffrage is reckoned by some to be one of the reasons. Just days later, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over and formed a republic based on Islamic traditions. I don’t know what his female supporters were expecting but for most, I reckon, what came next was a bit of a shock.

Family protection laws and family courts were dismantled. Men were again free to divorce their wives by simply stating so and they had custody of any children. The marriage age for girls was reduced to puberty – officially nine years old – and flogging and stoning were introduced for a range of offences, including adultery. Not exactly equality!

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Iran is also ranked as the worst country for animal rights. The stark fact is that the exploitation of women and animals seems to be on the same spectrum. The big question is, why?

From my own observations, I can almost guarantee that both ultra-left and ultra-right political philosophies, religious zeal and theocracies all spell disaster for women and animals. Some have tried almost to airbrush women out of existence, including Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. There is, however, a gigantic gulf between Islam’s original teachings on both women and animals and the modern reality.

“And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment,” so says the Qur’an. It’s a far cry from that to being covered head to foot and peering out through a grille and being denied education and freedom.

When the Qur’an and the Sunnah are not explicit enough, as in this case, scholars will interpret what they think they meant to say. And who are these scholars? Men, of course!

I’m not too fond of Roman Catholicism either where animals are concerned. “We may lawfully use them for our reasonable wants and welfare, even though such employment of them necessarily inflicts pain upon them.”

As for women, the denial of birth control inflicts constant anguish throughout their reproductive lives and the fact that they cannot possibly become a priest or a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church is an official declaration of their unworthiness. Again, animals and women both suffer.

The Protestant Church isn’t exactly a feminist trailblazer either, nor is it overly keen on animal rights – not the C of E nor the hugely powerful American evangelical Christian nationalist movement. ‘Dominionism’ is the watchword, where Christians have sovereignty (control) over every creature on the planet. Donald Trump’s former head of the Environmental Protection Agency summed it up: “Humans have the right to exploit the natural resources of the planet without regard to how it might affect other species.” Yeah, that’s working out well!

And, of course, they’re big on hunting – with church leader James Dobson almost salivating over it and the whole father/son (not daughter) bonding nonsense: “When we train a boy to hunt we advance the Kingdom of God because we are obeying the dominion mandate of Genesis … we strike a blow against the Devil!” So, sending a bullet smashing through the skull of a beautiful, unsuspecting deer is smacking down the devil. Who’d a thought it!

You can dismiss all this as fringe stuff but it isn’t. Mark Robinson is likely to be the next governor of North Carolina and have ‘dominion’ over nearly 11 million people, cheered on by Donald Trump, who may be the next president. He referred to Robinson as Martin Luther King on steroids: “Feminism was planted in the garden (of Eden),” says Mr Robinson, “watered by the devil and is harvested and sold by his minions.” And women who want equal rights with men are: “… hairy armpit, poo poo hat-wearing pinkos.” Nothing better than a reasoned argument! The right to abortion, birth control and even voting are all under threat by these Christian gentlemen. And don’t get me going on the whole virginity thing!

The Chinese communist revolution of 1949 was supposed to liberate women and, yes, it did row back on some of the worst excesses women endured but now, 75 years later, traditional gender roles still cling on with women largely expected to stay at home and be housewives.

When the one child policy was in force there were occasions when women, pregnant with a second child, were grabbed from their homes by the authorities and subjected to forcible abortions, even in the third trimester when the foetus was viable. The abject horror of this is difficult to even think about let alone comprehend. Any nation that can do that to a woman has cruelty and contempt embedded in its fabric. Perhaps it’s no surprise that there are no laws protecting animals in China and the horrors of their wet markets became clear during the covid pandemic.

The Russian revolution espoused equality for women and they subsequently had a massive impact on the country in every sphere of industry and the military.  It didn’t, however, relieve them of household duties; freedom and subservience at the same time – weren’t they lucky? And Mr Putin has not changed that: “Raising children is what matters most for women, no matter what career path she chooses or what professional heights she attains.” And he demands she should have eight or more children “to preserve the old traditions.”

There are some weak animal protection laws in Russia but stray dogs are routinely killed, fur farming booms and animal experiments continue for cosmetics.

‘Control’ seems to be the watchword for many men but they also seem to be obsessed with mutilations – animals’ ears and tails, teeth and genitals and in some cultures, even the genital mutilation of young girls.

By its nature, a short article such as this has to be about generalisations and there are contradictions everywhere. However, on many reckonings, the countries where women have achieved the greatest equality seem to be Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Sweden. The greatest concern for animal rights seems to be in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands and Canada. This correlation should tell us something – women have a civilising effect on society.

Which names do you most closely associate with the fight for animals? Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey, Brigitte Bardot, Pamela Anderson, Ingrid Newkirk and our own Juliet Gellatley will probably be among them. There are, of course, some men, such as our dear friend the late Andrew Tyler, Chris Packham and others but it is the names of women which stretch back through history – Caroline Earle White, Frances Power Cobbe, Harriet Hemenway, Daphne Sheldrick and Jane Velez Mitchell, amongst many others.

Most of Viva!’s supporters are women, most of our staff are women and women give more to charity than men.

Too emotional, not logical, not practical, too weak – there are a thousand excuses men use to remain in the driving seat (oh – and women can’t drive, either!) but I’m convinced that women must take power – and as soon as possible. But men’s is a hard act to follow – more wars than you can shake a stick at, gross income differentials, grinding poverty, totalitarianism, collapsing oceans, disappearing wildlife, threat of nuclear war, a heating planet, an insane primacy accorded to livestock farming and a global environment that’s on its knees. Now think carefully – are you sure you can do better than this?