How Fareth Women In a Male World

History tells us much about the struggle between the sexes, and nowhere does it tell us more than what has come down to posterity from the Isle of Lesbos through the poetry of Sappho, and again, through the legends of the fabled warrior queens, the Amazons who campaigned in the ancient world out of Turkey, thence to Greece. Their sole use for men was as temporary studs, capturing males in combat, holding them as sex slaves, releasing them and their male progeny, retaining the females.

One can only suppose this to have been a rebellion from long traditions of abuse by men in one society after another. Although the genders complement one another, each bringing to their union something completely unique, without which the other is unable to reproduce, the greater physical strength and energy and dexterity of the male leads him to the belief he is superior, and his anger lead him to violence.

Well, that's a gross overstatement of fact, since males and females alike are quite capable of living together in harmony, and raising their young together, and growing old in contentment with life, together. And it's an additional undeniable fact of life that there always have been and likely always will be men, or women, who detest one another, and can not and will not live in harmony.

It's also incontestable that in a contest of physical strength and endurance it's men who win the battle. And a corollary of that is the number of women who are murdered by their husbands or their male companions for any number of reasons, most of them relating to power. It's true that women can be as nasty and miserable to live with as men, but generally speaking the male's physical strength gives him the final violent advantage.

The result of which is that every day throughout the world in the news we hear of tragedies, reports of domestic violence resulting in untimely deaths. And then there are other types of occurrences with males delivering death to women, men unrelated to the women they murder, predators who prowl in society to isolate their victims. Added to that are the misogynists who believe women to be responsible for every misery that befalls males.

In one day's issue of a newspaper, stories abound of the sordid, gory incidents that take women's lives. From a young man murdering his wife, for reasons known or unknown to relatives; through a history of brutal aggression, or one of mental imbalance. And then there is the cultural, or institutionalized treatment of women and girls that victimizes them beyond human endurance.

In today's newspaper:

Mogadishu: Thousands of people gathered to witness 50 Somali men stone a woman to death after an Islamic court in the southern port of Kismayo found her guilty of adultery. Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow, who had been found guilty of extra-marital intercourse was buried in the ground up to her neck while the men pelted her head with rocks. "Our sister Aisho asked the Islamic Sharia court in Kismayo to be charged and punished for the crime she committed," local Islamist leader Sheikh Hayakallah told the crowd. "She admitted in front of the court to engaging in adulterous sexual intercourse. She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply."

Niamey, Niger: West African judges yesterday fined the state of Niger for failing to protect a woman sold into slavery at age 12. Adidjatou Mani Koraou, 24, was sold into slavery for the equivalent of $500, and over the next decade was forced to carry out domestic and agricultural work. She also lived as a sexual slave to her master, who already had four wives and seven other sex slaves. She lived in a state of submission, was subjected to regular beatings and sexual assaults.

Cairo: Sunni Islam's highest authority has approved a woman's right to fight back if her husband uses violence against her, Egypt's Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported. The declaration by Sheik Abdel Hamid al-Atrash, who heads Al-Azhar University's committee for fatwas or religious rulings, comes after similar rulings by religious leaders in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. "A wife has the legitimate right to hit her husband in order to defend herself."

Karachi: A 17-year-old Pakistani village girl was falsely accused of immorality and had dogs set on her as a punishment before she was shot dead, the girls' parents said. Gul Sher, father of the girl, Tasleem Solangi, demanded justice for the killing of his daughter after he said a council in their village in the southern province of Sindh falsely accused her of having sex with a man. But Mr. Sher said his daughter was killed because of a land dispute with relatives. Traditional tribal codes still hold sway in many backward, conservative parts of Pakistan and they often stipulate brutal punishment and death for women deemed to have acted immorally, besmirching the honour of their family or tribe.