Women rights law vetoed in Mali

Yet another discouraging setback by the fanatic ultraconservatives of this our planet: the president of Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré, has vetoed a law that recognizes more or less equal rights to men and women. Muslim groups had protested it.

The law acknowledged rights that are considered basic and normal almost anywhere that is not an ultra-machoist remain from the Middle Ages: it acknowledges that wifes are not slaves of their husbands but that marriage implies mutual loyalty and protection, it betters women's inheritance rights and marriage is not allowed in most circumstances below the age of 18.

Ironically one of the concepts that Muslims have protested most against is the recognition of marriage as a secular institution. I say ironically because, unlike in Catholicism and other Christian sects, marriage in Islam has always been a secular institution.

Apparently, President Touré was a strong backer of the new law, but, as it's happening with the estabilishment of public healthcare in the USA, a lot of misinformation and outright lies have been circulating confusing the matter, causing him to send the law back to parliament. Feminist groups, that had been campaigning for such a reform for a decade or more, are "discouraged" indeed.

Source: BBC.
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Paleolithic artists could have been women

Sounds terribly obvious but somehow it seems you have to think consciously about it to realize, because our patriarchal culture is so strong that makes difficult at times to assign women other roles than that of mothers.

Well, the case is that, as Martin Cagliari reports, a new study confirms that a good deal of the hand impressions on cave walls, normally near other artwork, maybe as sort of signature, are femenine.

Example of hands painted along with other artwork at Pech Merle cave

Original source: National Geographic.
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The most brutal Patriarchy... under US protection.

Human Rights Watch has released a report on how the human rights of women (specially) just do not exist in Saudi Arabia. Under the barbaric Saudi laws, Arab women are denied even the most nimious right, always needing the approval of their male guardian (father, husband...) for absolutely everything.

The report emphasizes that Arabian women lack of right to education, right to employement, right to health, equality under the law, freedom of movement, etc.

Of course such a brutal tyranny, probably one of the most backward and despicable of the whole planet (it also ranks highest in executions per capita, for instance), that has financed and promoted Islamic Fundamentalism all around the World, that is ruled autocratically by an aristocratic gang of fat polygamous men, seconded by an SS-like religious police...

... such a fascist regime is supported by the USA in the name of democracy.

I would laugh wouldn't I be about to cry, sincerely.