Female oppression

  *  Among the more disturbing practices occurring in the 21st century are female genital mutilation and honor killing/mutilation. Female genital mutilation, as reported, involves restraint of a young girl by family members whereupon her labia minora and clitoris are cut off and her genital opening is sewn closed, all without anesthesia. The purpose is to increase the probability that she will be a virgin until marriage. Honor killing is the murder of a female by a family member as punishment for unchaperoned fraternizing with a male, especially with one of a rival group. Alternatively it can occur for a girl's failing to comply with her family's wishes with respect to an arranged marriage. A husband's family may kill or mutilate a wife because her dowry was insufficient. Concentrated sulfuric acid in the face is often the mutilation.
  *  In these patriarchal cultures, women are essentially chattel. It is difficult to extend respect to a culture where these practices are lawful or tolerated. In some countries where female genital mutilation and honor killing/mutilation are unlawful, the crimes go unpunished, and the practices continue.
  *  There are numerous reasons for failure to punish perpetrators of female-oppression acts in countries where they are crimes. If a government considers this to be shameful, it could adopt a policy of punishing such a crime by putting the likely perpetrating family's oldest male in prison for 20 years or until the actual perpetrator steps forward to take his place for 20 years. This would not always be just, but it wouldn't take many patriarchs in prison for the practices to stop.
  *  Governments of advanced countries should do what they can to improve the status of women everywhere. One could argue plausibly that gender equality worldwide might be the key to world peace and environmental sustainability.