why?

something has occurred to me lately and i have been thinking quite a bit after i posted that story of the poor brazilian model who eating disordered herself to death. i think dr. phil or some show like that this week was trying to save a 60 pound anorexic woman. then- i saw the story about the afghan women setting themselves on fire to escape domestic abuse in a country that sees even less choice for women than here. i do not necessarily label myself feminist because i consider my self a humanist. i believe that humans are humans no matter what their gender, age, skin color, religious(or not) background, ethnicity and so on. i am not in the majority in the world. what struck me- and continues to strike me- are the similarities between woman of different backgrounds throughout the world. the similarities that stand out are the fact that men cannot seem to be able or willing to treat women as equals. to that end, women are not able to stand up for themselves for fear of domestic violience, imprisonment and even death. folks here in america take it for granted that women here are free to come and go as they please. i suppose that is true to a certain extent, but women are still seen as below men on the totem pole. we are still paid less and expected to do more- and expected to look and behave a certain way in order to "enjoy" men`s company. while it doesn`t seem to matter which strata of life women come from, there is always one place in particular where women are treated worse than mainstream- the organized religious sector. from sharia law in islam; to st. paul`s epistles in christianity; to the ancient laws in the torah in orthodox judaism- women are supposed to remain subservient to men. that has been the last word on defining gender roles throughout the world. the crux of it is- if you actually look at the scriptures of any of these orthodox religions- it was later generations of men who added the bullshit about women being less than. as we have become more "civilized"- apparently, men have decided that women are less than. i am truly lucky because i have a husband who values me as a person. he values my mind and what i do- as do i him. my only hope is- more and more folks are having less traditional couplings- and men are taking a more active role in the lives of their families instead of trying to control. time will tell if there will ever be a time when women do not have to escape a living hell of a life by setting themselves on fire or starving themselves to death. perhaps there will come a time when we stop looking at differences as something we have to control and instead embrace as unique. perhaps there will come a day when we start treating other people as people.