If true how do you explain the lack of tolerance for women, the need to cover them, the need to measure the size of the stick for hitting...the blame if they are raped, the stoning if caught in an adulterous relationship...the attitude of our resident ":don't eat pork person"?
If it is not the religion, then what?
I would say the culture. Non-Muslim religions in the Middle East are also not particularly well-known for granting equality to women. A male Orthodox Jew will not touch a woman who is not his wife, sister, or daughter. Not even to shake hands.
I suspect that the main reason Christianity is ahead of many other religions in how it treats women is because Christianity spread to countries where women were treated better by the local cultures, northern Europe in this case. Religion affects culture, but guess what? Culture affects religion too.
point taken, it has not always been so...however this country and others in Europe have reached this level of tolerance under the Christian system no?
Part of it is what I said up thar, and another part is that the general recent history of the West has been the professional and middle classes agitating for more power in societies controlled by the aristocracy. So when they get that, it serves as an example to the classes below them (including women and religious/racial/ethnic minorities) of how to improve their lot.
I call it Jefferson's Dilemma. How do you write that everyone is equal and has equal rights whilst holding slaves?
