FP: Empowering Muslim women is the key to degrading and ultimately destroying medieval and reactionary fanaticism.
The Nobel Peace Prize committee rightly cited the work that Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi did to lead the “struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” but it was Malala’s work on behalf of girls and women that may be even more central and important to advancing peace in the world today. As I have written before, the systematic repression of women is history’s greatest injustice and one that must be addressed before any era can rightfully call itself just or modern. But beyond this core concern, in a world in which one of the greatest international threats comes from the spread of Islamist extremist groups, it is urgent that we also realize how essential empowering women is to defeating jihadists.
The correlation between the repression of women’s rights and instability in the modern world is absolutely clear. Each year, the World Economic Forum produces a Global Gender Gap report. In 2013, it tracked 136 countries on the education, economic empowerment, health, and political empowerment of women. Consider the world’s hot spots for extremism. Some, like Somalia, Libya, and Afghanistan, don’t even make the list. But of those that do, Nigeria ranks 106, Bahrain is 112, Qatar is 115, Kuwait is 116, Jordan is 119, Turkey is 120, Algeria is 124, Egypt is 125, Saudi Arabia is 127, Mali is 128, Morocco is 129, Iran is 130, Syria is 133, Pakistan is 135, and Yemen is dead last at 136. On the issue of economic empowerment, the bottom 10 from No. 127 to No. 136 are Turkey, Jordan, Morocco, Iran, Mauritania, Yemen, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria.
On other lists, a similar correlation between repression of women and extremism and instability can be found. A 2011 Newsweek list on the best and worst places for women put (in worsening order) Sudan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Niger, the Solomon Islands, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Yemen, Afghanistan, and Chad as the bottom 10. Saudi Arabia, the Central African Republic, and Nigeria were just barely better. India, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Nepal, Peru, Turkey, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the DRC made it on to a similar Marie Claire 10 worst places list this June. And yet another ranking showed the bottom 10 (in worsening order) as Iraq, Pakistan, India, Somalia, Mali, Guatemala, Sudan, the DRC, Afghanistan, and Chad.