UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail
SARAH VINE: Sex abuse in Rotherham and why we British women of ALL faiths must make a stand against the bigots who betray Islam
Feminism, it is now often argued, is an idea that has had its day. In Britain, where women are equal in the eyes of the law, and where girls outperform boys in education, emancipation no longer feels like the fight of our lives.
But this week I realised that we need feminism perhaps more than ever before. We need to empower women, listen to young girls — and challenge the appalling behaviour of certain men whose belief systems would seem to legitimise the idea that women are forever second-class citizens.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the shocking case of the sexual exploitation of an estimated 1,400 girls and young women by overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistani men in Rotherham.
Because if their behaviour tells us anything about the culture of certain Muslim men, it tells us how they value females. Which is to say, not very highly. Or not, at least, by the standards of modern Britain.
I am not saying, let me stress, that every Muslim man is a misogynist. Indeed there are countless numbers who are hard-working exemplary citizens, model husbands and fathers, who love their wives and daughters as more than equals.
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