Women

There is a rough correlation to be found in the world. This is an important one to see and to respect, to take advantage of.

Let us start with something obvious: The United Stated of America are awesome. Fucking awesome. Best ever? That's debatable, but what reasonable and informed person can denial that we are awesome?

Sub-Saharan Africa is less awesome.

Even less awesome is a place like Afghanistan under the Taliban.

What am I getting at? Let's look at another trend.

How many rights, freedoms, and opportunities do women have in the US? Tons. Discrimination still exists, sexism exists, but it is low; at least as compared to history and other countries. It should be lower, but it is low.

Sub-Saharan women are less free. Less safe. The culture simply is less respectful. They do not control their own bodies even.

And then under the Taliban they were second class citizens, at best. Property, a necessary evil for the continuation of the bloodline, but temptresses and whores.

What does this add up to? Simple: The awesomeness of a country is directly proportional to the freedom and respect allowed to women. Want to improve your country? Free your women. They won't bite, but they will make your country a hundred times better than it could be otherwise.

This isn't feminism. This is practicality.

Larisa seems to think that sexism persists because we think it persists. "We reinforce the prejudices and injustices there may be by constantly bringing them into light." This isn't a terrible idea. But it is not yet true. I say not yet, because I believe we are close. Within a generation or less. But this is not true everywhere. In most of the world, sexism exists because it exists, not just because we think it exists.

I hope that the rest of the world gets up to speed.