I refuse to watch a death body, but from your description it sounds awful. I completely agree with you, those acts of violence need to be eradicated.

I've read a lot of literature on Muslim cultures in Africa.  I've even read some first hand accounts of female genital mutilation and storeis where they kill the rape victim instead of the rapist.  It is terrible.  And women do bear the brunt of these kinds of mistreatment.  However, the thing I find so disturbing about it is that some women want it.  Genital Mutilations are only performed by women (usually with broken glass or a rock).  Some mothers force their own children to have it done even while they have experienced it first hand.  Women are dying in these countries because of a cultural need to punish women.  However, I do not blame this on the faith.  There are normal islamic communities that aren't like this.  I consider it to be more of a cultural problem.  A lot of women say over there that FGM is necessary or a woman can't get pregnant.  A lot of women there say that a rape victim deserves to die.  Of course, many also fight back.  But even young girls feel the victims are responsible.  It is very very sad.

you are correct, that is true.  It is blamed on religion.  But I don't know for sure that Islam dogma is actually that oppressive of women.  I could very well be wrong, but I don't think the Quran (sp?) actually condones a lot of these practices.  Which is why I ignore the religious aspect sometimes.  But either way, this is one of those practices where men and women of "faith" distort their religion to suit their desires.  In this case, they teach that Islam wants women to wear Burkas.  They teach that women should be held in complete terror of their superior males.  As usual, they use religion to keep women in their place.  But I guess that was the point in the original posts.  I guess I just still hate to see God so misused.  It is distressing, as I'm sure you know.

no I didn't know that.  But again, as I am no longer a Christian, I can ignore the religious aspect of it fairly easily.  The problem I have is that women let it happen.  We take it, sometimes gladly and let men treat us like this (some women do anyways).  Sometimes they don't even know how to defend themselves.  I still think the root of the problem is in the society, not the diety.  After all what did people do when they didn't like an aspect of their chosen dogma?  They either changed it or left it.  Henry VIII, the Mormons, Calvin, Luther, and plenty more I can't think of.  People do change their religions.  Even now, women are fighting against cultures that want them to wear the burka.  It is possible to quickly change a faith, it is not so easy to change the way men want women to be subserviant.  I agree that the religion is ingrained with these practices, but religion is not necessarily the reason these practices are continued.