Burqa* Burning: Islamofascism's Achilles Heel?

George Melloan's thoughtful piece in today's WSJ [link for WSJ.com subscribers only] on the prospect for a broader conflict between the West and Islam, reminded me of an idea I've been toying with recently:

Can an effort to improve the status of women in the Islamic world help make the world a safer, more stable place?

Speaking in general terms, and with the obvious caveat that many women and men do not conform to these broad generalizations, women differ from men in several important respects:

• Women are generally much less violent than men, particularly when unprovoked


• Women tend to be less susceptible to abstract, intellectual justifications for doing things that would not be acceptable in every day life, like, for example, putting a bomb on a bus full of school children, or going to war for any number of reasons other than self defense


• When it comes to guns vs butter, women will almost always go for the butter


• (And last, but not least) Women are too busy working, raising children, keeping a family together, etc. to waste time on terrorist conspiracies

If you don't believe this, just think for a minute about how the political scene in America would change if only men (or only women) had the right to vote.

I'm not sure how far to take this idea, but I'll bet you beemers to burqas that if and when women are allowed to play a more equal part in the social, political and economic life of Islamic societies, that those societies will be a lot less tolerant of Jihadist aggression.

* For an amusing speech on burqas see "Is that a burqa on the bedroom floor?" by Sarah Lawrence, to buy a burqa click here.