Science News

Over the course of 2011's momentous Arab Spring uprisings, young women in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen used social media and cyberactivism to carve out central roles in the revolutionary struggles under way in their countries, according to a new study commissioned by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

The commonalities between fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Judaism are striking: both want to treat women like prisoners, relegated to perpetual childbearing and restricted from participating in intellectual or public life. And it's not just these two faiths, but virtually every religion, for which this pattern holds true (this is something I've speculated on the reasons for). Contrary to the belief that religion is the source of all morality, it's a safe bet that, the more respect someone claims to have for God, the less they're likely to have for women.