Re: Taliban hatred for women?

----Original Message-----
From: Clint Ballinger

This is logical because before globalization and
colonialism when "places like Afghanistan" were so
much better off, women were treated so well.

* * *
There was an interesting book that came out several years ago called 
"Witchcraze" about the persecution of witches in Europe during the 15th/16th 
centuries, which, on the face of it was religious persecution but she argues 
convincingly that it was a holocaust against women associated with the rise 
of capitalism.  Women were not allowed to join guilds and capitalism took 
away their cottage industries, so they were economically disempowered.  Then 
came a population boom in Europe with no black plague to siphon off the 
excess.  The two countries that tried and executed the most witches were 
Scotland and Germany.  The legal precedent for making sorcery a criminal 
offense was set in the middle ages but the executions didn't start until the 
Renaissance -- a great time for men, bad time for women.

Jane Shahi