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We witnessed Malala Yousufzai a 15 year old lady, I hesitate to call a 15 year old a girl, shot in the head by the Taliban for having the audacity to promote education for females. Then we had the brutal gang rape of a lady known simply as “a daughter of India.”

Fingers have been pointed in all directions especially in the gang rape case, but where oh where does the buck stop? I know that my generation were conditioned to teach their offspring to always listen to (obey) an adult, be it a teacher, aunt, uncle, neighbor, bus driver whoever.

In doing so did we without knowing it, set in motion a culture that would culminate eventually in the almost robot like acceptance by children of an adult always being right and having the right to control them?

Our children must be taught to say NO! NO! NO! Get out of my space! I don’t want you near me! What I am saying is that if, from a very young age females said this to the males they interacted with, they would perhaps receive more respect.

Of course I am not silly enough to think that in the two cases I have mentioned this would have prevented the tragic events that took place. The culprits were not children either, but men are boys before they are men so if males are taught from day one to respect females and females are taught to be assertive, perhaps some of these atrocities might not occur.

They seem to be rather seriously under attack in the US when you can have a presidential candidate come out with mind boggling concepts like legitimate rape - that women who have been raped can't become pregnant - and when politicians can cut the funding to family planning clinics because they are opposed to contraception on religious grounds.

I'm not defending the republican candidate, whose name I already forgot, but it was a Senate candidate, a rethug from Missouri, Todd Akin, who made that claim. The republican candidate, whose name I already forgot, did disagree with that one statement, but continued his support anyway.

I witnessed many atrocities against women by muslims in muslim countries. I also witnessed an insane amount of molestation of young boys as well.

Thursday nights were notorious for homosexuality.

The oppression of women however, was nothing short of appalling.

The oppression of women is one of the reasons the ME is in so many ways backwards compared to the rest of the world. Look at China, 50 years ago oppression of women was generally the norm. In the last few decades women have been recognized for their unique talents outside of the home and in the work place and their society has benefited from it.