Life for women under theocracy:

The Council of Islamic Ideology has proposed a new Women Protection Bill for Punjab that allows husbands to “lightly” beat their wives for disobedience.

The proposed bill was on Wednesday discussed by the religious body, formed in 1962 under the “modern” Ayub Khan dictatorship to ensure all laws in the country conform with Islam, after a previous version drafted by the Punjab government in collaboration with women rights organizations and civil society was rejected by clerics and religious parties for being “un-Islamic” only a day after its passage into law.

That right there is theocracy – having a government body set up by a dictator to ensure all laws in the country conform with a particular religion. Religions are crap at respecting human rights, because they are more concerned with a deity’s rights. They are even worse at respecting women’s rights, because religions are artifacts of history and thus are male-centric: they write laws to control women and give men absolute power over them.

In the version of the bill discussed on Wednesday, the council recommends that husbands should ‘lightly’ beat their wives for disobedience and for refusing to wear the Hijab or take a bath after intercourse and menstruation.

And for eating sweets, and going out without permission, and talking back – just as if women were all six years old.

‘Light’ beatings are also recommended for wives who refuse sex with their husbands without a valid religious excuse, speak loud enough to be heard by strangers and donate money without the consent of their spouses.

Because god said so, that’s why. He told Muhammed and Muhammed told everyone else, so now you know.

A number of professional sanctions on women are also proposed in the bill, including a bar on participating in military combat, a ban on female nurses treating male patients and a recommendation to prevent female models from appearing in advertisements.

The bill also bans co-education for women after primary schooling and bars them from welcoming ‘foreign’ delegations or interacting with males to whom they are not married or related by blood for recreational purposes.

Shut up and pray.