Women to the back of the mosque, please

While the West righteously wages war in Afghanistan to, among other things, improve the lives of women, our good friend and purveyor of oil Saudi Arabia persists in its harsh misogynistic ways. That country's religious czars now plan to restrict where women can pray in the Grand Mosque in Mecca. They have already restricted women's access to the burial site of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina.

Currently, both men and women can pray around the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure believed to have been built by Abraham and his son. It is toward the Kaaba that Muslims face when they pray. An all-male (what else?) religious committee will continue to allow men to pray there but limit women to a distant section of the mosque, ostensibly on the grounds of over-crowding. The head of the Institute for Haj Research, Osama al-Bar, explains, "Some women thought it wasn't good, but from our point of view it will be better for them ... We can sit with them and explain to them what the decision is." Patiently, as to a child, no doubt.