Seriously, the objectification of women in the west, takes place with thier full consent or at thier urging. It happens because feminists fought for the right to wear what they wish, to behave as they wish. To throw it back in our face because some ass hole who lives in a cave wants to cover up all women in burga's is unwarranted. The women here have full freedom to wear burgas if they so chose.

I definitely believe that the oppression of women in such foreign countries is pretty horrifying, especially when they have no voice. !But! I also think that he makes a good point that we forget to consider here in the west. Although we can wear what we want and have a lot more freedoms, we are still embedded in a fundamentally mysogynist country that is full of violence against women and other mechanisms to silence and abuse them. The United States has a tendency to say to the world "We're right; you're wrong; follow us" (see democracy & elections for example). This is a poor move on our part. Instead, we should be saying "Look, we have these ideals and we think we should all be striving for them and this is what we've learned on our path so far so we thought we'd share; it's not perfect, but we're trying..."

There lies the problem. Some countries like India, do that, and everyone bemoans the cultural hedgemony of the US. And countries like the ones in the middle eastern, just cover the ears, and suppress thier people telling them we are to blame for thier problems. I know we are to the extent we prop these sham governments up, but thats my point. Instead of siting back and let Iran happen all over the place, we need to make sure there's a democratic system in place before we step back. It really isnt interventionism when you realize that we are already in the middle east and actively involved with thier filthy, spineless monarchies.