The Equality Illusion a review of this wonderful book

 
The Equality Illusion, The Truth about Women and Men Today, by Kat Banyard, Faber & Faber, London, 2010
 
Page 6, the United Nations Population Fund reports that across the world, it is young women who are most affected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic. In the developing world, women 15 - 24 are six times more in danger of getting them than men their age.
 
My comment: The Catholic Church then is harming women by its battle against birth-control.
 
The huge majority of new HIV infections are women who married or have a long-term relationship with a man. A survey conducted in two districts in Uganda revealed that 74% of women thought it was unacceptable to ask their husbands to wear a condom.
 
My comment: A lot of that is down to their belief in the Catholic teaching that condom use is sinful. The Church has killed those women.
 
Pages 30 -31, point out that women are being persuaded that if they look good, their self-esteem will get better. They end up treating their bodies as accessories and as inanimate objects. Those who see their bodies that way have less inclination to protect them from harm. Self-objectification increases the risk of mental illness and suicide.
 
My comment: The religious notion that you are your soul which goes to Heaven or Hell or Purgatory after death encourages this notion of the body being an accessory or an object.
 
Page 141 objects to women in the sex industry as they engage in being treated as lust objects and sex though they don't really want to and may do it only for the money. It says they are not self-empowered.
 
My comment: What if some do want to do it?
 
She says that the purchaser of a prostitute's services, knows she would not have sex with him except for the money. His needing to pay her for it proves that. See page 142.
 
My comment: No woman has sex just for the sake of sex. There is at least one more reason. The prostitute may want his money and the sex. She can want the sex a little at least.
 
Page 201 points out that having an abortion is safer than carrying a baby to full-term. The notion of post-abortion syndrome where women are supposedly psychologically damaged by having an abortion "is not a proven or a recognised medical condition."
 
My comment: An excellent refutation of the Catholic Church's lies that pregnancy is safe and does not endanger life. The Church peddles that lie in the battle against abortion.  A society where a woman aborts a baby the size of a full stop for she may have health problems that will arise during pregnancy and the doctor is warning her is suspected of murder and wrongdoing is not an equal society at all for women at that degree of pregnancy.  We need to stop respecting the opinion that she did wrong for that gives it more validity and indeed credibility than it deserves.  If people start to feel that it is wrong or condemning it is normalised then the hate only gets worse.