19 August 2009

This shameful gender segregation

An MP who walked out of a Muslim wedding acted out of principle - Two countries, two weddings, two outcomes. In the first instance, a minister in the British government has been accused of bad manners for leaving a Muslim wedding in east London when he was asked to sit in a separate room from his wife. In the second, 41 women and children died when fire broke out in the women's marquee at a wedding party in Kuwait.

Reports of the latter event are hugely distressing, while only feelings seem to have been hurt in the row involving the minister, Jim Fitzpatrick. But the tragedy in the Gulf is not as remote from events in Whitechapel as it first seems. [independent.co.uk] Read more