I attended the NGO Forum on Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, the first two weeks of September, 95. During the conference, I was given so many brochures, handouts, books and other material by the religious establishments against the equality of the sexes which convinced me that God, the Almighty, must have some animosity toward women. Now I am asking why?

First was the Catholic Church, and its representative Marry Ann Glendon, a Law Professor, while representing Vatican City, who put womanhood in shame by calling the United Nation's document anti-family. In my opinion Vatican itself is anti-family. The fact that the Catholic Church believes in celibacy is a sign of disregard of the church for "family" and its values. Vatican City is a "city of priests" who have no understanding of what is all about family and children. They never raised any. How could they know what it takes to have and raise children.

A typical Catholic Pope has never been married, or had a child. He has never had to mourn the death of a child or that of a spouse. He has never been unemployed, laid off, homeless, hungry, cold, and with no one to turn to. How in the world does he know what it is to raise children under the conditions listed above.

Someone may say that the Pope was privileged and blessed by God. But why? Why was he blessed and privileged? Why did God only bless men? Has God the Almighty for some unknown reason prejudice towards women? Is that why he sent 124,000 messengers to this world all of them men? Why?

It was not God that made the Pope, the Ayatollah, the Rabbi and other religious leaders privileged. It was them themselves who made us believe that they were unique and blessed. And we made them privileged by our hard work and unlimited financial support.

And now as the technology takes us forward in the 21st century, we are questioning the legitimacy of these people and more and more we are refusing to listen to them and support them.

That is why they are so much against birth control and population control. A lower percentage of a bigger pie is a lot more than a larger piece of a smaller pie. So the world population must increase so that the Priests, the Ayatollahs, the Rabbis and the Monks can continue their financially secured lives even if only one percent of the populous supports them.

And then there are the Moslem countries who propagate the Islamic Wisdom which has been mostly taken from that of the Judaism.

In his book, "The Wisdom behind the Islamic Laws Regarding Women", Shaykh Abdur-Rahman Abdul-Khalig quotes from Koran 2:228, "Women have such honorable rights as obligations, but men have a single degree above them."

What proof does he have that this is the word of the creator? Why do women are born with obligations? The fact that women carry their children in their womb does not make them totally responsible and obligated for their children's lives.

In another place in the same book the Shaikh continues by saying that "Allah commended men to be responsible for the care of women and their children." And if she has no male relatives, "the obligation falls upon the community. The responsibility of her care is a communal obligation; if non fulfills that, all have sinned."

So the community has sinned. What happens to the woman and her children? Must they be left to die? So that the community can be punished in some other life which so far we have no information about!

Isn't the welfare state a form of communal obligation for the care of the women and their children who have no men or have been abandoned by them? And isn't this same system of communal obligation that is being challenged in the United States by the Republican Party, the Religious Right and the Christian Coalition?

And besides why should a capable woman with potential to earn a good living and contribute to the progress of her society become a charity case because some men had said, some hundreds of years ago, that she should?

Why is that all religions place such a heavy burden on women for "family values"? Don't men have anything to do with family and its values? Why is it that everyone always combines the words women and children together? Children don't belong to women only. They have fathers too. Then why nobody talks about the fathers?

Why is it that Mr. Newt Gingrich who abandoned his wife and children can run for office, get elected, become the speaker of the house, write a book, be a pillar of the society and a woman who abandons her child will face imprisonment? Why? These are shameful "family values!"

An Average woman is able to bear one child every sixteen to eighteen months for a period of forty years of her life and after some 20 or more pregnancies, her child-bearing machine breaks down. Average man, however, can make a child every day or even every hour for some 70 plus years of his life with almost no breakdown. So why is the problem of population explosion, birth-control, and all measures for family planning and raising children are placed on women? Women can not produce children by themselves. So why do we keep asking women to keep their legs together why not asking men to take a cold shower?

Why not educate men about birth-control and sterilization after they had one or two children. There are irresponsible men who start second and third families during different stages of their lives. Isn't it time to make men to accept at least half the responsibility for their sexual conduct?

My argument is that religion is a man-made issue and has nothing to do with what the creator had planned. We created religion, therefore, we can change, modify and even if needed replace it.
Catholic Church and its leaders are no authority on family and its problems so they must not get involved in this issue. Why doesn't the Catholic Church start paying child support to all these millions of women who took their advice and did not use birth-control. It is easy to sit on a, red velvet covered, filled with gold ornamental chair, in a fabulous castle away from all the family problems and tell others "to be fruitful and multiply."

Otherwise they could sympathize with millions of women who were left by their irresponsible husbands to raise their kids in poverty alone. Because all the religious leaders were men, for centuries, they advocated in their gender's favor and placed all blames and all responsibilities and obligations for child bearing and child raising on women.

The religious leaders, such as the priests, the mullah's, the rabbis, and the monks all have had a wonderful life. They have been praised and worshipped, fed and clothed, kept warm in the winter and cool in the summer, traveled first class and have been pampered most of their lives.

We, women, have obligated ourselves and have sacrificed our lives, and our freedom for the sake of our husbands, children, society, country, and politics for 20 centuries, only because of what men have told us. They told us it was our duty and obligation to obey. We no longer accept this male superiority and will do away with patriarchy.

That was why all of us from all over the world including Hillary Rodham Clinton, gathered in Beijing. We finally did something for us. It took us 1995 years, but we did it at last.

After Beijing, I am certain that it is not the creator that hates us.

Parvin Darabi