Malaysia just can't catch a break

Finally, we've pinpointed what's truly wrong with this world — uppity women.

As a new bride, 22-year-old Ummu Atirah believes she knows the secret to a blissful marriage: obey her husband and ensure he is sexually satisfied.

Ummu and some 800 other Muslim women in Malaysia are members of the "Obedient Wives Club" that is generating controversy in one of the most modern and progressive Muslim-majority nations, where many Muslim Malaysian women hold high posts in the government and corporate world.

The new club, launched Saturday, says it can cure social ills such as prostitution and divorce by teaching women to be submissive and keep their men happy in the bedroom.

"Islam compels us to be obedient to our husband. Whatever he says, I must follow. It is a sin if I don't obey and make him happy," said Ummu, who wore a yellow headscarf.

You heard her, ladies. Be quiet, be demure, be submissive. Otherwise, women like these will ruin your marriage!

Malaysian lawyers, politicians and activists lambasted the police Saturday, accusing them of abusing their power in chaining up and marking the bodies of 30 foreign women detained for alleged prostitution.

Police raided a high-end nightclub in northern Penang state late Thursday and arrested 29 women from China and one from Vietnam, along with eight Malaysian men. Local media reported police officers went undercover at the club for a week before the raid. [Emphasis mine. Shocking, no? — Ed.]

It triggered an outcry after local newspapers carried photos of the women bound up with a long chain and marked with either a tick or an X on their chest and forehead.

The policemen are blameless, of course. After all, they were just doing their job. The real villains in this piece are the women.

[Penang police chief Ayub Yaakob] also said the women had wrecked many marriages and that police had received numerous complaints from wives of men who sought their services.

Stories like these just infuriate me. It's the women who have to take the blame for men's indiscretions. It's the women who have to cover themselves from head to toe because men don't know how to control themselves. It's the women who have to be subservient because men have been told for generations that women are second-class citizens who were designed by God to defer to them and they're not about to take any lip from an inferior being.

There's no misogyny in Islam? Bullshit.