Dear 007:
Either spiritual or social roles in general tend to dismiss women compared with men. People tend to have expectations or conditions where it is "okay" for men to impose authority, speak out of turn, and act autonomously where others will follow their lead; while women are expected to wait their turn and not correct or interrupt others, etc. I even had incidents happen over the past year, repeatedly, where given a conflict, the people involved tended toward believing and giving more credibility to the men (who were lying and bullying) rather than the women who were stuck defending themselves against injustice with no support.
This is made worse by religious or political trends toward "bullying" or "retribution." So given the patterns people already tend toward, such contexts just bring them out even more.
The cultural traditions and laws cited are focused on retribution, so that leads to injustice, abuse and violence in any case. Govt or law based on "retributive justice," rather than restorative justice, is the most telling factor that predicts authority will be abused. Someone has to administer the law and judgment, a social role most commonly vested in men. Such a system of retributive/punitive laws too easily invites men to take power and then abuse it.
The sexism is a factor, and these additional cultural conditions make it worse.
But those factors of sexism and bullying are common problems across the board, with both religious and political groups competing for pecking order dominance. They are just more visible and extreme in these cases. But certain not unique to the contexts and cases cited.
