Blaming it on oil makes for catchy marketing but oil is not the kicker, it's the rise of industry. Take Tibet. No oil, but lots of Buddhist monks and husbands living the "contemplative" lifestyle in penance for their 'sins' of procreation, while the women were out slaving the fields and herding the yaks. That was until the Chinese Communists took over and ended feudalism and female servitude, and began to introduce the modern world to this skyward island. Of course, tell that to Nancy Pelosi and others who yearn for the days of the bald-headed priests cult.

The basic fact is that the development of extractive industries in an established, relatively egalitarian democracy doesn't seem to have many (if any) negative effects; Norway, Britain, and the U.S. are cases in point. The situation is quite different in areas where people with a 9th-century mindset are (relatively) suddenly provided with money for 21st-century shopping sprees. (The grandfather of the present Saudi King carried his national treasury on a camel -- not meant as a pejorative, simply a statement of fact. Fifty years later, they were buying F-15s.)

The summary seems to assume a process of transformation from agrarian to industrial society, but that's not really happened in Saudi. It went from tribal/nomadic to oil kingdom. I worked with someone who grew up there and she portrayed the roles of both money and Islam differently. To her, (a devout Muslim) the real problem was the interpretation of Shariah and not Islam itself. She'd quote verses at length to support her point.

She was ambivalent the oil revenues. The money supported conservatives who sought to control women. But, it also paid for the education system, and even the conservatives thought the Quran and Sharia required women's education (unlike the Taliban). Then again, curriculum and resources were controlled by the conservatives, and segregated by gender (separate not equal). Still the educational system did provide a place for women to gather, even if later they had no jobs. Why didn't they have jobs? As an elite educated professional, she blamed the conservative interpretation of Islam, but perhaps the author is right for others in the population. Much of her experience seems to contradict the author's theory.

What about the role of immigrant labor? In Saudi the role of immigrants is significant, because the men working in the construction trade, at least as laborers, are mostly imported.

There seem to be so many exceptions to this tidy portrayal in other countries. In Japan, which had a more "traditional" transformation from agrarian to traded economies, the number of women with formal power is much lower than oil-rich Norway. Maybe it doesn't count as an example but oil-rich Alaska gives out oil dividends and is full of men but elected a woman governor.

It seems more accurate to me to say that women are more vulnerable if they live in resource rich culture that doesn't have the initial means to leverage and protect the resource. When outside interest move in to extract the resource, they will prop up the most conservative regimes to do business with. It's not oil per se, or Islam per se, or even colonialism per se. Any advances for women in Saudi Arabia, for example, will likely come with the support of a different interpretation of Islam and other internal cultural structures, the use of oil revenues, and the influence of other countries.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/04/03/1206851052700.html

A man and a woman have reportedly been stoned to death by the Taliban after being found guilty of adultery by a tribal court in Pakistan's border region.

The stoning was carried out in a tribal area on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan where the Taliban has a strong presence, Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported.

The killings are the first recorded incident of death by stoning by the militants, who usually put accused before firing squads, the newspaper stated.

The pair had been captured by the Taliban after eloping about two weeks ago from a border area known as the Mohmand Agency.

A complaint was made that the woman, married to another man, had been kidnapped but it was later reported that she had actually eloped.

A spokesman for the local Taliban told the newspaper the militants had captured them as they returned from Karachi.

They tried the couple, found them guilty and sentenced them to death by stoning.

After the executions were carried out the man's body was handed over to his relatives. The body of the woman was buried in the area by local people, the newspaper stated.

Norway has more women in senior positions in industry and politics than a lot of European countries (e.g. Germany which has no oil).

Venezuela's revolutionaries seem very intent on improving the situation for the women. And somebody referred to Tunisia as not being wealthy... doesn't their middle class include something like eighty percent of the population?

In Alberta, the premier once remarked how it was interesting that all over the world, God tends to put oil under conservatives, sort of an incentive system I guess. And why the richest province in Canada can't afford decent day care.

I think this theory is terrific. And it lets us put the blame where it belongs: women's oppression in Islamic Countries has nothing to do with Islam, it has to do with white males in our country.

Thanks, I think this is a great theory.

"You should shortcircuit upon realizing how stupid and naive you are, you just fill up your S.U.V. "

-Oh sorry I don't own one.

But I do sort of appreciate the unhinged lunatic namecalling. You know, because that's been such an effective strategy for radical loons in the past.

The fact, and it's a sad fact, is that people like you are blockheads who absolutely refuse to listen to anyone, learn from anyone or even wonder. It's always easier to preach from the heights one's own convictions in lieu of bothering to learn and understand anything else, isn't it?

Well in any case, you keep shouting to the parapets, raise the flag, or the brick, or the RPG or whatever it is you think will make you a Hero of The Revolution. You do that. Because I don't dislike you, I feel sorry for you. If you live to be 150 you'll be the same dull angry bully you are now. What a waste