Here's some good news: The adultery law in Uganda has been struck down by the Constitutional Court because it was sexist.
The law made it an offence for a married woman to have an affair, but it allowed a cheating husband to have an affair with an unmarried woman.The attorney general said the move may encourage immorality and promiscuity.
In the same ruling, the court also scrapped parts of the Succession Act which gave more rights to men on the death of their wives, than to widows.
Under the previous law, women who were found guilty of adultery could be fined or even sent to prison.
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A Ugandan court has struck down a law which forbade married women from having affairs, but which did not apply to their husbands. The Office of Special Counsel is investigating GSA head Lurita Doan for allegedly violating a ban on... Read More
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One thing that may be interesting for readers to do is compare the BBC coverage of this with the Reuters coverage.
Most notably, pay attention to 'sexist' being used alone in scare quotes (as opposed to 'too sexist' in the BBC article, which looks more like a real quote), and the fact that Reuters filed this not in International, not in Politics, but in "Oddly Enough", under a story about a dentist who urinated in his surgery sink.
Apparently, repealing a "sexist" law is a bizarre occurrence for Reuters editors.
1) Hurray for Uganda! I'm so pleased that we have some unequivocally good news.
2) Are you kidding me, Zed? No, of course you're not. Reuters needs to be smacked. All of it.
Go Uganda!
Good point about the difference in coverage, Zed. Something about the Brits... sometimes I get the sense that they look at us in the US and just shake their heads and sigh like an embarassed parent whose child is trashing the candy aisle, but who is powerless to do anything about it. And I say this, not because Brits seem haughty to me, but because they're just so much more sensible.
I also love how in the comments thread on the BBC article, there are maybe one or two people who seem to be sexist idiots. The rest are discussing the merits of legalizing adultery altogher vs. making it illegal for men too, but generally seeming to agree with the reasoning behind the ruling. How refreshing to read an article like this and not have it followed up with superstitious, half-baked drivel about how feminism is destroying morality and Western Civilization, etc., etc., etc.
Don't want to promote immorality? That's easy: require that men face the same penalties as women. :)
As I've often said, the route to equality is by demanding that men act better, not by giving license to women to act as badly as men. Feminism isn't destroying anything worth saving.
Such an easy solution... just punish the married men, too.