Arm the Women

A 27-year-old woman was beaten to death by a mob of men on Sunday in Kabul for allegedly burning the Quran.  After Farkhunda was beaten, she was thrown off a roof, run over with a car, set on fire and thrown into a river.  Afghan women began to protest.  Good for them.  There was no evidence that this woman did anything wrong, and even if she had, the idea that these men think it’s ok is unfathomable.   

I realize that this is nothing new.  I wish I could pretend that women weren’t abused and murdered every day around the world.  But I can’t and I am not sure why we aren’t attacking this at a different angle. 

I mean no disrespect to the male species as a whole, after all, I have three sons and their importance to this world is just as much as my daughter’s.  However, I do think it may be women’s turn to lead and present more ideas as to how to change the world.  I have always worried about forcing Western civilization on another country, but I don’t believe that raping and killing women and children is part of a culture and it’s time that we arm the right people.  Why are we willing to arm another country of men on a border but we aren’t willing to consider an entire gender; a weak, vulnerable, abused gender?

If you have a bottle of black water and you put it under the faucet, it takes time to flush the black water out until the water is pure and clear.  By no means will any of the world’s issues be solved over night, but I believe that we are fighting the wrong way.  Any mother who has been beaten, raped, watched her children be raped, is going to feel a lot more empowered with an assault weapon and an education.

Every time we kill a group of terrorists, another group pops up.  Why don’t we think outside the box?  For example, why don’t we arm the women, teach them and empower them, educate them, educate their children and see what happens in the next 30 years?  Do you know what most mothers would do with a book, a little bit of money and a gun?  Do you know what I would do if I were trained to shoot a gun and someone came after MY child?  If I were an Afghan woman and I lived with an animal who believed that I was nothing and that it was okay to beat me or my children, if he so much as touched a hair on my head or my child’s head, I would blow his reproductive organs off.  Then if that weren’t enough, I would shoot him in the head.  One less for American’s to find, right? 

Why don’t we trust that most mothers around the world would do the same?  On top of this, have we really underestimated the power of a mother’s touch, the love a child has for his mother, and the influence she has on his character?  She raises her children.  The problem is that these men aren’t giving her a chance.  They are taking these children and teaching them at a young age to hate Western civilization and women in general. 

What we are doing isn’t working.  Arm the women.