I seem to be banging on about women’s rights lately, especially with “us” in our post-feminist age and all, but the ironies do pile up. Hamas which is of course duly elected, sort of, has now banned women from smoking the narghileh in public. (It’s that hubble-bubble thing.) On public health grounds.
Similarly their ban on women driving (a year ago) and their policing of couples in the streets (duly married, or else). Has to be public health.
Gaza women are forbidden from riding motorcycles with their husbands; women are forbidden from getting haircuts at male hair salons; women are forbidden from walking on the beach without a male family member’s accompaniment; and they must wear the hijab and full-length dresses to courthouses, schools, universities.
France looks like a pretty good option.