Hello everybody, this isn't in fact a normal Polymath episode but is a talk I did being interviewed by the @livglobalrelief podcast! It's a fascinating and important podcast about social-humanitarian issues going on around the world right now, and the Spotify link is https://open.spotify.com/show/3fiZdPwaJcIhwxcygBa8bX?si=dfe66237c40a4088 Thanks a lot Erin for having me on!This talk is all about the status of women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, stretching from Morocco to Iran. It's a massive examination of their lack of basic rights; lack of any legal protection from violence and abuse; lack of basic freedoms and dignity; and lack of an ability to live a full, decent life. But it's also more than that: we delve into the beliefs of these societies themselves, sociologically analysing the thoughts and moral values of the people living in them. We then integrate this analysis with statistics to properly show you guys what life for women in the MENA region is really like. We don't just give the facts about rates of sexual harassment, abuse, forced marriage, child marriage, etc but we talk about the norms and beliefs of the societies themselves and how the violence and subjugation of women is normalised. For example, we go through what real people on the ground think about when (not 'if') it's acceptable to beat women and about how women shouldn't leave the house without male permission.Finally, we talk about how Islam itself is not the problem, but rather the application of Islam- or any of the Abrahamic religions- into politics inevitably leads to sexist legislation and normalisation of female abuse. We back up these arguments using historical and sociological evidence.I'm going to talk about all this on a Polymath episode at some point, getting a bit more into the psychology of all this and the specific case study of Afghanistan. For now though, please enjoy the episode, and go check out the @livglobalrelief podcast! The podcast itself is just one wing of the @livglobalrelief society, a really impressive activist society which raises awareness and funds for dire humanitarian causes around the world. Enjoy!

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