Welsey Clark thinks women like to be oppressed

On a recent episode of Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO, retired general Wesley Clark said that the vast majority of women enjoy wearing the burka and choose to live in "those" societies.

The conversation over the burka started when Bill Maher pulled out a photo of Laura Bush sitting in between two women dressed in burkas. She was recently on a tour in middle east as part of her breast cancer awareness campaign (which brings up the point of why she isn't involved in a domestic violence awareness campaign this month, which is an important issue in that part of the world, obviously) but instead the panel focused on if Laura Bush should be speaking to women in burkas about breast cancer at all, that it was missing the obvious point. Wesley Clark jumped in and commented that women like wearing the burka, that polls have been done showing the vast majority of women in these countries like wearing the burka and even went further by saying that these women are choosing to live in these societies.

Seriously?! Ok I know in some countries, some women do choose to cover up or even go as far as to wear the burka for religious reasons. However that's a far cry from other countries where it's considered so radical not to wear the burka that women have been physically punished for doing just that. Can western society even really generalize about women living in a completely different culture, which greatly varies from country to country?

By saying women choose to live in these societies, Clark completely ignores the voices of women in these nations who are fighting for they're most basic rights. He ignores that in some countries in the middle east, women do not have the right to vote or hold political office. They do not have the right to drive. In others they are punished for adultery or other members of their families having pre-martial sex by being raped or physically assaulted. Domestic violence and rape are tolerated as the norm in some middle eastern societies. Can Clark even begin to understand the oppression these women face on a daily basis? Or any woman in any society?

New rule: If your on a TV show that reaches nationwide perhaps even worldwide audiences via YouTube think before you start talking about women's rights on a global scale.