I read them. Well, I read parts and skimmed other parts. What I wrote was what I was moved to write after having done this.

I think what was going on for me after reading/skimming them was that there is such a fine line to be walked when it comes to talking about what is good for us as women in a world that is mostly dominated by men, and the agendas that result. It is partly about fundamentlists, but also about the ways in which we resist the agendas of the religious fundamentalists. There is a delicate balance, I think, that needs to be found, but we are so far from finding that balance.

On the one hand, there is a problem of women being viewed primarily as sex objects. And on the other hand there is the problem of women being veiwed as primarily for the purpose of propagation of the species. And also the problem of women being viewed as chattel, and as servants/slaves. All of these things happen for some women in all societies.

The religious fundamentalists seem to promote agendas that keep women pure and at home making babies. The backlash against this seems to result in women moving further in the direction of being sex objects. I got the sense in reading parts of what was in your links, that "liberation" for women means having the freedom to be a sex object.

So I was thinking about women whose role in society has been officially recognized as sex objects... legal sex workers in The Netherlands. They don't seem very liberated. They are experiencing a form of exploitation, not by their husbands, but by large numbers of strangers.

And this line of thought got me thinking about how to find a balance between giving in to the patriarchal domination that women often experience in fundamentalist religions, and defining how we fight that domination by increasing our experience of being treated as sex objects. I think we need to find a third way that liberates us from both of these restrictive influences, although I won't try to suggest that I know what that third way might be.