'Fundamentalists' is not a good term as John Hardly's post has shown. 'Literalists' has been used recently to replace it. It is the problem of all religions with written sources that the role of women described is a very traditional one not fitting at all today's reality.

Literalists taking each line of scriptures as god's word have diffculties adapting to a modern society. Mulier taceat in ecclesia read by a literalist leads to a males only priesthood. Women as witnesses being counted only half of men (except if the men in questiona re unbelievers) when read and interpreted by literalists leads to the restriction of the role of women.

Adaptationists, on the other hand, accept a changing society, changing needs, and changing roles and only explain the new reality to the believers in the terms acceptable in their religion. On the Christian side, they'd look at how Jesus is reported to have treated and related to women.

I think it would be very interesting and could be done to look for differential treatment of women by different religions and to try to explain differences in crimes rates by looking at the teachings of the religions and the reported practices of the founders.

I'm not at all surprised by a higher murder rate of females in Muslim families quoted above and I'd be very surprised if the sex abuse by clergy in Muslim societies would be anywhere close to the percentage reported for Catholics.

Wolfgang