No Women Allowed

I have managed to keep away from the dreadful politics and the religion that run this country for quite a while. It has really helped my state of mind to turn off the news on the radio and turn to lectures on things like the Roman Empire, biological anthropology and ancient Egypt. But today I read an article on ynet about how religious women are getting screwed that got me thinking.

Ester Herzog wrote an article pointing to an incident a few days back where a Rabbi in Emmanuel got so upset at the sight of girls driving go-karts he stormed the course and overturned karts causing damage to the facility, as a further example how Jewish women's rights are being eroded by the religious powers that be. I did not realize before reading the article that the religious parties will not let women hold office. It is one thing to have segregated buses and schools but how does the Knesset allow parties to disqualify women from holding office, surely that is discrimination? We shake our heads at how our neighbors don't let women drive or force them to wear veils, but this happens right here, in our "modern" and "western" "democracy" - Just who are we trying to fool.