I think education is the antidote to most of the evils that bedevil our society- from violence to honor killings to robbery; but in the case of women emancipation, its power is obvious and can be glimpsed without any deep exercise of imagination. Now lets come to the topic: women in Islam and our world. It is true that women are suffering in the Muslim world: domestic torture, honour killings and a strange kind of incarceration behind veils and burqas are prevalent. But these facts should not blind us to a more important reality that is, women in the west are also suffering despite their progress so far: from gang rape in the street to the proverbial glass-ceiling in the market place, discrimination against women stares you in every nook and corner. However, there is a differences of degree; women in the west are far more ahead than the women in the Muslim world. But the reason is simple: the Muslim countries are predominantly illiterate and uneducated and worse still they resist modernity and change.
The problem is not with Islam; the problem is with us. We are even ignorant of our own religion; Muslim women used to take part even in battles- Aisha, the holy prophet's second wife, once led an army in the Battle of the Camel- but still we ignorant fools toe the line of a maulvi when he tells us that girls cannt go to school and we shamelessly nod in yes.