[Conor Friedersdorf]

Hillary Clinton:

You can go to places in the world where there are no racial distinctions except everyone is joined together in their oppression of women.

Is this true? Earnest question! I've got my doubts...

The treatment of women is the single biggest problem we have politically and socially in the world. If you look at the extremism and the fundamentalism, it is all about controlling women, at it's base.

That's just absurd. It doesn't diminish the pervasiveness of sexism in the world, or the disgusting treatment of women in many fundamentalist cultures, to point out that were every woman to vanish from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan tomorrow, the extremist Islamists in those countries would still want to kill infidels, stone gays, etc.

If Senator Clinton's understanding of extremists and fundamentalists is really as simplistic as that she is unfit to head our foreign policy. Oddly a really compelling defense of the above statements is that Senator Clinton, when talking about sexism, can be assumed to be disingenuously spouting anything that might help her politically.

As an aside, a lot of charities are doing their best to help women victimized by religious extremists. If you're looking for a charitable cause it's a worthwhile one.