Women should not travel more than 48 miles without a male escort – Muslim group

[abaris]

I don't think it is cultural. Non muslim faith in the middle east don't have half as much issues as the muslims do. They have no problems with women driving and they certainly don't cover them up. While a mild case of daughter protectiveness exists everywhere, it seems only muslims build rules and formalities around it.

So, what's with India? What's with China where quite a few parents killed off their baby daughters when the one child policy was still in effect? Especially in the rural areas. Even in Europe, it's only a 100 years since women got the right to vote. And Germany only abolished a law preventing a married woman from opening a bank account without her husband's permission, in 1977. And only a few years before that, a husband had still the right to call his wife's employer and to cancel her job because he felt she was amiss in doing her housework.

Speaking about issues, you should at least look at the rest of the world. Any given culture lies at the roots of any given religion. The monotheistic religions were all deeply paternalistic. The misogynistic cultures are much older than the monotheistic gods.