One of the grumbles I often hear is that Western feminists have ignored the issue of womens' rights in Islamic communities and countries - or have openly sacrificed them in the name of the left's idea of multiculturalism. There is some truth to this; nevertheless, there are also counterexamples. Or perhaps signs of a slowly-dawning epiphany, who knows?

Sign and Sight has a translated essay from Alice Schwarzer, one of Germany's most prominent feminists. She wrote an article recently in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Its core thesis?

"The riots in the French suburbs are taking place in an atmosphere rife with male violence where girls and women live in fear. If we really want to address the problem of burning cars, then we must also tackle the problem of burning girls."

Support for this proposition comes from the other side of the political spectrum. The British conservative writer Theodore Dalrymple has observed the problem first hand in his British medical practice, and says much the same thing.