Behind some of these disagreements is the premise that the "ideas" under debate determine the way of the world—and that thereby religious scripture and practice operate somewhat like mind control.
Ideology is important but it's the stuff you don't talk about and can't even see that determines outcomes much more than the debate club topics.
Material conditions underpin social change.
Women's status and rights progressed forward in the industrialised west because the basis of continued economic growth and standardised, mass education renewed the economic incentives for women to participate in the workforce. Businesses wanted women to work. Once numbers of women did work, they organised politically and won themselves some of the same rights enjoyed by men.
Despite this, to name a few examples, in Ireland you had the Magdalen laundries, divorce was once declared illegal in the Constitution and still comes with stringent requirements, and reproductive choice is still not available under the law.
In Sweden you had forced sterilisations of "unsuitable women" and women with medical contraindications that continued until astoundingly recently.
Saudi Arabia's one example of a terrifying place with a shocking record of brutality towards its own people, prohibitions, executions, ugly corporal punishments. But it, too, is on a trajectory determined by economic, geographical and historical factors. It's not simply a place that's "barbaric" because of religious belief.
