To Sultan Ismail and missleadfoot,
I agree with the majority of what you are saying about Malaysia, but please leave religion out of it.
"Downgrading of women" is not isolated to Islamic asian countries and is certainly not a teaching of Islam.
Missleadfoot, it is not wise to talk about things that you know nothing about. (leave that to the media)
I am trying to keep religion out of this but given the fact that males used to be able to have 4 wives etc, surely this is another example of females being the subordinates, living in a culture where males rule.
I know there is a lot of racism in that country, towards females, mixed breeds and westerners, but apparently that is the way of the religion
Certainly there are some people who use their own interpretations to exploit certain parts of the religion for their own benefit, but blame them for that, not the religion.