It’s 2011 and the government of Saudi Arabia refuses to allow women to drive because . . . they are women. An Aljazeera report reports the story. Amazing that we call Saudi Arabia an ally, our “friend.” Our oil-obsessed energy policy compels our country to bit our lip while women are degraded by our “friend.”
I suspect it's about 8000 B.C.E. in the minds of many people still "living" in the Middle East, as well as in the minds of the rulers under who's boots these people remain squashed. I'd guess it's around 1350 C.E. in the headspace of fundamentalist Christians, and anytime between the Middle Ages and 1955 for the majority of elected US politicians. Time is a relative and artificial construct anyway, and Pope Gregory just made up his own calendar that we all still dutifully follow. Instead of "what year is it?", maybe it's better to ask – what level of evolution have they/you/we reached? Some still writhe in the ooze, some have made it onto dry land, and others have learned to fly. I trust that the continuing march of mutation, migration, diversity and technology will eventually pull us all out of the muck.