It's a pity that Susan B. Anthony's Feb. 15 birthday occurs smack in the middle of the Presidential season of mid-February. The iconic suffragist should be better remembered. At the least, the occasion is a good time to reflect on women's progress.

In many ways, women's rights are going along like gangbusters. Females are able to live interesting lives of their own choosing, rather than being forced into boring domestic servitude by society. Longer lifespans generally mean that women can be full-time moms if they wish and then go on to meaningful non-family activities later.

Some consider it problematic that more females than males attend college now—58 percent of the average student body. But I find it a condition of normalcy finally being achieved. Women are more capable than men of engaging in good study habits, sitting still in chairs for hours and planning generally.

However, there is a skunk at the garden party of American women's progress: immigration from countries where the status of females is still stuck in the bad old days... or worse.

And, while European countries are beefing up entry requirements as a result of disenchantment with multiculturalism, the United States sails along with "family unification" a.k.a. chain migration still firmly in place.

That means Third World immigration, including Islamic, continues to accumulate—and it strongly suggests the struggle for women's equality is by no means over.

In fact, we may already have passed the high point of women's rights—and safety—in the U.S.

Like other Americans, women have a belief in progress—that society goes forward, never backward. But the scandal of women's lost safety in Scandinavia shows this is not warranted when diverse immigration is rearranging fundamental demographics.

The now-retired blogger Fjordman blew the whistle on the growing rape epidemic in Scandinavia [ Muslim Rape Wave in Sweden]. He translated news stories and dug up government documents showing that a rape wave was occurring and the authorities were covering it up, either out of fear or misplaced sensitivity.

For example, Swedish girls Malin and Amanda were on their way to a party on New Year's Eve when they were assaulted, raped and beaten half to death by four Somali immigrants. Sweden's largest newspaper presented the perpetrators as "two men from Sweden, one from Finland and one from Somalia"—a testimony to scandalous self-censorship.

Similar incidents have occurred with shocking frequency—to the point where some observers fear that law and order is completely breaking down. The number of rape charges in Sweden has tripled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six times as common as they were a generation ago. Rapes occur in broad daylight. Because western women don't dress in burqas, they are seen as whores and asking for it. Scandinavian women are apparently seen as part of the ongoing plunder by Muslims as they invade Europe for Allah.

Moreover, the sight of western women living as free individuals causes many Muslim girls to desire the same sort of lifestyle. So women's freedom must be squelched in order for Islam to maintain its totalitarian grasp.

The unmistakable lesson of the Scandinavian rape epidemic: women's lives are made less free and dangerous because of culturally inappropriate immigration.

And the political correctness prohibitions against speaking ill of immigrants mean that women are losing their freedoms in silence.

Even the diversity-hypersensitive New York Times magazine permitted the word "slavery" to be used in The New Berlin Wall, [by Peter Schneider, December 4, 2005] describing the lives of Muslim women in Europe.

The Times featured the horrific honor killing of Turkish immigrant Hatun Surucu, which received attention throughout Europe. She was shot down on a Berlin street by her 18-year-old brother for living as an individual—becoming an electrician, residing apart from her parents and dressing like a European.

Americans arrogantly assume that we do assimilation better than Europeans. But is there is genuine acceptance of western values, including gender equality—or just the appearance? Attempts to organize rallies of the mythical "moderate Muslim" have been pathetic failures. But when a demonstration supporting the Ayatollah Khomeini was called in Dearborn, Michigan,  in 2004, the turnout was large and enthusiastic.

Why take the risk?

Americans also say: "Well, at least we have Mexicans instead of Muslims." But in fact Mexican culture, and Hispanic culture in general, is tremendously misogynous.

The Washington Post noted in 2002, "In many parts of Mexico, the penalty for stealing a cow is harsher than the punishment for rape." [In Mexico, an Unpunished Crime, By Mary Jordan, June 30, 2002] Women remain little more than slaves for men in some rural areas. A form of rape kidnapping ("rapto") is still accepted in Oaxaca — a legislator arguing against its criminalization called the practice "romantic."

The leering and rude remarks of Mexican males are bad enough. But it doesn't always stop there. One parental nightmare became real last August—illegal alien Jose Ramirez, 28, beat up a Virginia teenager, requiring 30 stitches on her face and head, because she ignored his whistles from a construction site [Arrest made in Spotsylvania beating, By Minnie Roh NBC12 News, August 18, 2005].

Mexicans have a reputation for unashamedly cruising children and worse, such as the case in Greenfield, California, where men (many of whom were illegal aliens) were "observed harassing, touching and shouting lewd remarks at schoolgirls just out of class."  When the INS deported the offenders, local Raza types screamed racism—even though the town itself is almost entirely Hispanic. [Mass INS Arrests Upset Farm Town Immigrants sent home on charges of harassment, Larry D. Hatfield, San Francisco Chronicle, April 10, 2001]

In Mexican culture, a girl of 15 is considered grown up enough to be available to men—a serious cultural divide with the American idea. But to many Mexican males, girls younger than 15 are also fair game, judging from the many sex crimes against children committed by immigrants. Further, Mexico has no laws designating child prostitution as criminal activity.

You can take the man out of Mexico. But can you take Mexico out of the man?

In November, a study called Women In An Insecure World  showed that the world is short 200 million women and girls due to sex-selection abortion, infanticide, starvation of girls, etc. resulting from the lesser status of females in many cultures. (The data were no surprise to anyone familiar with the work of economist Amartya Sen—in 1990 he estimated that 100 million females were missing.)

Imagine if someone showed that millions of Africans were being genocided. The liberal press would go into a tizzy. But the victims were only women. The MSM ignored the story entirely.

So we should not be surprised that almost no attention is paid to how the "clash of civilization" is playing out in women's lives.

As so often, immigration is a class issue. For wealthy women, diversity can seems like a charming bonus, bringing cheap help for the yard and in the house, as well as tasty take-out food. Many well-heeled women only come in contact with immigrants whom they hire—who must act polite to keep on getting paid.

But for women with fewer resources, who ride the bus or just normally mingle, multicultural immigration is creating a less safe and less equitable America.

Susan B. Anthony and her suffragist sisters did not organize for gender equality so that the fatal combination of inappropriate immigration and political correctness could undo their work today.  

Brenda Walker [email her] her lives in northern California and writes frequently on her websites LimitsToGrowth.org and ImmigrationsHumanCost.org that multiculturalism is a failed ideology, particularly so for women.