Escalating violence against women--because they are women

Via feministing, I found another great Bob Herbert column on the systematic "punishment" of women and girls whose crime is that they are women and girls. In "Punished for Being Female," Herbert says:

Not only are we not doing enough to counter this wholesale destruction of the lives of so many women and girls, we’re not even paying close attention. There are women’s movements in even the smallest countries fighting against the violence and other forms of abuse. But they are underfunded and get very little support from those in a position to help. (Even in Afghanistan under the Taliban there were women who ran underground schools, and girls who risked their lives to go to them.)