Kerre Woodham: Mad mufti's thought processes stuck in Dark Ages

The self-styled mufti of Australia and New Zealand, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali, clearly doesn't think much of women. But he mustn't think much of men either.

The sheik provoked outrage in Australia when he said women were responsible for rape if they wandered around uncovered.

He made the analogy that if you left uncovered meat out in the backyard, and the cats came and ate it, would you blame the cats or the uncovered meat? Women being the uncovered meat, obviously, and men being the hungry old tomcats.

This is an old argument - one as old as the story of creation - where the responsibility for man's downfall is laid at woman's tantalisingly pedicured feet.

A woman is a temptress, a seductive siren whose sole ambition in life is to entice man to do her evil will. The sheik's thinking clearly hasn't evolved much beyond the Dark Ages, as he still believes women are weapons used by Satan to control men.

Oh, and when it comes to adultery, women are responsible for it 90 per cent of the time.

From my experience, men are sentient beings with complex thought processes. Certainly they respond to visual stimuli, but not as pavlovian animals.

Besides, not all of them respond to the same visual stimuli. Some like tall, slim brunettes, others (thank heavens) like short, round blondes. They can appreciate the female form without being reduced to grunting automatons.

The sheik's argument is along the lines of the argument used by some opponents to the decriminalisation of prostitution. They claimed that if the prostitutes weren't there, good, honest men wouldn't be tempted to stray from their wives.

Again, it doesn't say much for the thinking capabilities of men. The mad mufti may have been trying to make a statement about women in his half-baked sermon, but he has shown he has contempt for all of mankind.