In fact, modern science has shown that girls are in no way inferior to men in any field, if anything, the opposite. While intelligence quotient (IQ) scores are equal for men and women, girls are better able to multitask. Similarly, girls have greater memory retention capacity, because communication between the left and right hemispheres of the female brain is comparatively more effective.

Put simply, girls have no inherent shortcomings, physically or intellectually. The reason they do not get to lead parties like Jamaat is not gender or sex; it is because they are not given the opportunity. The Jamaat ameer has cited women’s capacity for childbearing as his argument. That capacity is a biological process; it has no connection to leadership. Leadership requires strategic intelligence, managerial skill, and the ability to guide a party or a country with a cool head in times of crisis. In none of these areas are women any less capable than men.

Think of India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1971. Economist Amartya Sen offers another example. In his data-driven research on the 1974 famine in Bangladesh, he showed that during that severe disaster many families survived primarily because women were in charge of running households. Through advance planning in the use of scarce food, preservation, proper distribution, and devising ways to endure for long periods, they protected their children, husbands, and relatives. Think of present-day Gaza or war-ravaged Sudan. In these regions, many may be swept away or die slowly, but those who survive often do so because of the capable leadership of the women in their families.

The Jamaat ameer, like many others, invokes religion as the justification for keeping women out of leadership. Yet from the time of the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him), we see women in decision-making roles. We see them as commanders on the battlefield. The Jamaat ameer ought to know this better than we do.