SOME WOMEN MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

ZILLA HUMMA Usman and Ayaan Hirsi Ali may be the bravest women on the planet.

Not brave like they might lose their jobs or be insulted for speaking out about workplace inequities, or they might get cold or wet demonstrating against "Bush's war."

I mean really brave, like they might be shot or stabbed or stoned or set on fire for having the courage to fight for the rights of Muslim women who are being oppressed, mutilated, abused, raped or even killed for the crime of being a woman.

Sadly, one of these brave women, Pakistani provincial minister Usman, IS dead - killed because she wasn't wearing a head scarf and held pubic office. "I just obeyed Allah's commandment," said gunman Mohammad Sarwar. "I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path." Many fundamentalist Muslims apparently feel the same way, if the number of "honor killings" in Pakistan - and in Germany, Canada and Australia- is any gauge.

The president the National Organization for Women immediately issued a statement denouncing Usman's murder and praising her work, calling on feminists throughout the world to continue her fight for gender equality for Muslim women.

Oh, wait . . . no, she didn't.

Neither NOW nor its Web site said anything about this brutal murder or the loss of this significant female leader. Not a word. (There is, however, an important piece on the site about how " 'Desperate Housewives' Misleads Viewers About Teen Contraception.")

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born author of "Infidel," learned of a death threat against her when it was stabbed into the nine-times-shot-and-nearly-beheaded body of Theo Van Gogh. They had collaborated on a short film called "Submission" about the oppression of women in conservative Islamic cultures.

Forced out of her adopted home of Holland, where she was member of Parliament, Hirsi Ali now lives in the United States, where she was warmly welcomed by sister feminists from NOW, which offered her a weekly column about Muslim women's rights on its Web site and features her writings prominently in its Books section, as well as a link to download "Submission."

Oh, wait . . . no, they didn't.

There isn't a single entry about Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the NOW Web site. (But there IS a helpful video about "how advertising effects women's body image, health and self-esteem.")

There isn't a single book about Islamic gender apartheid among the 48 books on the NOW Web site. There are, however, six books bashing George Bush, a book attacking Mormon treatment of women and others advocating gay marriage - but nothing about forced marriages, honor killings, rapes, beatings or other forms of oppression suffered by Muslim women.

Fortunately, the American Enterprise Institute does offer Ali's books and a forum on which she can express thoughts like: "A culture that carves the genitals of young girls, hobbles their minds and justifies their physical oppression is not equal to a culture that believes women have the same rights as men . . . Just as we put an end to slavery, we must end the gendercide."

Their Web site claims that NOW's goal is "equality for all women" and fighting those who want to "keep women in their place." But they seem to have no outrage for the hideous place in which Islamic fundamentalists keep their women.

NOW has plenty of outrage, though, for Christian leaders they call "the American Taliban," anyone who doesn't support gay marriage and unrestricted abortion, and the "bully-in-chief" himself, George W. Bush, whom they targeted in a recent "peace march" in Washington, demonstrating their solidarity with some of the worst oppressors of women in the world - fundamentalist Islamic regimes.

In this case, I suspect that the enemy of their enemy (Bush) is not really their friend.

All of which makes me want to paraphrase Orwell's famous line about hypocrisy: "All women are created equal - but some women are more equal than others."

The women who are more equal might be identified as elitist non-religious Western feminists who support abortion, gay marriage and Hillary Clinton, and who just hate George W. Bush.

Sadly, at least in the eyes of America's most visible women's group, some women who are not as equal as others apparently include those subjugated by radical - and sometimes not so radical - practitioners of Islam throughout the world.

America and the rest of the western world's feminists are suffering from a self-absorption that fails to see the world outside their own sphere of privilege.

But they're also suffering from the trivialization and politization of what once used to be a noble fight for ALL women's rights. *

Donna Baver Rovito is an advocate for quality health care and women's rights.