…because I’m too lazy to do some original blogging (I just got off work, I’m tired damn it). Via DED Space and originally the Daily Kos, a protestor who’s being supported by the women’s peace/anti-war group CODE PINK, Cindy Sheehan, is awaiting to be arrested for being a “threat to national security” according to the authorities, while protesting outside of Dubya Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Cindy Sheehan phoned me from Texas a few minutes ago to say that she’s been informed that beginning Thursday, she and her companions will be considered a threat to national security and will be arrested. Coincidentally, Thursday is the day that Rice and Rumsfeld visit the ranch, and Friday is a fundraiser event for the haves and the have mores. Cindy said that she and others plan to be arrested.
Yes because we all know how “threatening” it is to peacefully demonstrate against a wartime president–whatever. Also from DED Space, a reminder of the hypocrisy we see in the media when it comes to criticizing Islamic extremism but not Christian extremism.
[…]However, it should be noted that no one ever gets on television to vent frustration that mainstream Christians are doing nothing to condemn Christian extremists. One sometimes wonders if there are any mainstream Christians left among us. Snowflakes, science-bashing, clinic bombings, exploitation of a dying woman, financial support for Eric Rudolph, legislation to bar gay citizens from possessing civil rights…where is the protest? I’m certainly not hearing it.
Apparently because one version of religious extremism is “okay,” because it’s ‘home grown’ and ‘it‘ dominates one political party, that happens to control both the White House and the Congress.
From LAMBDA Legal; attorneys of the pro-LGBT civil rights group will defend New York’s lower court ruling upholding marriage equality for Queer couples.
Today, Lambda Legal filed papers in the Appellate Division, First Department (the state’s middle court) to defend a lower court ruling that said same-sex couples should be allowed to marry in New York. The City filed an appeal seeking to overturn the ruling earlier this spring.
Best of luck to LAMBDA Legal and the same-sex couples of New York seeking marriage equality.
From Feminist Majority; Women Senators have sent a letter to Bush, expressing their concerns for the newly drafted constitution of Iraq, that may have not granted equality to Iraqi women.
Eleven women Senators sent a letter to President Bush yesterday expressing their concerns that the draft Iraqi constitution includes provisions that “may jeopardize the rights of Iraqi women.” Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Hillary R. Clinton (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Blanche L. Lincoln (D-AR), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Patty Murray (D-WA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) cited recent comments by the United States Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, that the United States will work to guarantee equality in the new constitution in urging Bush to “continue to express our support for a constitution that would maintain rights for women and equality for all Iraqis.”[…]
In her statement about the letter to Bush, Senator Barbara Mikulski said, “Iraqi women make up 65 percent of Iraq’s population and will play a vital role in its reconstruction. We cannot allow them to be left behind as Iraq begins to rebuild and transition to democracy.”
Since the women of Iraq make up over half of the population of the country, it probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea for them to be equally included in the process and to have the very same civil rights and liberties their male counterparts would enjoy within the new democratic government. Also new study has found that condoms may actually prevent HPV despite previous claims made to the contrary.
At the recent meeting of the International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research in Amsterdam, a team of scientists from the University of Washington presented evidence that consistent condom use reduces young women’s risk of contracting human papillomavirus (HPV). Researchers followed 123 college-aged women for an average of 22 months, collecting electronic diaries in which women charted their sexual behavior and condom use, and testing the women for HPV every four months. The study, entitled “The Effect of Consistent Condom Use on the Risk of Genital HPV Infection Among Newly Sexually Active Young Women,” found that women who used condoms 100 percent of the time were 70 percent less likely to contract HPV than women who used condoms only 5 percent of the time, according to Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report.
Of course, even if the study is substantiated ‘across the board’ with other research institutes, that wouldn’t stop anti-sex, ultra-conservative wingnuts (especially when it comes to women having sex for *gasp* non-reproductive purposes) from spouting all kinds of misinformation and puritanical superstitions about sex–ie: abstinence-only “education”.
From the ACLU; the Voting Rights Act is up for reauthorization as critical sections are set to expire in 2007. These crucial areas within the Act are Section 5, Section 203, and Sections 6 and 9. Let us hope that it is renewed–I certainly do because I am a person of Color, and I enjoy my right to vote.
And lastly, from NARAL Pro-Choice America; a new television spot citing Roberts’ legal ties with violent anti-choice groups.
NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation’s leading advocate for personal privacy and a woman’s right to choose, launched a nationwide television ad campaign drawing attention to one of the most disturbing episodes in Supreme Court nominee John Roberts’ career ““ the brief he filed siding with groups like Operation Rescue and other anti-choice extremists who use bombings and other forms of intimidation against women, doctors, and nurses at women’s health clinics.
It’s about time. The people have the right to know what Bush has nominated to the bench.
Just one point, on Sheehan… She’s not a protestor from Code Pink, although Code Pink is standing with her. She’s the mother of a young man who was killed in Iraq, who wants Bush to come out and talk to her about that, and about bringing the troops home.
I believe she also started (or is part of) a group called something like Gold Star Families for Peace.
Great post, otherwise.
On Roberts – yuck. I haven’t seen the ads on my TV yet, though. I hope they are broadcasting in all states, not just blue ones.
One sometimes wonders if there are any mainstream Christians left among us. Snowflakes, science-bashing, clinic bombings, exploitation of a dying woman, financial support for Eric Rudolph, legislation to bar gay citizens from possessing civil rights…
Snowflakes?
From theACLU; the Voting Rights Act is up for reauthorization as critical sections are set to expire in 2007. These crucial areas within the Act are Section 5, Section 203, and Sections 6 and 9. Let us hope that it is renewed”“I certainly do because I am a person of Color, and I enjoy my right to vote.
I think you need to check Snopes on this one — it’s a racially polarizing piece of crap that’s been circulating for quite some time…
oh, and for jam, I think “snowflakes” is the term used by scary folks who want all frozen embryos left after in-vitro procedures to be “adopted” by families willing to carry the pregnancies…
‘[…]However, it should be noted that no one ever gets on television to vent frustration that mainstream Christians are doing nothing to condemn Christian extremists.”
Maybe because there’s so little Christian extremism, especially compared to Islamic extremism; because the vast majority of Christian extremism is is limited to words, not car bombs; and that of it that is violent is being dealt with effectively via the legal system.
“Snowflakes”
? Not sure what is meant here
“science-bashing”
? Not sure what is meant here
“clinic bombings”
Clinic bombings were protested and condemned by the majority of Christians when they occurred. And I haven’t heard of any for quite some time, so where’s the need for protest now? Note also that the perpetrators have been chased down and prosecuted by the legal system as much as possible. The analogy between them and the current and very active Islamic extremist acts breaks down in other ways as well. They were (note how I keep using the past tense) usually aimed against the property only. Now, if someone was killing groups of people lined up outside such clinics via suicide vests 2 or 3 times a week, and then setting off car bombs among the EMTs and police once they got to the scene, then you’d have something analagous.
“exploitation of a dying woman”
everybody exploited that woman, on all sides, to everyone’s disgrace.
“financial support for Eric Rudolph”
Again, aren’t these people being pursued via the legal system?
“legislation to bar gay citizens from possessing civil rights”
Are you talking about legalizing same-sex partnerships and giving them the legal status of heterosexual marriages? Opposing that is hardly limited to Christianity; it’s pretty much anathema to Judaism, Islam and Hinduism too. And I wonder how much support it enjoys among atheists. This is not just a “Christian” action. Additionally, I don’t see where it’s extremism, either; opposition to this enjoys broad support across the country. If anything, *support* for this is the extremist position.
“…where is the protest? I’m certainly not hearing it.”
Then you weren’t listening at the time.
“One sometimes wonders if there are any mainstream Christians left among us.”
That’s funny. Read the right-wing blogs and they ask the same question. But of course, they do so in the context of looking at the compromises that the ECUSA, the ELCA, the American branch of the RCC and others are making with left-wing cultural elements, and figuring that many of the Christian denominations in America are abandoning Christianity.
“In her statement about the letter to Bush, Senator Barbara Mikulski said, ‘Iraqi women make up 65 percent of Iraq’s population and will play a vital role in its reconstruction. We cannot allow them to be left behind as Iraq begins to rebuild and transition to democracy.'”
What? Sixty-five percent? Wow! Women outnumber men 2-1? That’s going to cause a huge problem. Let’s see:
1) It will encourage the continuation of polygamy, as many women in such a highly patriarchial culture will figure that having half a husband is better than none.
2) Many men may well see themselves as “outnumbered” and will be more likely to seek the continuation of their highly patriarchial culture so as to maintain their place.
3) Here’s a wild flyer; would it be accurate to think that much of the country is not highly industrialized and is dependent on human muscle power to get things done? If so, a lack of male muscle power is going to hinder (not prevent, but hinder) development in such places. First, because the average man is stronger than the average woman. Second, their culture is very much still that women take care of the kids (and they have lots of kids, birth control isn’t something they use a lot) and men do the physical labor. In a polygamous culture, lots of the women will have kids to take care of, so that’s not going away.
Now it could be argued that all of this will encourage cultural changes. Perhaps so. But cultural patterns that are thousands of years old don’t change easily, especially in the rural areas where radio, TV, and the Internet don’t shine brightly. And they don’t change without a lot of upheaval.
One comment on my last post; I don’t mean to imply that women don’t do physical labor in such settings. But their physical labor tends to be endurance-oriented, whereas male physical labor tends to be short-duration/high-intensity. When performing tasks such as those found in school or home construction, well-digging, etc., there’s a difference between lifting 20 pounds 5 times and lifting 100 pounds once. Sometimes you have to do the latter to get the job done.
RonF – “science-bashing” is in reference to the teaching of Intelligent Design as an alternative theory to evolutionary biology as well as to stem-cell research. (At least, I assume that is what is meant.)
There is plenty of Christian extremism, it’s just that many of the Christian extremist groups are not as blatantly violent as Islamic extremist groups. What about that group (I have temporarily blanked on the name, sorry) that teaches that the husband should make all the decisions, including what the wife orders to eat in a restaurant? What about the group who believes we have to keep Israel around solely so the Second Coming can happen? A number of white supremacist groups claim to be Christian, and those people are definitely on the violent side. I would class these groups as extremist, and I think many mainstream Christians just shudder and hope that ignoring them will make them go away.
Pseudo-Adrienne, thanks for posting the item on Iraqi women!
A couple of recent items:
Mohammed at Iraq the Model
“In spite of the heat and the dust that’s covering Baghdad for the 2nd day, more than a hundred Iraqi women representing NGOs and active groups gathered to declare their demands in equality and a civil family and personal affairs law.
The women set a large tent in Al-Firdows square which witnessed the fall of Saddam in April 2003. Under this icon of freedom the women held their signs and demands high.
I met some of the activists who talked enthusiastically about plans for more protests and conventions to show their disapproval of the constitution’s draft because they’re afraid that religion might hijack the constitution and deprive them of their rights.
I’ve also noticed that signs that required two to hold were held by a male and a female in a sign of equality; I liked the idea! …”
Full post, with pictures, at the link.
Kat at The Middle Ground
“The Iraq Constitution is in the process of being written. Several drafts have been sent to the public for input in preparation for the referendum on August 15, 2005. As the negotiations continue, questions about the base of law and the role of Islam and Shari’ah continue to be points of contention. Many women in Iraq will be affected if Shari’ah is adopted as the sole source of law or if it is adopted as a major source of law and its implementation is left up to the different regions of Iraq.
Some regions are effectively controlled by major religious parties, both Sunni and Shia, which advocate traditional and restricted roles for women. The laws that would be enacted under Shari’ah would impact women negatively including such issues as custody of children (usually given to the men regardless of the reason for divorce or separation), divorce (which gives women limited if no rights in divorce, regardless of the condition of their union and allow men free reign to divorce at will for little if any reason and can impact her and her children’s financial situation), inheritence (depending on whose version of Shari’ah, widows could be left with less than 50% of their husbands property and wealth, regardless of the number of children she has to support while the remaining inheritence would be given to his brothers, father, uncles and cousins; for women already living in poverty, this could be devestating), and voting rights and representation within the government.
These are but a few of the issues facing women in the new Iraq. Other issues include laws to protect women from abuse, honor killings and unfair and inhumane punishment for the crime of “adultery” which includes pre-marital sex and rape. …”
Follow Kat’s links to the American Islamic Congress and Women’s Alliance for a Democratic Iraq.
RonF: You are absolutely clueless (perhaps deliberately so?) about women’s physical strength. Go fly a kite.
RonF –
You’re making a fairly common mistake in believing a myth. Yes, men are ON AVERAGE stronger for high intensity strength displays.
HOWEVER, if one looks at the overlay of the bell curves for types of strength abilitiesof men and women, you will find that the overlap is so huge that is makes talking about such differences in any meaningful way almost irrelevant. In other words, the average difference is almost statisitically insignificant when compared to the overlap of the two populations.
Women have been participating in heavy lifting, whether for intensity or endurance, for millenia, in developing nations and cultures.
I honestly think that the effect such a gender imbalance would have would only be if it were a culturally imposed one, certainly not as a factor of biology.
I think RonF is also under the impression that the Iraqis are so backwards that plumbing has not yet to arrive in the country. Much less drills.
Do you think they drill for oil by hand? Makes one wonder.
I can’t resist adding a link to this piece by Dave Zirin about the Williams sisters and racism in the sports world. Zirin is very cool.
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/zirin07212005/
Q Grrl, at 52 years of age I’ve been around long enough to observe for myself the physical capabilities of both men and women. Seems to me that men are more able to perform high-intensity/short-duration tasks of physical strength than women. Now, when you’re talking about lower-power/long-duration tasks, well, take a look at the percentage difference between men’s records and women’s records in the marathon, as compared to, say, the shot put or sprints. Sarah in Chicago, I’d like to see those studies you refer to.
Q Grrl, you might want to research the relative presence of plumbing, electricity, etc., in rural Iraq as opposed to the major urban centers. There’s a big difference. I’m well aware that the Industrial Revolution made civilization much less dependent on human (or animal) muscle power to get work done. But from what I’m reading on the milblogs, there’s many areas in rural Iraq that have little to no access to electrical power. And as far as drills, bulldozers and other internal-combustion powered devices go, there’s only so many of them in the country; tanks and other military engines were more of a priority with Saddam than civil engineering was. Sure, they don’t drill for oil by hand, but that kind of capability is concentrated in the oil fields.
Note that much of the work that is done in Iraq right now is being done by foreign contractors using their own machinery – not so many machines are available in-country. And the foreign contractors won’t get out of the urban centers and out into the rural areas until the terrorists are brought under control.
So, on this basis, and given the cultural barriers against women working with men on a physical basis, it seems to me that this gross imbalance of gender distribution may well cause problems for rural development in Iraq. Unless this gender imbalance is itself not uniformly distributed ….
BTW, IMNSHO, “insurgents” are those who shoot at armed opponents; people whose primary targets are unarmed civilians are “terrorists”.
The mainstream Christian groups condemn any violence committed in the name of Christianity. They’re not all that visible because there’s just so damn little of it. Condemnation of Islamic violence is a lot more prevalent because there’s a lot more of it and it’s killing a lot more people.
Yes, they prefer to call it “the war on terror” and “pre-emptive strikes” rather than crusades in the name Jesus Christ (which would indeed be sacrilegeous, but when the end result is same = non-Christians getting killed, does it really matter?). I guess my point is this: The Christian extremists (in America) have their man in the office therefore they don’t need to get their hands dirty by attacking all those pesky infidels and gays. :(
Of course there are (thankfully) plenty of Christians who are committed to non-violence and message of a loving God (hello Rock). Ditto for muslims.
Compulsory slightly off-topic disclaimer to comment #17, of course GLBT-people haven’t been subject to any “pre-emptive strikes” in the sense the term is used in war. And there is a difference between hanging gays and not letting them marry.
The only reason Christian extremism hasn’t gotten as violent as Islamic extremism is that, ironically, Christian moderates and people of other or no religion are less tolerant of their crap.
A couple more decades of Bushes or other milquetoast conservatives who tolerate Christian extremism in power, and you will see the Christian extremists energized enough to start committing more acts of violence to get the government to crack down on women, queers, abortionists, scientists, and others that threaten the fragile sensibilities of the Christian extremists.
Where are the Islamic extremists coming from? You guessed it – Saudi Arabia – a conservative country that tolerated religious extremism – and not Iraq, where Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party cracked down harshly on religious extremism. (15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi – NONE were Iraqi.)
RonF –
Off the top of my head? Can’t remember (and honestly not to be dismissive, but I am not jerking your chain, I’m just up to my eyeballs in other research work and not enough free time), but they are basic stuff.
RonF: Having been a female for 38 years, I think that I am vastly more qualified than you about female muscle strength. You, however, seem to get social roles confused with actual strength. My girlfriend came home last night with sore muscles after having to life seven 100-pound skids of grocery bags all by her little old lonesome self. And that was at WholeFoods in the good ol’ US of A. Go figure.
“So, on this basis, and given the cultural barriers against women working with men on a physical basis, it seems to me that this gross imbalance of gender distribution may well cause problems for rural development in Iraq. Unless this gender imbalance is itself not uniformly distributed ….”
In most cases where men so undervalue women’s worth and equality, men have absolutely no qualms about forcing women into hard labor. No qualms. Who do you think Southerners hitched the plow to when the mule wasn’t around? In rural, “undeveloped” parts of the world, who is it that “fetches” the water? Who washes the clothes by hand? Are you even cognizent of the muscle power needed to do even the most menial of “women’s” work? Especially the more menial of those tasks?
I think not.
You’re living in a pipe dream of Victorian sensibilities and women’s “place” in the world.
Well, tell her to quit doing that, Q. Who does she think she is, showing up some poor man AND taking his job away, too ?! She should be home crocheting doilies and watching Lifetime !!
Yesterday, when I was posting, somehow what I was posting was put as a reply to another post rather than as a standalone one. The admin here apparently tried to undo the damage I did (for which I take reponsibility), but in Post 16 above the first paragraph is a quote from Lee’s second paragraph in Post 9 and not original writing by me.
[Not quite sure what happened, but in response to this I blockquoted the first paragraph in Post 16 – hope that’s right. –Amp]
She does crochet, alsis. But only when I’m watching golf on TV.
Otherwise she’s out there doing things she really, really shouldn’t. Poor men.
“RonF: Having been a female for 38 years, I think that I am vastly more qualified than you about female muscle strength. You, however, seem to get social roles confused with actual strength.”
No, I’m aware of the difference. That’s why I said “”So, on this basis, and given the cultural barriers against women working with men on a physical basis, ….” I’m positing that it’s the combination of the two that will cause the problem, not either one alone.
“My girlfriend came home last night with sore muscles after having to life seven 100-pound skids of grocery bags all by her little old lonesome self. And that was at WholeFoods in the good ol’ US of A. Go figure.”
Having worked in a grocery store myself, I can sympathize. But don’t mistake individual performance as being representative of the general population. A group of 50 randomly-chosen men are going to be larger and stronger and able to lift more 100-pound skids of anything than a group of 50 randomly-chosen women. Will I find individual women in the women’s group that will be able to perform such work as well as, or even better than individual men in the men’s group? Sure. But as a whole, the group of men will be better suited to such work than the group of women.
Think about something else as well, which is a purely cultural effect. Let’s take a group of 25 men and a group of 25 women. At either end of the village, set them down with a skid of cement, a pile of sand, a pile of aggregate, a water source, a cement mixer, pipes and valves, appropriate hand tools, and a pile of concrete blocks. Set them each the task of building a well pump house. Who do you think will finish first?
The odds are that at least some of the men will have had experience in mixing concrete, cutting concrete blocks, knowing how deep to dig the foundation, fitting pipes, etc., and can run the project. The odds are that none of the women will have such experience. Again, reference the particular culture; women don’t work with men, spending their time on home-bound tasks. Men do things like construction, “no girls allowed”. Can women be trained to do such things? Of course – no American worksite lacks women doing just such work. But you’ll have to find men (in Iraqi culture) willing to train women to do such tasks; the training will take time; the women will have to make the mistakes that inexperience makes inevitable and learn from them, and so on. It won’t stop development. But it will slow it down, which is my premise. Plus the fact that in the actual situation over there (again, if the female:male::2:1 premise is correct), you’ll likely end up with having mixed-gender crews, another cultural barrier to overcome.
“In most cases where men so undervalue women’s worth and equality, men have absolutely no qualms about forcing women into hard labor. Who do you think Southerners hitched the plow to when the mule wasn’t around? In rural, “undeveloped” parts of the world, who is it that “fetches” the water? Who washes the clothes by hand?”
My mother, who was brought up on a farm in the Depression, has told me about this. She’s 5′ 10″ and has a mesomorphic build, making her huge for a woman in the 1930’s. Her family took advantage of it.
“Are you even cognizent of the muscle power needed to do even the most menial of “women’s” work? Especially the more menial of those tasks?”
See my post #8.
“You’re living in a pipe dream of Victorian sensibilities and women’s ‘place’ in the world.”
Hm. What do you think “Victorian sensibilities” are? How are my posts in agreement with them? And what do my posts indicate what “women’s place” in the world is?
Yarrgh !! Q, did they have those peculiar ads for some high-priced scotch in your neck of the woods, too ? Honestly, about two or three years back, we had these billboards all over the place that said things like [giant typeface] “THEY WATCH GOLF ON TV” and [smaller, but bolded typeface] “They Drink Blabbety-Blah Scotch. It’s What MEN Do.”
Frankly, I think that imposition of sharia in Iraq will be a two-fold disaster. First, because of the effect it will have on the women living there. And that deserves to stand alone, because of the horrific effect that has on those women.
But there’s another effect of sharia that will destablize Iraq. By restricting the roles of 1/2 the population (or 2/3, if the statistic above is to be believed) it will greatly reduce the ability of Iraq’s economy to compete in the world marketplace and will thus keep the country depressed and dependent. That in turn will make it a breeding ground for extremism of whatever stripe (but likely with at least a facade of Islam). Of course, the response of those extremists is that countries ruled under sharia will be able to compete when they achieve their aim of imposing sharia across the entire planet.
And should Iraq not impose sharia and adopt at least a semblance of democracy, I think it’s likely that they will end up with a successful economy, especially given their relatively secular recent history and the level their economy had reached until Saddam Hussein decided that he’d let people starve and the civil infrastructure crumble in favor of building up palaces and military capabilities. A secular democracy with a successful economy in the Middle East is a disaster for the rulers of Syria, Iran, and even Saudi Arabia, so they have little incentive in preventing the religious fanatics from trying to stop it.
Oh, and given all the talk here right now about usage of the term “race traitor,” I find it notable that this Summer’s issue of The Black Commentator is devoted solely to several recapped articles which decry the corrupting influence of the DLC and its bulging moneybags on the Congressional Black Caucus, and on the place of Black Democrats in general.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/116/116_cover_black_dems.html
alsis39:
Oh, God, Lifetime, the “I hate men” channel. I’ve watched a few of those shows with my wife. Why anyone would watch a steady diet of those shows is beyond me. Put me down as one man who would never say that a woman (or anyone) should stay “home crocheting doilies and watching Lifetime !! “
“Kerry’s near-instantaneous concession was designed to pre-empt and silence the cries of the wounded so that the DLC might make amends with the Bush Pirates and rejoin the permanent government as a compliant, junior partner.”
alsis39, do you believe that the author of this remark meant to imply that the 2004 election was stolen? I can see controversy over the 2000 election, but is there any widespread belief on the left that such was done in 2004 as well? Or is the author just talking about Kerry wanting to not endanger his place at the trough once the election was over?
Interestingly enough, if you look on the right-wing blogs, the viewpoint is that Kerry is being a real pain in the ass and is anything but compliant. They think he doesn’t want to give up the limelight and is having much more to say than he should. One person’s “compliant” is another one’s “pain in the ass”, I guess.
“Having worked in a grocery store myself, I can sympathize. But don’t mistake individual performance as being representative of the general population. ”
Oh for crimminey’s sake. I can’t do this, but you can?
Kite. Wind. String.
Q, do you have a penis? No, then of COURSE you can’t: those sorts of ridiculous generalisations are RESERVED for penis-owners to use whenever uppity females come along and threaten to shatter their self-delusional ideas about their own innate “superiority”.
So there.
“But you’ll have to find men (in Iraqi culture) willing to train women to do such tasks; the training will take time; the women will have to make the mistakes that inexperience makes inevitable and learn from them, and so on. It won’t stop development. But it will slow it down, which is my premise. Plus the fact that in the actual situation over there (again, if the female:male::2:1 premise is correct), you’ll likely end up with having mixed-gender crews, another cultural barrier to overcome.”
You know what, this is only remotely relevant if one plans to rebuild a patriarchal society. If, however, there are more women than men, one might hope that women’s aspirations, designs, and ideologies might just take hold. Of course then you run that awful, awful risk of slowing down the rebuilding process.
Meanwhile, the men in the US government/military/big business appear to be the ones most slowing down rebuilding, no?
Crys: I had to double check, but no, no penis.
Plus the fact that in the actual situation over there (again, if the female:male::2:1 premise is correct)
It sounds correct, given that Iraq fought a long, bloody war with Iran prior to the Gulf War.
“You know what, this is only remotely relevant if one plans to rebuild a patriarchal society. If, however, there are more women than men, one might hope that women’s aspirations, designs, and ideologies might just take hold. Of course then you run that awful, awful risk of slowing down the rebuilding process.”
Actually, no. It’s also relevant if you are rebuilding *any* kind of society *from* a patriarchal base. That’s what forms the culture that development will start from. Any changes you want to make from that baseline will take time and effort, and will in many cases engender resentment on the part of the very people you want to help. Remember, we’ve only got a small number of people over there compared to the total population. Despite the presence of foreign contractors, over the next few years the rebuilding will be mostly be done by the Iraqi people, not by American or other contractors, so their present culture will heavily influence any development.
As far as women’s aspirations, designs, and ideologies taking hold (hm, what are women’s ideologies, anyway?), that’s currently under debate, isn’t it? The attempt to put sharia in the Iraqi Constitution as being the basis for all legislation seems to spell out what it’s proponents think of women’s aspirations. It’s indicative that certain kinds of attitudes have at least some popular support. Whether that’s a majority of the population remains to be seen. So while I share your hope (at least until I figure out what “women’s ideologies” means), I’m not so sure we should presume it’ll happen.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t try. We already are, insisting that at least 25% of the delegates in the Provisional Government be women (as opposed to the probable 0% there would have been otherwise), insisting that women be allowed to vote, building school for girls where there’s never been any before and actually getting the girls to the schools, etc. But changing attitudes that have 1000’s of years of history isn’t something that’s going to happen overnight. If you want rapid change in these things, expect resistance.
In fact, expect armed resistance. Expect that volunteers and contractors that spread Western influence by building girls’ schools or putting up electrical works that will enable access to the Internet or anything else not found in the Qu’ran will be assaulted and killed. Expect that women who are bold enough to vote or to work outside the home or wear something other than a black tent in public will be occasionally dragged through the streets or dismembered or burned to death. Expect that many people in a society that has for millenia been dominated by despots and tyrants will need convincing that freedom is preferable to peace.
If you want freedom for women in Iraq, great. A worthy and necessary goal. But don’t expect that it’ll happen because the population acts on a revelation that of course this is the superior course. Expect that it’ll have to be fought for.
Where do you get off being so patronizing?