2007 October » Feminist Peace Network

The Daily Star (Lebanon) has published a rare look at violence against women in that country, where it is estimated that an honor killing takes place every week.

“In the minds of most Lebanese violence is something that is public and political, perpetrated by forces outside their individual communities. In contrast the home and the family are havens of safety and refuge, cocooning their members from the perils of the outside world.

Yet this cozy ideal is a fallacy for a number of women in Lebanon, who instead face physical and mental abuse in their homes from their husbands, fathers, brothers and other family members.”

According to the article, there are no laws in Lebanon pertaining to family violence and the first center for women who have been abused only opened in 2005.

Wangari Maathai on Gore’s Nobel Prize

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Oct 222007

As Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai writes, it is significant that this prize has once again been awarded to someone who focuses on the environment. She says that when she first met Al Gore in 1990,

“neither of us could imagine being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize or, indeed, that the Norwegian Nobel Committee would expand its conception of peace and security to encompass protecting the environment, ensuring the equitable and sustainable use of natural resources, and raising awareness of the linkages between ecological stress and conflict. By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC as this year’s peace laureates, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has rightly reminded us that climate change is the single biggest threat to world peace.”

She also points out that one has to go beyond what Gore is saying,

“Al Gore and others have visualized the technological possibilities, and the individual and policy choices, that can mitigate global warming. From my perspective, working at the grassroots, there’s another obligation: to protect the resources we have. One vital component of a sustainable future, for instance, must be standing forests. We know that intact forests contain the biodiversity that makes life possible for numerous species as well as forest-dwelling human communities. But forests–particularly thick, healthy stands of indigenous trees–also absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, and hold vast reserves of carbon in their soils. As these forests are felled for timber, agriculture, human settlements or commercial development, the world loses a vital component needed to slow, and ultimately reverse, global warming.”

Yet another example of the systemic, global pandemic of violence against women…
Amnesty International and Action des Chretiens pour l’Abolition de la Torture have called on the government of Burundi to take action to protect women and girls from sexual violence.

“Despite the fact that the rape of women and girls is widespread throughout the country, the Burundian authorities have systematically failed to take concrete steps to prevent, investigate and punish these crimes. As a result, perpetrators regularly escape prosecution and punishment by the state and victims are left without protection.

Levels of rape and other forms of sexual violence in Burundi are very high, with girls and young women most at risk — 60 percent of reported rapes are committed against minors.

“Girls as young as three are the victim of rape today in Burundi,” said Arnaud Royer, researcher at Amnesty International.”

“Between 2004 and 2006, an average of 1,346 women a year reported rape or sexual violence to Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) — 26 per week.”

I suppose it was inevitable, but the family values crazies have come up with a great cure for breast cancer. Yes, you guessed it–get married and have babies! Dr. Miriam Grossman writes for Townhall, a “conservative web community,

“It’s another instance of ideology trumping science. Emphasizing the benefits of early motherhood could—gasp!—encourage some young women to give marriage more priority, and postpone their demanding career. They might decide it’s a diamond they most want now, not a PhD.”

While it is in fact true that the British medical journal The Lancet published a study in 2002 that confirmed having more children sooner and breastfeeding them longer reduces your risk of breast cancer, it is only one of a number of ways in which you can reduce your risk. According to a CBS News report about The Lancet study,

“A century ago — before oral contraception, infant formula, improved infant survival and career opportunities for women – Western women used to have six or seven children and breast-feed each for about two years — a pattern still dominant in many parts of the developing world.

Today, women in the industrialized world have a 6.3 percent chance of getting breast cancer by age 70, compared with a 2.7 percent chance for their counterparts in poor countries.”

Yes but—no mention of the fact that hundreds of thousands of women die of such things as maternal complications, starvation and HIV/AIDs in poorer countries, that far fewer of them live to be 70 at all. Also no mention about how greater exposure to toxins and chemicals in developed countries might play a role in breast cancer rates.
The notion that bagging a diamond ring and postponing your PhD’ is going to save your life is all too typical of the ideological, very false fear-mongering tactics that the family values people continually use in their attacks on women’s human rights . As women’s health care advocate Gloria Feldt, the former CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, notes,

“(Dr Grossman) neglected to mention that there are substantial life-threatening risks from pregnancy and childbearing, especially too-frequent or closely spaced pregnancies and childbearing. Those risks would at least balance out any elevated risk of breast cancer incurred from delaying childbearing. Further, when you weigh in the risks to women and children associated with increased stress and poverty when families have more children than they can afford to care for, it’s a slam dunk that women are better off being able to plan and space their childbearing based on a number of health and social factors. Oh, and did Dr. Grossman forget to mention that using the birth control pill lowers risk of breast cancer?

The hubris of saying “It’s another instance of ideology trumping science.” would be laughable were it not so outrageous. She’s borrowed the phrase others coined to describe the misuse of ideology over science that she is guilty of. The anti-choice, anti-women’s rights set have a long track record of setting science on its head to justify their ideology that would make women once more barefoot and pregnant.”

Capitalizing on the fear of breast cancer to further a political agenda is truly the epitome of the misogyny of so-called “family values.”

Some key facts:
According to the The U.N. Population Fund,

“(W)omen on average earn slightly more than 50 percent of what men are earning, while women and girls are often the last to eat, and women’s health problems are considered less important than other family priorities.”

In addition,

“UNIFEM notes that among the factors that place women at risk of poverty are their unequal access to resources and capabilities, such as education, skills, land and property, the discrimination they face in the labour market and their lack of political voice. In all countries, women do most of the unpaid household and care work — yet this work is not counted as contributing to national economies. “The Economist [magazine] estimates that over the past decade, women’s work worldwide has done even more to fuel the global economy than has the stunning growth of China,” said Joanne Sandler, UNIFEM’s acting executive director.”

“”Women are indeed the missing piece of the poverty puzzle,” agreed Christine Grumm, president and CEO of the Women’s Funding Network, a U.S.-based group that mobilises private donors and foundations to support a range of initiatives for women and girls, including programmes to help women start businesses, leave violent homes, gain access to health care, raise their self-esteem, and advocate for fair public policies.

While the network has raised more than 400 million dollars over the last 15 years, it notes that just seven percent of all philanthropic dollars overall are earmarked for programmes for women and girls.”

Feminist Peace Network

Violence Against Women in Lebanon

Wangari Maathai on Gore’s Nobel Prize

Girls as Young as Three Victims of Rape in Burundi

The Right Wing Cure for Breast Cancer

Women are the Key to Eradicating Poverty

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