“Four score and seven years ago our foremothers were at home cooking dinner, doing the laundry and caring for their children and our forefathers got so jazzed up listening to the sounds of their own voices that they forgot to mention the womenfolk in the Constitution.  Oops.”

Bless their little hearts, I’m sure it was an inadvertent omission.  Well okay maybe it was more like an overt usurpation of patriarchal  power.  So either let’s get this thing passed already or as an alternative  get honest and pass an amendment clarifying that we are second class citizens in this country.  Geez.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney at ERA Rally

Via the Alice Paul Institute (click link for excellent history of the ERA).

We shall not be safe until the principle of equal rights is written into the framework of our government.”–Alice Paul at  Seneca Falls, 1923

Section 1. Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Via Ms.

In a press conference Congresswoman Maloney stated, “Women have made incredible progress in the past few decades. But laws can change, government regulations can be weakened, and judicial attitudes can shift. The only way for women to achieve equality in the United States is to write it into the Constitution“.

• Mass rape, military sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced “marriages” and forced pregnancies.
• Multiple rapes and gang rape (with multiple perpetrators) and the rape of young girls.
• Sexual assault associated with violent physical assault.
• Resurgence of female genital mutilation, within the community under attack, as a way to reinforce cultural identity.
• Women forced to offer sex for survival, or in exchange for food, shelter, or “protection.”

But the devastation experienced by women during conflict goes beyond that. War today is not fought on some obscure battlefield.  It is fought in cities and towns where people live. When hospitals and homes and fields and schools are destroyed, there is no place for women to obtain medical care, or a warm shelter to call home, food to put on the table or a way to educate themselves or their children. As the human rights organization Madre notes, the impact of U.S. military action in Afghanistan has had  truly horrific implications for Afghan women:

The US and NATO did manage to oust the Taliban in 2001. Afghan women then gained some relief from a regime that publicly beat and executed women, and denied them education, healthcare, employment, participation in public life and any recourse from widespread domestic abuse. But that relief was short-lived. Today, a resurgent Taliban controls most of Afghanistan’s southern provinces and is encroaching on Kabul, the capital. In 2007, the number of US/NATO troops was increased by 45 percent. During that surge, more civilians were killed than in the previous four years combined. Each year that the occupation drags on, more Afghan civilians are killed. In 2008 alone, more than 2100 civilians were killed, a 40 percent jump over 2007.

The Bush Administration justified the invasion of Afghanistan by pointing to the Taliban’s systematic abuse of women. But subsequent US policies in Afghanistan did not uphold women’s human rights. As a result: 1.    One in every three women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence 2.    70 to 80 percent of women face forced marriages 3.    Every 30 minutes, a woman dies in childbirth 4.    87 percent of women are illiterate 5.    70 percent of girls have no access to education 6.    44 years is the average life expectancy rate for women

Madre also notes that, “According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “The mere presence of foreign soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan is probably the single most important factor in the resurgence of the Taliban.” All of which makes it baffling and quite discouraging that  the Feminist Majority’s Eleanor Smeal would state  that FMF supports the continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan:

Though we’d prefer that all U.S. funding be spent on development aid, we cannot in good conscience advocate the immediate military pullout that some are suggesting. The 2009 UN Humanitarian Action Plan noted that in 2008, “Approximately 40% of the country, including much of the South, remains inaccessible for most humanitarian organizations.” Last year, 92 aid workers were abducted and 36 were killed, double the number from 2007. In recent public opinion polls, Afghans put security in their top three concerns right after food. Without stabilizing the country, there can be no significant redevelopment effort.

Smeal feels that,

If the U.S. were to pull out of Afghanistan, the United States would be once again breaking our promise to the Afghan people, and the country would likely fall under Taliban control.

This statement is naive at best.  Our promises to the Afghan people were never more than window dressing to make our actions more palatable both here and in Afghanistan.  Our mission there has never been for the sake of Afghanis, it is to further our own perceived interests and to fight that ever elusive enemy called “terrorism”. Smeal also expresses gratitude for what she terms “substantial U.S. funding for women and girls programs in Afghanistan — $367 million to date.”  Is she kidding?  That is a mere drop in the war funding bucket. As Tom Hayden points out,

it’s still hard to believe that they (FMF) think Afghan women can be liberated by an invading, bombing, imprisoning American army. It’s hard to believe that Predators, drones, Special Forces, detention camps and foreign occupiers are solutions to Taliban fundamentalism. Even the US-supported Kabul government showed its real character this year by passing a law requiring women to obey their husbands in sexual matters, in violation of the country’s own constitution and international norms. A top United Nations official this month told a Kabul audience “that violence against women is not being challenged or condemned.” This was eight years following the Bonn Agreement which included human rights at its core. In northern areas under Western occupation, the UN report found that in 39 percent of rapes “that perpetrators were directly linked to power brokers who are, effectively, above the law and enjoy immunity from arrest as well as immunity from social condemnation.”

At the end of the day, militarism is not about upholding human rights,  it is about asserting control and the cost of that is always  the loss of life and  liberty for those who have the misfortune to be in the line of fire.  The U.S. is not waging war in Afghanistan for the benefit of Afghanis and their welfare is purely incidental to that mission.  As  FPN noted in April, the AP reported that President Obama has stated that,

(W)hile improving conditions in Afghanistan is a commendable goal, people need to remember that the primary reason that U.S. troops are fighting there is to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

Our continued military presence will not benefit the Afghan people, only make their lives more precarious, and is doomed to failure as Sonali Kolhatkar makes clear.

The likelihood of American success in Afghanistan is at best dim and, at worst, heading inevitably toward a lose-lose situation. Given the impossibility of surgically identifying and killing a moving and elusive target, there are only two possible outcomes: killing a lot of civilians, or pushing the insurgency to the rest of the country, or both. After the Iraq debacle, are Americans ready for yet another unpopular occupation, protracted war and thousands of U.S. casualties?

However we do need to re-frame what is indeed a human rights disaster for women in Afghanistan and ask what is to be done.  Hayden offers this,

Ending a military occupation through a negotiated settlement among countries in the region, and parties in Afghanistan, is the only way out of this latest adventure in The Long War. Making any future economic or diplomatic assistance contingent upon women’s rights to health care, child care, education and dignity should be among the terms for a US and NATO withdrawal. In all seriousness, top US officials in a future Kabul embassy could be feminists linked to Afghan women’s groups. Hillary Clinton knows how to be relentless if she chooses. The struggle will be long and bitter, won in civil society, not on battlefields. Even if all the Taliban are killed, Afghanistan will be a deeply patriarchal Muslim country where change will emerge from outside and inside pressures.

It is also important to note that women in the U.S. military are also grievously harmed.  There is an epidemic of sexual assault and rape within the ranks which has been the subject of countless hearings and reports and recent hearings and reports also shed light on the difficulties being faced by women veterans. Those harms are a result of the culture of impunity that is a de facto part of military ethos and are not resolvable within the mindset that issues can be resolved by the usurpation of power. Moreover, they are intimately linked to the harms experienced by those that we fight against.  We are naive to think that they can be addressed separately or as problems that can be resolved without addressing their root cause.

And finally, it needs to be said that while we prioritize our spending on military destruction, funding for services that protect women’s lives are woefully lacking.  There is not funding for shelters in our own country or for fighting maternal mortality (which kills more than 500,000 every year), an entirely solvable problem that would require far less money than we  spend saving ourselves from ‘terrorism’.

Smeal’s statement is damaging and unfortunate. It displays a woeful lack of understanding of American politics, militarism and global realities. For a major feminist organization not to understand the truly damaging impact that militarism has on women’s lives is unacceptable and does not represent the truly feminist thinking, nor should it be taken to speak for the feminist body politic.

The extraordinary nature of this story is that within days, the U.S. government was begging Twitter to postpone previously scheduled maintenance and stay in operation and top mainstream media stories were beginning with, ‘we got nothing but here’s what we found on Twitter.’ As Patti Smith put it in the lyrics to People Have The Power, “People have the power to redeem the work of fools.” And it would appear this week that is exactly what just happened.

Throughout the week, Feminist Peace Network has been posting both the wise voices of women speaking out about the crisis as well as looking at the impact the current situation has on the lives of Iranian women. In a commentary on the Huffington Post, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi points out that this crisis is about far more than just the election (also noted by WFAFI earlier this week) and offers the following suggestions for what is necessary to resolve the current situation:

1. The unconditional release of every individual arrested and imprisoned for having objected to the results of the elections.

2. Ordering the cessation of Basij and police violence toward protestors.

3. Declaring the election void.

4. Ordering new elections under the auspices of international organizations.

5. Paying compensation to the injured and to the families of those who have been killed.

The FPN blog will continue to post on this topic as events unfold because as feminist technologist Deanna Zandt, who has been commenting on this story throughout the week noted yesterday on Twitter, “I’d rather try to address the problems that come with “mob rule” than continue with a milennia’s worth of patriarchal gatekeeping.” One truly has to wonder what the world would be like if the American people had taken to the streets and insisted on the truth in these kinds of numbers after the 2000 election.

As a final note, this morning my local newspaper had banished the Iran story to the inner bowels of the first section, as I suspect a number of other newspapers have done as well. Not a huge loss since their coverage was woefully lacking in the first place. Here are several excellent sources of up-to-date coverage of Iran (as well as a few awesome graphics), in addition, I highly recommend #iranelection on Twitter. Look at these, go back and look at your local newspaper and the evening news, draw your own conclusions.

Via The Cagle Post:

Nico Pitney live-blogging on the Huffington Post.

The Guardian (UK)‘s constantly updated Iran news.

Amnesty International on the Iranian Soccer Team’s green wristbands:

Coverage specifically discussing the role of and implications for women:

• In Iran, “Pretty” Is Sometimes The Protest (excellent analysis and points to other links)
• Dana Goldstein on The Daily Beast
• Interview with Roya Hakakian

And finally, this footage from Iran goes well beyond what even cable ‘news’ will show:

But I am deeply troubled by the opening moves of the Obama Administration. We need to not lose sight of Obama’s intention to step up operations in Afghanistan.  And we should be very worried that his energy policy sees an ongoing place for nuclear and coal technologies, neither of which are safe, clean or cheap in any form and it astounds me that Obama has not taken the time to visit and address the enormous coal ash spill in Tennessee. This cavalier dismissal of this ecologic plundering of our planet does not bode well for badly needed leadership in environmental policy. The appointment of Tom Vilsack, a long time supporter of corporate farming, sends a dangerous signal for food policies in a time of escalating costs and hunger.  And Eric Holder’s role in the Marc Rich pardon certainly leaves one to question his ability to uphold justice.

One wonders also where is a clear vision for a health system that provides medical care without bankrupting those it serves to benefit  big pharma and the insurance industry.  And  I for one have little faith that a man who forgets to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes can lead us out of this economic crisis. As David Korten points out, “our economic crisis is, at its core, a moral crisis”.

Nor do I understand Obama’s silence on the atrocities committed in Gaza, saying that there is only one president at a time is not an excuse for silence in the face of war crimes and gross violations against human rights.  It is also just mystifying why the deeply homophobic Rick Warren was asked to be a part of the Inaugural festivities.

The one area that I do feel somewhat hopeful for in terms of real change is women’s human rights and reproductive health.  Joe Biden has been a staunch supporter of the Violence Against Women Act and the International Violence Against Women Act and the Convention on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. There is also every indication that the Obama Administration will not continue to support the hugely ineffective abstinence programs  and that the Global Gag rule will be rescinded in short order freeing up badly needed family planning funds both here and abroad.

Finally, as Elizabeth Holtzman points out, it is paramount that Obama address the Bush Administration’s violations of the Constitution because not to do so would signal yet another grievous disregard for the laws of this country.  And Keith Olbermann points out on Countdown that it is not sufficient to simply say we won’t torture again, it is absolutely necessary to prosecute the crimes of the past or they will happen again.

As Robert Jensen rather eloquently phrased it, “Like many others on Tuesday I will breathe a sigh of relief when Obama is sworn in, but I won’t breathe easy,” because it remains to be seen whether Obama can bring real substantive change or whether his election merely signals a return to business as usual in the pre-Bush years.  If the latter is the case, we are in deep trouble, so deep that we cannot afford more than a one day honeymoon.  When the sun comes up on Wednesday morning, it is time to get back to work and let the Obama administration know the mandate for change that swept him into office was not a hope but a demand.

–Lucinda Marshall

On Ending The Israeli Occupation And Getting To Peace With The Palestinians
by Gila Svirsky

Let me begin by telling a story. A few years ago, two busloads of Israeli peace activists—women and men mixed—traveled to a small Palestinian village where two homes had been demolished by the Israeli army. When we got out of the buses, soldiers blocked our access to the village and demanded that we leave. Instead, we began to walk along the main road toward another entrance, knowing full well that this would also be blocked by the soldiers. Suddenly, one of the women broke away and began to walk across the field directly toward the village. It seemed so simple, and a group of us followed her, spreading out to make it harder for the soldiers to stop us.The soldiers came at us quickly, grabbing us to prevent our progress. I made a quick head count of them and climbed up on a mound of earth to call out, “There are many more of us than soldiers, just walk peacefully, no violence.” Soon the soldiers were running back and forth to stop more of us from going through the field. Although the soldiers were blocking us only with their bodies—twisting arms, pushing, grabbing—I guess it was the rifles slung across their backs that prevented more of the larger group from following us. In the scuffle, seven of us made it past the soldiers and walked the 10 minutes through the fields into the village.

Inside the village, we found the demolished homes and families living in a tent. The father took us on a tour of the ruins of his home. As he was talking, I had a call on my cell phone from someone in the group outside, who told us that, following negotiations with the army, an official delegation of the peace activists who remained behind would be allowed to join us in the village. Within a short time, we saw a group walking toward us along the road.

It was at that moment, as they approached, that we looked around at ourselves and something struck us: The seven of us who had taken the risk, broken through the soldiers, done all the hard work, and reached the village were all women. While the “Official Delegation” coming down the road…were all men.

Does anything ring familiar to you about this story? In Israel, as is often the case in many countries, women may be doing much of the hard work for peace, but they are rarely part of the “official delegation”—they rarely represent the movement publicly. And when the voices of women are heard, it’s often the result of an exhausting struggle.

But there is more to the feminist peace movement in Israel than wanting to be heard. It is what we have to say that is also different. First, let me mention a few of the ten women’s peace organizations in Israel to give you a more concrete idea of what we do:

•    There is the Women in Black movement, which has held a dramatic vigil every single Friday for the past 20 years in public locations in Israel—women dressed all in black and standing silently for one hour every week with a sign that carries a simple message: “End the Occupation.”

•     Another feminist peace organization in Israel is called New Profile. These women work to end the militarization of Israeli society. They also support and encourage women and men who refuse to do army service in the occupied territories.

•    A third, the Bat Shalom organization has worked to build a common political platform for peace with Palestinian women in a partnership called The Jerusalem Link.

•    Last, let me mention Machsom-Watch, which means Checkpoint Watch. The women of Machsom-Watch patrol and monitor checkpoints wherever Israeli soldiers block the movement of Palestinians, documenting the brutality and humiliation that take place there daily, bringing this to the attention of the Israeli public and authorities, as well as the international community.

The ten women’s peace organizations work together in a framework called the Coalition of Women for Peace. You can find more details about these activities on their website.

The feminist peace movement is different than the mixed-gender peace movement in a number of ways. First of all, our strategies have been more varied. In addition to vigils and demonstrations, we have engaged in a wide variety of activities. We organize humanitarian aid as a political statement: helping Palestinian families with the olive harvest, providing school supplies and even medicines and infant food during crisis situations. We try to make the occupation visible to Israelis who prefer not to know what is happening by holding street theater, teach-ins, and even bus tours of the occupied territories and separation wall. In order to mobilize local and international public opinion, we run urgent-action email lists, international campaigns and websites in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Russian. We engage in Gandhi-inspired direct action—we once “lay siege” to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, in an effort to get them to understand the cruelty of this tactic. Our siege, of course, didn’t last as long as the terrible siege now choking Gaza. We have blocked bulldozers with our bodies, chained ourselves to olive trees, and confronted soldiers in efforts to prevent further destruction of Palestinian homes and property. Much joint work has also been done with Palestinian women to prevent construction of the separation wall. Some of our actions have ended in arrests or injury. Israeli women have also participated in dialogue groups with Palestinian women, but this has not always been easy or successful. If peace could be won by effort alone, the women’s peace movement would have achieved it long ago. But in the world of chauvinist realpolitik, good intentions are clearly not enough.

The women’s peace movement is also distinctive because it has been more progressive than the mixed-gender peace movement. We took positions that were considered radical well before the mixed groups did. Israeli women signed a peace treaty with Palestinian women long before Rabin and Arafat did it on the White House lawn, and our principles went beyond the general assertion of ending hostilities. Our treaty called for establishment of a Palestinian state side-by-side with the state of Israel, the recognition of Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states and some sort of resolution for the Palestinian refugee problem, though we never managed to articulate a solution on which both sides agreed. But the women’s movement did challenge ourselves to look at this difficult issue and not ignore it, as most people have. We will continue to work to come up with a solution that can be acceptable to both sides.

The feminist peace movement is also distinctive because it has a broad social vision. We view the conflict as integrally related to social, economic and gender issues. Indeed, the conflict with the Palestinians directly affects both gender inequality and oppression of the poor. Why gender inequality? Because in a society at war—where it is predominantly the men who are risking their lives in army service and making military and political decisions—men and their views become valued and privileged over women and our views. This entrenches inequality for women, leaving us at a disadvantage in competing for jobs, political office and social status. A man who has been an officer in the army or served in a combat role or simply given three years of service to the country has an advantage over a woman in applying for a job. And I don’t have to point out all the retired generals who parachuted out of the army directly into senior elected office, including several prime ministers (Rabin, Barak, Sharon).

The conflict also deepens poverty, as Israel sinks vast resources into illegal settlements and the military occupation at the expense of social needs inside Israel—housing, education, health, care for the elderly and other needs. And since women are more likely to find themselves among the poor, they become the first victims of inadequate social services. In general, socioeconomic issues become marginalized in the face of the conflict. Because of this link, the feminist peace movement takes a broader perspective of war and peace, connecting them to social issues, including gender.

This has led us to a new strategy, which we call “Reframing Security.” In this campaign, we try to broaden the understanding of security in Israel so that it will include all aspects of “human security”—a society that cares for its poor, reduces violence, protects its natural resources and coexists in peace with its neighbors. Indeed, this campaign seeks to instill the understanding that “a just peace agreement is the best way to promote security.” In the “Reframing Security” campaign, we invest our best efforts in outreach to populations that do not share our views, engaging them in ways we hope will change their minds. This new strategy also reflects our conviction that we must focus on changing attitudes inside Israel, though it is often easier and more satisfying to be talking to international audiences or Palestinian allies.

Let me mention one more important way that the feminist peace movement is distinctive from the mixed movement: We advocate that women must be equal partners in the negotiations for peace, giving full support to UN Security Council Resolution 1325. Women must become part of the negotiations because this is only fair and just, but also because agreements must reflect the needs of all those affected by them, not just the men. Therefore the input of women is critical. Above all, we note that women are more likely to come up with a decent agreement, one that is considered a win-win situation for both sides. Indeed, it defies logic to choose military men as negotiators—men with portfolios of brutal crimes against each other, generals who have honed the art of war and who measure their success by the unconditional surrender of the other. I believe that any mother would have more experience than most generals in the art of resolving differences amicably.I have tried here to give a sense of how the feminist peace movement has become the most vibrant and interesting part of the peace movement in Israel. And yet despite all this, the Israeli media have virtually ignored our activity. This has been frustrating and infuriating. We are left trying to get our message out primarily by email and websites, but the Israeli public sees us very little. Some of this “ignoring of us” is surely related to how women continue to be silenced or regarded as marginal to the main business of society. It is not surprising that the only major article written about us in the Israeli newspapers was entitled, “The Pariahs.” Although many of our views have reached the mainstream of public opinion, the fact that we are strong and outspoken women does not endear us to a society in which “macho” is the revered standard.

Finally, the vision of the feminist peace movement in Israel is much broader than “separation”—the right of Palestinians to political self-definition and a state. Our movement calls for a deep-seated change of priorities. This means not just ending the Israeli occupation, but shaping a shared future of cooperation. It means opposition to the militarism that permeates both societies, an equal role for women in negotiations for peace and a society that cares more about education, health, art and the poor than it does about maintaining a deadly arsenal. It means a world in which we share our resources, rather than fight about them.

The conflict between Israel and our Arab neighbors has taken a terrible toll in human life and suffering, particularly from the Palestinian people. True courage and fortitude are at the very heart of survival of the Palestinians, struggling to stay alive, to keep their families together, to hold onto their humanity in the face of adversity too terrible to imagine.

But, ultimately, this occupation, like every other in history, will come to an end. The general parameters of that ending are already drawn and in agreement. What we need now is leadership committed to swiftly concluding this era awash in blood, leadership that understands the price we pay in death and destruction for every hour of delay. What we need now is leadership with expertise at reconciliation and rapprochement. What we need now are women.

———-
Gila Svirsky is a veteran peace and human rights activist. She has been a member of Women in Black since its founding 20 years ago and cofounded the Coalition of Women for Peace in 2000, which brings together ten women’s peace organizations and magnifies the feminist voice for peace in Israel. Currently, she serves as chair of B’Tselem, Israel’s foremost human rights organization in the occupied territories.