Playing The Damsels In Distress Card

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Nov 032011
 

Want to do something really damaging and maybe hugely unpopular and can’t come up with a good sales pitch based on the merits of your idea?  No worries, just play the Damsels in Distress card. In 2001, the Bush administration used the ploy to justify our invasion of Afghanistan–after all, we didn’t want to be seen as starting a war just for revenge and never mind that we’d never given a fig about what those women were going through until we decided we wanted to bomb the bejeepers out of their country.  It worked so well that Bush played it again when we invaded Iraq, even though women there enjoyed more rights than in most Arab countries prior to our invasion.

Now there is a group called Ethical Oil that is using Saudi women’s human rights as a justification for proceeding with the environmentally devastating Tar Sands project.

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While the human rights of Saudi women are unquestionably being seriously violated, that has been true for some time and we have done little to help them because we need Saudi oil.  And we continued to support the Saudi regime even though most of the 911 attackers were Saudi.  But now it is convenient to say that we support Saudi women, regardless of the fact that Tar Sands will do nothing to help Saudi women and is also detrimental to women who live near the project.  Maryam Adrangi explains,

The premise is that supporting “conflict oil” from Saudi Arabia would prop up a regime that is oppressive to women. The underlying motive, however, is not to talk about women’s liberation, but rather to deflect negative attention from the tar sands.

If women’s rights were of genuine concern to EthicalOil.org (and all the individuals that make it possible such as Ezra Levant, Alykhan Velshi, Kathryn Marshall, and their corporate oil buddies) then there would be conversation about the impacts that tar sands extraction has on women.

The tar sands boom has created dangerous jobs with long hours, fostering a culture of alcohol and substance abuse in the off hours. As a result, rates of sexual violence towards women have increased and women working in the industry have reported sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and unequal pay. Gender-based discrimination have also resulted in unequal access to higher paying jobs in communities in the region, and with skyrocketing housing prices and costs of living, there is also unequal access to housing.  Increases in female homelessness exacerbate the challenges faced by women in the area.

Climate Connections has more on this here and Grist covers it here.

The, Feminist Peace Network recently started another website, Occupy Patriarchy, which is focusing on bringing a feminist perspective to the Occupy movement.  One of the things that has quickly become apparent to us is that for women to participate in Occupy events, they need to feel safe.  There have been a number of incidents of sexual assault, harassment and rape and how some of those incidents have been handled has been distressing.  It is clear that is something that needs to be addressed but the right, which is fighting a losing battle to control the message in the face of the Occupy movement  has seized on this as a reason to shut down Occupy camps.

Brandon Darby offers this twisted logic on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website,

The reality is that ideological underpinnings of the Occupy movement–such as collectivism, “consensus” decision making, and antipathy towards law enforcement—often lend themselves to the disorder that predators see as opportunity. Far from “empowering” women, the Occupy movement’s anarchist and socialist principles and policies are exposing female activists to greater danger. They cannot maintain order because they are in the midst of rebelling against it.

Right and capitalism, which allows such things as human trafficking and the porn industry to flourish while funding for domestic violence programs is slashed is perfectly safe for women? And unfortunately, it would appear that there are also those in the Occupy movement that feel that damsel rescuing is the honorable metaphor to use.  Via Feminists Occupy London:

The fallacy of the Damsels in Distress argument is so transparent that it should really be a litmus test–if you have to invoke it in order to win your point, it is a losing idea, so quit acting like you think we should thank you.

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This Sunday, November 6th, Tar Sands activists are planning to encircle the White House to let President Obama know that proceeding with this horribly destructive project is a bad idea.  I plan to be there and my sign will say, “Saudi Women’s Lives Are Not A Call For Tar Sands”.

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 Posted by Fempeace on November 3, 2011

10 Years After 9/11–The Undeclared War Against Women Rages On

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Sep 072011
 

Ten years ago, after the World Trade Center towers crumbled, the United States declared a war on terror. At first we were told we would defeat the enemy quickly. But that war with its ever-shifting enemies and goals continues today with no end in sight. In late 2001, we were told that one of the reasons it was imperative that we attack Afghanistan was to liberate Afghan women from the Taliban. And then a few months later we were told that we must also rescue Iraqi women.

But the truth is that women’s human rights were never a priority, merely an excuse for exerting military domination. Today in Afghanistan and Iraq, the problems faced by women are myriad, little has been improved and much has been made worse. In Afghanistan, women continue to be maimed and beaten and their maternal mortality rate continues to be the second highest in the world. In Iraq, trafficking of women has increased dramatically, women human rights defenders are attacked in public places and women’s health, jobs and education has suffered dramatically as a result of the U.S. invasion.

Looking beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, the gender-specific impact of war and violence is all too apparent throughout the world.

  • It is not possible to say that  women’s lives are a priority while we stand by as crises like the never-ending mass rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo continue unabated.
  • It is not possible to say that women’s lives are a priority while women refugees are raped in Somali refugee camps or while women are murdered in Guatemala and Mexico and their killers go unpunished.
  • It is not possible to say that women’s lives are a priority when women’s reproductive rights are under siege in the U.S. and throughout the world.
  • It is not possible to say that women’s lives are a priority when women are afraid to walk down the street for fear of being attacked and harassed or of going home and being beaten and raped behind closed doors.
  • It is not possible to say that women’s lives are a priority when women are more likely to be food insecure, have less access to education and earn less than men throughout the world.

The monumental irony is that it has been proven time and time again that when women do not live in fear and when they have equal access to food and education and work, we are all better off and there is less likelihood of violence.  We cannot improve women’s lives by bombing their countries and when conflict does occur, we cannot truly resolve it unless women have a full and equal stake in the peace-making.

The only way to end terrorism is to quit creating terrifying conditions and the uncomfortable truth is that in the years since the World Trade Center towers fell, the U.S. has done everything in its power to create and further the conditions in which terror ferments.  As long as we persist on this path, we will live in a state of terror that only exacerbates the undeclared war on women.

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 Posted by Fempeace on September 7, 2011

Birth Defects and Cancer In Iraq Implicate Toxic U.S. Weaponry

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Aug 242011
 

The following letter was received from Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), an organization FPN has long supported in their tireless efforts to help women in Iraq.  While their evidence is anecdotal, it is substantive enough to warrant immediate further investigation so that justice and help can be gotten for those who are suffering.

In the current weak (sic), an OWFI delegation visited repeatedly the district of Haweeja, west of Kirkuk city in Iraq, to find that the villages have practically turned into contaminated backyards of radioactive waste of the live ammunition operations field of the US base. This matter has initiated human tragedy in levels unprecedented in the district, and yet was totally ignored by both the Iraqi and US governments who were not concerned with the human lives wasted in the surroundings of the military operations training field.

Within a Haweeja population of 109,000 people, a new disabled generation of infants and children were born with abnormal and under-developed brains, most of whom suffer polio, paralysis and sometimes blindness. The cases registered in the local clinic are 412, while the real numbers add up to more than the 600. Similarly, cancer spreads in all ages, with big numbers among teenagers who currently await their death without any treatment offered by the Iraqi government or the US military which is responsible for the contaminations resulting from their daily live ammunition radiation and emission. The US government continues to grant all the liberty for its military arsenal to practice shelling and explosions in the training field of Haweeja which is only one mile from the homes of families, with no barriers to stop children, sheppards and sheep to walk across in the ammunition training fields.

Most of the disability and cancer cases are in the villages closest to the US base training field, and in the direction of the wind, i.e. south of the field, such as Al Kubeyba, Al Hamdouniya, Al Aatshana and Hor Al Sufun. For example, Al Kubeyba village has a population of 1400 people – out of whom 21 cases were diagnosed with cancer. 3 have recently died while 18 are awaiting their destiny desperately with no hope of being provided treatment or medication by the authorities who should be held accountable.

OWFI delegate invited a group of reporters on August 23rd to witness, report and reveal the Haweeja dilemma globally, thus reversing the censorship of the authorities over it. It arrived to our attention that a resident of Haweeja had taken a sample of soil to Kirkuk Health Department, to be threatened in his next visit that he is summoned for investigation by the US military forces.

OWFI calls for the international courts and tribunals to set up a war crime tribunal committee to investigate into the party which was responsible of contaminating the air, soil and water of Haweeja and thus causing birth defects, disabilities, polio, paralysis and cancers. OWFI also calls upon the international humanitarian organizations to support the people of Haweeja against their daily sufferings, knowing that the Iraqi government deprived them of clean drinking water, adequate basic services, and sources of income. Moreover, there is absolutely no governmental concern of providing them with physical or psychological treatment or medication in any way.

Furthermore, OWFI holds the US government accountable for the devastation of tens of thousands of Haweeja residents who suffer from having one or more disabled children in their immediate family (25% of newborns), thus forcing the residents to abstain from having more children who are destined to suffer alongside their parents. OWFI demands an adequate financial compensation for the victims and their families, as they have been subjected to what amounts to be crimes of war. Exposing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to depleted uranium and other radiation from a US base which is implanted within Iraqi villages shows a clear disregard for Iraqi human life and disrespect to international treaties. The US administrations demonstrates willingness to plague lives of thousands of unsuspecting innocent infants and teenagers with disability and cancer while denying them medication or even acknowledgement of any rights.

OWFI hopes to get help from international organizations to help reduce the sufferings of the people of Haweeja. Our experiences of eight years have taught us not to expect any positive response from both US and Iraqi governments who have cooperated in imposing the disaster in the first place.

Yanar Mohammed
Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, president
23/08/2011

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 Posted by Fempeace on August 24, 2011

Reclaiming Her-Story–FPN Letter To Other Women’s Organizations Regarding The Needs Of Iraqi Women (2007?)

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Mar 282011
 

In our ongoing look at the Feminist Peace Network‘s story as part of Women’s History Month, this letter (undated, but probably sent in 2007) went to representatives of several other women’s groups, including WILPF, NOW, Code Pink, Global Women’s Strike, Nobel Women’s Initiative and VDay.  Unfortunately, nothing substantive resulted from it, and the letter could just as easily be sent today apropos of numerous conflict-afflicted areas in the world.

Gentlewomen,

As I think you all know, the already dire situation for Iraqi women and children has become horrendously worse during the last  few months, both for those still in Iraq and for those who are now refugees.  Yet this crisis is all but invisible to the U.S. peace/anti-war movement which seems to be centering its message on ending the war but supporting the troops, a message that while expedient in terms of building a broad coalition against the war, only addresses part of the problem.

As women’s organizations and feminists, we  need to demand that the specific harms to women as a result of this conflict be addressed as part of the anti-war movement’s agenda.  Harms such as:

–Lack of maternal healthcare.

–The difficulties facing women trying to get passports (you have to travel to Baghdad and have a male relative’s permission) in order to flee the country.

–The women who have been sexually trafficked and forced into prostitution to feed themselves and their children.  The Independent (UK) has suggested that 50,000 women refugees may  be prostituting themselves which sounds like a huge number but if you consider that there are some 4 million refugees now, many of whom are women without male relatives and who are not able to legally obtain work, the number does not seem unreasonable.  As horrific as this is, it is a crisis that is all but invisible to the American public.

All of our organizations want this war to end, but bringing our soldiers home, while necessary, is not sufficient, we need to end this war for the Iraqi people too and work to help them restore their lives.  The first place that needs to start is immediately addressing the refugee crisis and setting up ways to enable women as part of this process.  We also need to demand that U.S. troops do not continue the wholesale slaughter of women and children.

To raise our voices loudly enough to be heard, we truly need to do so together.  I don’t have a specific plan of action in mind, at this point I am simply asking if you are willing to work together and to ask that you share your ideas.

In peaceful sisterhood,

Lucinda Marshall

Feminist Peace Network

 

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 Posted by Fempeace on March 28, 2011

The Deterioration Of Women’s Human Rights In Post-Invasion Iraq

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Dec 012010
 

In 2004, I interviewed Yanar Mohammed, founder of the Organizaton for Women’s Freedom in Iraq about the impact of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on women’s lives.  According to IRIN, the concerns that Mohammed voiced in that interview and that I have written about many times since, have unfortunately been born out,

The improved political representation of women in Iraq is in sharp contrast to their broader disempowerment, as highlighted by the persistence of domestic violence and early marriage, according to a new report by the UN Inter-Agency Information and Analysis Unit…

…Women may hold 25 percent of seats in the Iraqi parliament, but one in five in the 15-49 age group has suffered physical violence at the hands of her husband. Anecdotal evidence alleges that “many women are being kidnapped and sold into prostitution”, and female genital mutilation is still common in the north, the report notes…

…Women’s participation in the labour force has fallen sharply since 2003. Before the invasion, 40 percent of public sector workers were women…

…The collapse of public social services has also limited access to education, health and jobs, while a high level of insecurity has pushed women out of public life and into the seclusion of their homes, and an ineffective judicial system has created an atmosphere of impunity…

…The conservative attitudes of public sector officials has been reinforced by a government that supports keeping women at home…

…“In 2006, the Iraqi Interior Ministry issued a series of notices warning women not to leave their homes alone and echoing the directives of religious leaders who urge men to prevent women family members from holding jobs,” the report noted.

“Thus, the violence carried out by militias in the streets is backed up by more respectable political leaders, who support the call for a women-free public sphere.”

Escalating poverty has pushed Iraqi families into prioritizing schooling for boys, stifling future opportunities for women.

“For every 100 boys enrolled in primary schools in Iraq, there are just under 89 girls,” the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said in a report released in September 2010. School enrollment figures for girls have been progressively declining, while drop-out rates have gone up in every academic year…

…Factors pushing girls out of schooling included “security risks, attitudes to girls and education, the state of the nation’s schools, what is taught and how it is taught, the skills and attitudes of teachers, family poverty,” UNICEF said…
Of the 139,000 registered Iraqi persons of concern in Syria, 28 percent fall under female-headed households, the UNHCR Protection Officer in Syria, Aseer Al-Madaien, told IRIN in an email interview.

Many do not have work permits, which compounds the difficulties female-headed households face in neighbouring countries, where they struggle to make a living, “especially paying the rent”, while still “coping with family, social and community pressure”, Al-Madaien commented.

Their vulnerability can lead to exploitation. “There is trafficking happening among the Iraqi refugees, [but] the scope and modality is not known to us,” said Al-Madaien.

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 Posted by Fempeace on December 1, 2010
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