That’s The Way It Isn’t–The Myopic Male Media Lens

 1 Response »
Apr 292010
 

The other evening I was vegged out on the couch watching  Countdown’s Keith Olbermann chit chat with 3 other white middle-aged men about what it all means, the implicit assumption being that they are important guys who should be allowed to represent and explain reality to the rest of us. Liberal. Edgy. White. Male.

Most of the time, out of sheer exhaustion, I man up and put on my blinders, but this time it got to me.  So I went and checked out Countdown’s website  and there on Friends of Countdown, surprise surprise, all but 2 of the show’s “friends” are men and all but 2 are white and all of the sites that they link to are run by men.

Of course it isn’t just Olbermann, with rare exception that is still the way it is with most of the media, liberal or otherwise.  And it isn’t an issue that is limited to the U.S..  Last week The Guardian (UK) published a great piece of Tillie Olsen-esque cataloging of the extreme lack of women across British cultural and media offerings:

We no longer live in an age where female thinkers, writers, philosophers, academics, artists, theorists, activists or politicians are rare. The discrimination is obvious. All you have to do is count…Somehow, a decision is being made, probably subconsciously, about what is worthwhile and what is worthless. When I was judging the Orange prize last year we all noticed how major bookshops consistently stacked 10 men’s books to every one woman’s book on its “recommended read” tables – in whatever genre. In one bookshop, fellow judge Martha Lane Fox was told barefacedly by the sales guy that this was because men published 10 times as much fiction as women. But as everyone knows, chaps are heavyweight colossal conceptual geniuses of quite massive greatness and literary ladies are clever little fairies, handstitching our charmingly personal tiny tales out of skirting-board dust and featherweight neuroses.

…The establishment, patriarchy, the mainstream, whatever you want to call it, just doesn’t find women interesting. It makes sure that women are heavily outnumbered from the very beginning by offering us only a fraction of available opportunities, slots, placements, commissions, trips, panel places, star jobs, reviews. Later, it conveniently uses this to claim that there are not enough women “out there” to make a stronger impression higher up. It talks down women’s work. It is supported by a false mythology about the weakness, inconsistency, subjectivity and inconsequentiality of women’s creation, experience and perspective.

As the New Statesman pointed out  regarding the British elections, “with three white male leaders slugging it out in tv debates hosted by three white men will violence against women get the airing it deserves? Don’t hold your breath.”

Returning to Olbermann’s Countdown, in a major WTF moment,  one of the 2 women listed on the Friends page is Rachel Maddow.  She is listed as the host of The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America.  Which is now defunct and as Olbermann and MSNBC well know, she has a show on MSNBC that comes on right after Countdown.  And has for for quite awhile.  Hello Keith?  Might be time to update the website, not to mention that really isn’t a friends list for an enlightened guy like you to brag about.  Unfortunately, it does need to be said that the guest lineup on Maddow’s show is almost as discouraging.

Finally in the circular logic  department, there is the frustrating logic that women can’t be influential if we never hear or read about them and once again they are conspicuously underrepresented on the Time Magazine’s annual list of most influential people, comprising less than 24% of this year’s list, a significant drop from last year’s 28.5%.  But for women who do make it onto the list, the inclusion can be extremely patronizing.  In his write up about Malalai Joya, the Afghan Parliamentarian who is on this year’s list (and one of my personal shereos), Hirsi Ali writes,

But to get a seat in parliament and refuse to be silent in the face of the Taliban and warlord zealots shows true fiber. When Malalai Joya did this, her opponents responded in the usual way: expulsion from parliament, warnings, intimidation and attempts to cut her life short. She has survived all of it.

Malalai, 31, is a leader. I hope in time she comes to see the U.S. and NATO forces in her country as her allies. She must use her notoriety, her demonstrated wit and her resilience to get the troops on her side instead of out of her country. The road to freedom is long and arduous and needs every hand.

How to say this–the reason she is influential is because she doesn’t listen to men who tell her what to do and the implication of Hirsi Ali’s words is that she is being a bad little influencer by not playing along with the literally man-made rules.  Time needs to take a hard look at their routine under-representation of women on this list and at the belittling way women like Joya are referred to when they are included.

Tonight’s plan? perhaps a Jane Austen novel,  if you’re going to indulge in fantasy, it might as well be a good one.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on April 29, 2010

‘Saving’ Afghan Women Not An Acceptable Justification For Continued U.S. Presence In Afghanistan

 Comments Off
Nov 112009
 

While Obama continues to practice his leadership style of taking a really, really long time to decide pretty much anything, it appears likely that he will ultimately approve a significant increase in troop levels in Afghanistan.  As Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission writes,

There’s no debate within the Democratic Party or in the White House about whether to end the war. The only thing being debated is how to continue the war.

Regardless of why we went into Afghanistan in the first place, the justifications given for our continued presence are bizarrely vague and the results have been devastating. As Kolhatkar points out,

Our actions in Afghanistan have caused a perfect storm of untold numbers of civilian deaths, fundamentalist resurgence, and women’s oppression. We’re protecting a corrupt government with a puppet president and criminal warlords, and our deadly bombing raids have led to a devastated and rightly bitter population and a stronger Taliban. There’s no promising indication that our military operations can improve the situation, no matter how many troops are added. If ever the Afghanistan war ever had any legitimacy, it’s irreversibly gone.

She  goes on to point to the way in which Afghan women’s lives are now being used as a justification for remaining in Afghanistan, despite the deep flaws in that logic.

One of the original justifications for the war in 2001 that seemed to resonate most with liberal Americans was the liberation of Afghan women from a misogynist regime. This is now being resurrected as the following: If the U.S. forces withdraw, any gains made by Afghan women will be reversed and they’ll be at the mercy of fundamentalist forces. In fact, the fear of abandoning Afghan women seems to have caused the greatest confusion and paralysis in the antiwar movement.

What this logic misses is that the United States chose right from the start to sell out Afghan women to its misogynist fundamentalist allies on the ground. The U.S. armed the Mujahadeen leaders in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation, opening the door to successive fundamentalist governments including the Taliban. In 2001, the United States then armed the same men, now called the Northern Alliance, to fight the Taliban and then welcomed them into the newly formed government as a reward. The American puppet president Hamid Karzai, in concert with a cabinet and parliament of thugs and criminals, passed one misogynist law after another, appointed one fundamentalist zealot after another to the judiciary, and literally enabled the downfall of Afghan women’s rights over eight long years.

Any token gains have been countered by setbacks. For example, while women are considered equal to men in Afghanistan’s constitution, there have been vicious and deadly attacks against women’s rights activists, the legalization of rape within marriage in the Shia community, and a shockingly high rate of women’s imprisonment for so-called honor crimes — all under the watch of the U.S. occupation and the government we are protecting against the Taliban. Add to this the unacceptably high number of innocent women and children killed in U.S. bombing raids, which has also increased the Taliban’s numbers and clout, and it makes the case that for eight years the United States has enabled the oppression of Afghan women and only added to their miseries.

This is why grassroots political and feminist activists have called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from their country. After eight years of American-enabled oppression, they would rather fight for their liberation without our help. The anti-fundamentalist progressive organization, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), has called for an immediate end to the war. Echoing their call is independent dissident member of Parliament Malalai Joya, who tells her story in her new political memoir, A Woman Among Warlords. The members of RAWA and women like Joya are openly targeted by the U.S.-backed Afghan government for their feminism and political activism. RAWA and Joya have worked on the ground, risking their lives for political change and echo the vast majority of poor and ordinary Afghan women. It’s they whom we ought to listen to and express solidarity with. If American progressives think they know better than Afghanistan’s brave feminist activists on how liberation can be achieved, we’re just as guilty as the U.S. government for subjecting them to the mercy of women-hating criminals.

The time has come for the U.S. to quit using the lives of Afghan women to justify its presence in Afghanistan.  That is not the reason we went in and certainly not the reason we should  stay.

For more on the impact of the U.S. military’s presence in Afghanistan, please see Malalai Joya’s recent Op Ed which begins poignantly,

Life for most Afghan women resembles a type of hell that is never reflected in the Western mainstream media.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on November 11, 2009

Afghan Women: U.N. Says “Silence Is Violence”, In The Meantime, Malalai Joya’s Memoir Published (But Not Yet In The U.S.)

 Comments Off
Jul 312009
 

Why do I find it oh so not surprising that Afghan shero Malalai Joya’s memoir will not be available in the U.S. until 3 months after it is published in Australia and  the UK?  However you can donate to supporting her work and keeping her alive right now by going here.

The Independent (UK) recently did an interview with her that I found on RAWA‘s site, read it in it’s entirety, the last para. brought tears to my eyes.

Malalai Joya knows she could be killed any day now, in our newly liberated Warlord-istan. She hugs me goodbye and says, “We must keep in touch.” But I find myself bleakly wondering if we will ever meet again. Perhaps she senses this, because she suddenly urges me to look again at the last paragraph of her memoir, Raising My Voice. “It really is how I feel,” she says. It reads: “If I should die, and you should choose to carry on my work, you are welcome to visit my grave. Pour some water on it and shout three times. I want to hear your voice.” I look up into her face, and she is giving me the bravest smile I have ever seen.

In the meantime while we wait for publication of this important book in the U.S., below is video from  a presentation by Sonali Kolhatkar, Co-Director of the Afghan Women’s Mission which  directly supports the work of RAWA, on the lives of Afghan women.

Part 1:

Part 2:

And in what can only be described as ironic timing, while Joya’s book is not yet available in the U.S.,  a new report from the U.N., “Silence is Violence” details the plight of Afghan women.  According to the report,

Findings reveal that Afghan women are subjected to an increasingly insecure environment. Women participating in public life face threats, harassment and attacks. In extreme cases, women have been killed for holding jobs that are seen to disrespect traditional practices or are considered “un-Islamic.” For every Malalai Kakar and Sitara Achakzai, two prominent Afghan women who have been killed and made headline news, there are numerous women who receive threatening phone calls ordering them to stop working or threatening harm to their children. Women also receive threatening ‘night letters’, and are physically or verbally abused. As a result, women engage in self censorship, restrict their movements, or discontinue their work. Threats and different forms of intimidation and attacks are harmful psychologically as well as physically. In addition to the women who are directly targeted, such violence also inhibits the participation of other women in development or political processes. Attacks against female journalists deny the availability of information pertaining to issues that only they, as women, can access. Attacks against teachers and health professionals deny Afghans access to education and health care.

The pattern of attacks against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home. This has obvious ramifications for the transformation of Afghanistan, the stated priority of Afghan authorities and their international supporters. To take but one example, that of socio-economic development in a country where 42 per cent struggle to survive in absolute poverty, it is unrealistic to anticipate significant advances when one half of the population is denied participation either at the local or national level. The effective imprisonment of women in their homes in an electoral period raises additional concerns, although it is also worth noting that 20 per cent more female candidates than before are standing in the current round of elections. Nonetheless, some female parliamentarians have indicated that, unless the security situation improves, they are unlikely to stand in parliamentary elections, scheduled for 2010. This is of obvious concern in a transitional environment as fragile as that which obtains in Afghanistan.

On the issue of rape, UNAMA’s research found that although under-reported and concealed, this ugly crime is an everyday occurrence in all parts of the country. It is a human rights problem of profound proportions. Women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes and in their communities, in detention facilities and as a result of traditional harmful practices to resolve feuds within the family or community. In some areas, alleged or convicted rapists are, or have links to, powerful commanders, members of illegal armed groups, or criminal gangs, as well as powerful individuals whose influence protects them from arrest and prosecution. In the northern region for example, 39 per cent of the cases analyzed by UNAMA Human Rights, found 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.

The issue of “honour” is a socio-cultural norm that is central to the issue of rape and efforts to counter its prevalence. Shame is attached to rape victims rather than to the perpetrator. Victims often find themselves being prosecuted for the offence of zina (adultery) and are denied access to justice. The problem is compounded when communities subject female victims to lifelong stigma and shame. Moreover, society may call for, or condone, sexual violence through harmful traditional practices such as baad (the practice of handing over girls to settle disputes), or by insisting that a victim marry the rapist. There is a dramatic and urgent need for the Government of Afghanistan and society to question attitudes to rape, the larger problem of violence against women, and their complicity in a crime that destroys the life of numerous victims.

The current reality is that the lives of a large number of Afghan women are seriously compromised by violence. Women are denied their most fundamental human rights and risk further violence in the course of seeking justice for crimes perpetrated against them. Despite the hopes expressed nearly eight years ago, the rights and aspirations of Afghan women, and the men who support them, remain largely unfulfilled. The vast majority of Afghan women suffer a significant human rights deficit; for them, human rights are values, standards, and entitlements that exist only in theory and at times, not even on paper.

The government of Afghanistan, in partnership with civil society and other actors, should provide leadership and commitment in rolling back the phenomenon of violence against women. The government must meet its responsibilities to protect, respect and fulfill women’s rights, including its responsibility to end impunity through prosecuting perpetrators of violence against women and girls in Afghanistan.

Summary recommendations that concern, in the first instance, the Afghan government, as well as other stakeholders, include:

- Publicly and explicitly condemn all forms of violence against women and girls;

- Define and criminalise rape in Afghan law;

- Put in place measures that build an enabling environment and cultural ethic that inhibits rape and holds perpetrators to account and allow women to play an active role within their families, communities and Afghan society in general;

- Promote “affirmative action” measures to redress gender imbalance in society and in particular in the work place; and,

- Promote the participation of women in all decision-making processes that affect their lives and Afghan society, including with respect to peace-building and reconciliation efforts.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on July 31, 2009