Interesting article in USA Today - The Global War on Women
While I don't agree with everything in the article and feel a couple of the analogies are a bit sensationalistic, it's a different perspective on what the War on Terror is also about -- the Global War on Women.
I don't believe any of you out there in the LammieShpere believes that women should not have the same opportunities and rights that we as men enjoy in our society. Yelling "gaesh" and verbally abusing college-aged women aside, we as a group can rationally conclude that any society that categorically excludes 50% (give or take) of it's population from contributing to both the social and the economical fabrics cannot succeed and flourish in a global economy.
A few snippets:
I'd like to hear some of your views on this facet of the War on Terror.
(I guess Carles' post just below this one throws a monkey wrench into some of my conviction.)
I don't believe any of you out there in the LammieShpere believes that women should not have the same opportunities and rights that we as men enjoy in our society. Yelling "gaesh" and verbally abusing college-aged women aside, we as a group can rationally conclude that any society that categorically excludes 50% (give or take) of it's population from contributing to both the social and the economical fabrics cannot succeed and flourish in a global economy.
A few snippets:
The sudden transition of women from men's property to men's partners in our own country unleashed dazzling creative energies. In the historical blink of an eye, we doubled our effective human capital — and made our society immeasurably more humane. Our half-century of stunning economic growth has many roots, but none goes deeper than the expansion of opportunities for women....
In traveling the globe, I've witnessed far more instances of the mistreatment of women than I care to recall, but the one that always leaps to mind is local and superficially benign: In the southern heat of a Washington summer, it's common to see a male Middle Eastern tourist comfortably dressed in a polo shirt and shorts trailed by a staggering woman wrapped from head to toe in flapping black robes, eyes peering out through a mask. It offends me to meet that image in my country — or anywhere....
We do not think of our troops abroad as fighting for women's rights. But they are. This is the titanic struggle of our time, the liberation of fully half of humanity. Islamist terror is only one aspect of it. But we can be certain of two things: In the end, freedom will win. And no society that torments women will succeed in the 21st century.
I'd like to hear some of your views on this facet of the War on Terror.
(I guess Carles' post just below this one throws a monkey wrench into some of my conviction.)
posted by Mike at 9/29/2005 08:09:00 AM
2 Comments:
It is an interesting take, although it is not so much the GWOT in itself that is advancing women's rights but the follow-on proposition that democratic systems of governance should replace the repressive regimes that were state sponsors of terrorism. For example, covert military operations in the Sudan are not advancing women's rights, but nation-building in Afghanistan certainly is.
Of course, who will completely deny or ignore this ancillary benefit to the War on Terror? Feminists naturally. Because modern American feminism is not about creating opportunities for women anymore. It is just another victims group competing for spoils and rents in the grievance business. You will never see a feminist group laud Condi Rice (or Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the highest ranking woman in the US gov't prior to Condi). You will never see the most influential book of the 20th century (cited by respondents to a joint Book of the Month Club/Library of Congress survey) taught in a college women's studies class even though it was written by a woman.
First, my previous post only suggested a visual aid to fantasies that most men are already considering. It was not a commentary on women's rights.
Second, there is currently an argument that our efforts to impose democracy and export western values are misplaced in regions lacking the historical and political contexts that support them here.
The NY Times has an article reporting that Saudi woman do not feel that they lack rights in the way Westerners perceive.
There are strong arguments against the current treatment of women throughout the world that I won't attempt to summarize.
I do find it curious that this article essentially justifies the armed conflict for reasons entirely tangential to the real causes. And it makes no attempt to demonstrate that the efforts are effective in changing the situation for woman who are currently oppressed.
The few examples of oppression in the article, such as genital mutilation in Africa, will certainly not be corrected by our actions in Iraq or Afghanistan.
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