Women's Rights and Honor Killings

[caption id="attachment_15053" align="alignleft" width="300"] National Women's Rights demonstration[/caption]

Editor--While Republicans and Democrats attempt to score points with women following Hilary Rosen's statement that Ann Romney, wife of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, had never worked outside the home, and women's groups continue to champion what they maintain are important rights from hard-fought civil rights battles, around the world women remain the target of violence, including honor killings.

Honor killings rise from deep-rooted prejudices against women. These crimes are not just confined to Muslim countries, but are part of the male culture in some countries that dominates women's rights in general. Women are subjected to horrific torture, beatings and killings for asserting themselves in ways far less than American women asking for equal pay for work outside the home and the freedom to have both a career and family or to simply make the choice of staying at home with their children. The issue of the stay-at-home mom vs the working girl may be the controversy in the United States, but in many countries, women are often forced into a form of slavery from which many are unable to escape.

According to Amnesty International, honor killings are on the rise in many places around the world including Ecuador, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The United Nations reports 5,000 women and girls are killed by their families each year in what is called "honor killings".

In January 2012, a jury found an Afghan family guilty of honor killings in a case that astonished Canadians. Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, were each found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13. Their crimes? Dishonoring the family by going against the strict rules regarding dress, dating, socializing, and using computers to access the Internet. Their bodies were found in a submerged car in a Kingston, Ontario canal.

While women in the United States examine their roles of working while raising a family or becoming a stay-at-home mom, other women face terror for the simple act of wanting to express themselves independently. Women's rights, while considered a basic human right in America by most citizens, remain only a daydream by women trapped in family relationships where violence is the answer to the quest for independence.

Are Limbaugh's remarks a distraction or verbal abuse?

[caption id="attachment_14374" align="alignleft" width="240"] Rush Limbaugh[/caption]

Carol Forsloff - Recent remarks made by Rush Limbaugh raise questions about the type of language represented in the media that magnifies, expresses, or reflects the language that is accepted by a culture.

In responding to a female activist with reference to birth control and its inclusion in healthcare legislation, Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a femme Nazi, a word he himself coined some years ago about female proponents of equality. Christian Science Monitor asks the question, "Has Rush Limbaugh finally gone too far?"

Raising this question allows examination of what is acceptable in public speech, specifically from the media in response to issues. While there are some folks who consider Rush Limbaugh more of an entertainer than a journalist, the radio host and provocateur offers snippets of news along with his comments about recent events and is listened to by millions of individuals who see Limbaugh as a source of information on current affairs.  

Sandra Fluke testified about women's rights to contraception. She is a Georgetown University law student. Republican lawmakers have produced an all-male panel to refute inclusion of contraception as a free benefit under the new Healthcare bill. The Democrats addressed their concerns by selecting Fluke as a woman articulate in women's rights.

Following her testimony, Limbaugh addressed the issue of contraception and how he sees it as a way for women to receive welfare and a service without paying for it in order to get as much sex as they want. It is what he said further that has raised controversy and questions about what is appropriate speech in the media.

After labeling Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute", Limbaugh went on to say “If we are going to have to pay for this then we want something in return, Ms. Fluke,” Limbaugh said on his radio show earlier this week. “And that would be the videos of all this sex posted online so we can see what we’re getting for our money.”

So what is verbal abuse? Experts tell us there are specific characteristics to it. Some of these are the following:   First it is said to be hurtful and directed towards demeaning an individual. The abuse can be subtle or direct, with name-calling and angry outbursts. It is often used as a means of control. In addition it is often unpredictable and shocking. Experts further tell us there is often no closure from the abuse, and the issues that provoked it can remain unresolved. The abuser is focused primarily on the anger and control.

In reviewing what occurred concerning Rush Limbaugh's verbal attack specifically on Sandra Fluke and the issue of contraception and healthcare legislation, Christian science Monitor reflects on the fact that the controversial radio host will likely not back down, then quotes a key Republican in response to concerns about verbal abuse as this“It doesn’t help,” said Carly Fiorina, National Republican Senatorial Committee vice chairman,  on "CBS This Morning." “That language is insulting, in my opinion. It’s incendiary and most of all, it’s a distraction.”

That type of distraction experts tell us is more than a distraction and an example instead of control and manipulation. The excuse that the victim deserved it is insufficient according to the same experts and a reflection of the misunderstanding about verbal abuse and how hurtful it can be when it is used by a public figure such as Limbaugh.  It tortures political and social debate, according to Michael Brenner, and in doing so widens the chasm of understanding that is required to govern, and to vote, with knowledge and responsibility.

Saudi women campaign to change country's despotic driving law

[caption id="attachment_6014" align="alignleft" width="228" caption="Rosa Parks of Saudi Arabia"][/caption]

Ernest Dempsey - Perhaps for the first time in history, women in Saudi Arabia are taking fundamentalist oppression seriously as a real threat to their rights. That’s how we come to see the recent call for allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia in a time when the Middle East itself, and its women, cry out for their freedoms, in a defiant fashion not unlike what occurred in other regions of the world, including the United States.

The petition at Change.org asking Subaru to pull out of Saudi Arabia until women in the country are allowed to drive a car is the example of Saudi women’s determination of changing, irrational winds of  blowing in their faces in this "Arab spring" season of discontent.

The spirit of defiance was stirred in Saudi women by a daring 32-year-old Saudi lady Manal al-Sharif who was imprisoned for driving a car in Saudi Arabia twice and was subsequently arrested for and charged with disturbing public order as well as inciting public opinion. No wonder that in a dictatorial regime, public opinion is the last thing the authorities want to see coming alive. But al-Sharif did it in all the spirit of human freedom. Even when she remains in prison, she has refused to cry and break down, not at least until the ruling Saudi king is holding the throne. What kindled the spirit of freedom in the “Rosa Parks of Saudi Arabia” as she is being called now?  How is her behavior like that of other women martyrs in the fight for democracy and freedom for all citizens?

It’s the urge to fight for life as something to be truly livable for oneself and others. One night, al-Sharif failed to get a cab in the street and no one came to drive her home, despite calling on a few relatives, while her five-year-old son was waiting for her at their home. Worse yet, she was harassed by men in cars passing by her in the street. She couldn’t forget the traumatic experience as she walked ahead in the street, crying like a frightened child. But that was that! The oppressed woman and depressed mother had to die and instead give birth to a new Manal al-Sharif – a confident woman who would learn to drive and travel in a car even if the barbarian law didn’t allow it. Not to people’s shocking surprise (they knew it all happens in Saudi Arabia), she was arrested and is now in a government prison. But she is not alone in her quest for freedom from oppression. Others have joined her.

Earlier this month, Saudi women wrote an open letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to press the Saudi government for letting women drive cars in the country. The letter read “now is the time for US leaders to show their support for Saudi women's rights… to show its muscle and make that pressure public.” With international media’s coverage and support from human rights and women’s rights organizations, this budding movement of Saudi women to win the right to drive (read ‘live like a human’), something Islamic traditions (not the self-proclaimed Wahabi version of Saudi Arabia) don’t forbid, has emerged as a breath of fresh air in an otherwise dystopic country ruled by barbaric ideals.

Change.org already has won over 200 campaigns in 2011. This one is crucial to tell—no show—the Saudi dictatorial regime that women are humans and that two and two women don’t always make a man; they make a movement.    Rosa Parks, the heroine of the civil rights movement, refused to back down against the powers of the South's discrimination in transportation and would not move from her seat on the bus.   Susan B. Anthony's efforts at winning women's right to vote in the United States was hard won, as men, and even other women, assaulted early attempts at this emancipation.  The history of America reveals how a "Rosa Parks of Arabia" might make a difference in a culture that propels it even more forward.  The problem is that these pioneers often suffer along the way.

To sign the petition, please follow the link

How did I come to agree with Gloria Steinem?!

Samantha Torrence- Tales from an exhausted housewife - Gloria Steinem is a name that I have particularly loathed during my time as a devoted mother. In my idealistic phase I wanted nothing more than to concentrate all my love and energy on my children until they were in school, then I would attend college and get a job.  That is what mother’s should do right? They should sacrifice their ambition for their children and have them while they are young and have the energy to take care of them.  That was my plan A until the economy and poverty made me face Plan B; working part-time jobs and attempt to go to school. Plan B failed and here is why.

Steinem seemed to degrade women like me defining our position as idiot, bon-bon eating, leeches who needed the support of a superior man.  She also equated the housewife’s job with that of a low-skilled laborer.

“No more men who are encouraged to spend a lifetime living with inferiors; with housekeepers, or dependent creatures who are still children…  When society stops encouraging men to be exploiters and women to be parasites, they may turn out to be more complementary in emotion as well. ”

Honestly, that insinuation not only hurt me but many women in the 80’s, 90’s and today. I placed the blame of how little a housewife was thought of squarely on her shoulders.  When I went to fill out job applications, despite my over qualification for most jobs since I have extensive experience as a cook, maid, secretary, chauffer and LPN, I was repeatedly seen as unqualified for my position. I think the only other class of citizen in the United States whose qualifications are this misunderstood is the Military.

I still don’t really like what she stands for which seemed to be some form of androgynistic communal society, but after re-reading her article in Time titled “ What It Would Be Like If Women Win” I realized that maybe she did place value on housewives in her own very misunderstood way.  Ms. Steinem demanded that the difficult jobs women did needed to be paid for in some way, or that the communal society she envisioned would be set up to take care of the “mundane” work  with professional businesses so that people could be fairly compensated and respected for their work. So in essence I do agree with Ms. Steinem that we need appropriate compensation for the sacrifice we make as housewives. I can even take her suggestion is viable and worth being considered. I certainly respect her position considering what she had been through in her life that led up to her involvement in the Womens’ Liberation movement.  I still need to be sold on her solution.

What this entire issue is for me is one of respect. Women still are fighting for respect. We have been making great strides in equal pay for jobs, we are allowed to own property and vote, and we have been able to make headway into the political arena. Still what good are these laws which grant us the possibility of equal rights if we have not addressed the root problem? Women still need to be respected, yes even us exhausted, overworked, underpaid, housewives who are constantly taken for granted. Until we can be respected for what we do and our roles thought of as important, even if we achieve the androgynistic communal lifestyle we will simply switch from sexism to a caste system and continue to disparage service workers.

Maybe it would help if we quit saying women are housekeepers, secretaries, LPNs, and chauffeurs and simply call them overworked executives. That’s right, we are executives. Now we just need money for an ad campaign and to enlist the help of a propaganda machine. Perhaps Gloria Steinem could hook us up.