Tradition as justification

The president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is a much-beloved figure in the Western world, symbol of advancement for women and progressive ideas in the developing world. Upon beginning her second term as the President of Liberia, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite her country’s persistent lack of economic growth and its depressing lack of possibilities for its people, Sirleaf remains a figure of hope and belief in change for American and European governments.

So, it was quite a surprise to many of her high-powered supporters to discover, in an interview with The Guardian, that Sirleaf not only does not support the rights of Liberian citizens who may be gay, she is also the head of a government that is currently increasing its anti-gay legislation. When asked about this by the reporter, Sirleaf replied that there are “certain traditions in our society that we would like to preserve..”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-concerned-by-liberias-nobel-winning-president-defense-of-law-criminalizing-homosexual-acts/2012/03/20/gIQAdOlyPS_story.html

A female president of a formerly desperately war-torn country that was originally founded by freed slaves, invoking “tradition” as a defense of laws or aspects of her culture which propagate violence, oppression, and hate is so rife with contradiction as to almost be funny. Absurd is perhaps a better term. The absurdity of using the monolithic, so-broad-as-to-be-meaningless, backwards,  repressive and regressive justification of tradition as reasoning behind hate legislation attempts to provide an immediate barrier against questioning or dispute. Further, the usage of the term implies that to question Sirleaf and her government’s hate legislation is to engage in Western imperialism. “This is the way we do things here”: meaning, don’t be bringing around your colonialist paternalism to our country.

But the defense of oppressive laws and cultural practices as “tradition” is a complete canard. The tactic is reminiscent of that used to maintain the practice of female genital mutilation in some areas of Africa; a practice that is still rampant throughout the continent. To oppose slicing off parts of a female’s genitals, to oppose the imprisonment of a gay man or woman simply for their gayness, to oppose the use of legal and violent threats against gays who attempt to step out of the closet, to oppose the torture of children accused of being witches: to engage with the voices of opposition against these oppressions–these “traditions”–is not to assume the position of paternal imperialist, but to maintain the belief in the rights of individuals, wherever they are, to live without fear, oppression, hatred, and violence. Opposition, resistance, and questioning of these policies and practices of violence and hate cannot be attributed to  “Western” ideological bullying, but as a way to raise one’s fist and voice in solidarity for universal rights.

The meaning of religious freedom

Much has been made of the extraordinarily short-sighted, clueless panel of religious leaders organized to testify before Congress in the ongoing  health coverage for women debacle. Not a single woman on the panel, and not a single woman allowed to testify: the Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke notoriously being rebuffed.

But, I would like to mention something else regarding this catastrophe, something that has not been overtly noted as far as I have seen and read. Yes, as any slut can tell you, reconstructing the health coverage for women mandate as an attack on religious freedom is a brilliant political manipulation; but what’s getting left out here is the misinterpretation of the fundamental meaning of religious freedom.

Religious freedom is not the inherent rights of the major religions–be they Christian-based, Judaic, or Muslim, to flex their beliefs in the public sphere as much as their individual God mandates. Religious freedom instead regards the rights of individuals to practice their beliefs according to their affiliation and their spiritual investment—as long as her or his rights do not impinge upon the rights of others.

The enforcement of a broad-based health coverage plan for women who work is not an inducement to a rabbi, imam or priest to turn against his (!) God, but to insure that this other person receives the rights that she deserves. Neither Jesus, Abraham nor Muhammad would turn this down.

Further, to look at a church, temple or synagogue as having fundamental rights is to regard these corporations, these buildings, as possessing personhood. Like the corporation, like the teeny bundle of cells in a womb, these “persons” are more and more in possession of rights that are being stolen from the female person. Further, to consistently position the individual rights of individual females as in opposition to the rights of church dogma and clusters of cells is to re-frame the debate, rendering the rights of the former debatable. A woman’s rights as an individual are not debatable: she is a citizen under the state, a person; thereby her rights -not the rights of the church or the potential cell development in her uterus- are what matter.

The Republican Party and its “War on Women”

Today, at his first press conference of the new year, President Barack Obama was asked where he stood in terms of what, as many within the Democratic Party have suggested, has become a kind of political, legal and cultural war on America’s women.

(For some examples on this war, check out: http://pol.moveon.org/waronwomen/).

Obama, as one might guess, equivocated somewhat, using semantics to deflect where he might actually stand against what has increasingly become the Republican party’s hardline against contraception, social services, domestic violence, education, and female freedom.

It doesn’t take a slut to realize that the outcry against contraception as included in one’s company-provided healthcare plan–with its loud opposition to government intrusion, falls afoul when considering  just a few of the Republican party’s recent propositions nationwide.

1) Intravaginal ultrasound mandate for those females considering abortion.

2) State amendments forbidding same-sex marriage.

3) Declaring the tiny cells beginning to form after a sperm reaches an egg a “person” and therefore inviolable.

Propositions such as these are founded and forever reliant upon GOVERNMENT INTRUSION, providing the lie to any declaration of ideology based on less government. Increasingly with Republican Party politics, it is not about less government, but about the same-size government enforcing a very particular ideological agenda.

Passing laws forbidding individuals to make their own choices takes just as much government as laws that protect and/or support these “dangerous” individuals.

Using a word like “war” does raise the stakes to a histrionic degree, so Obama was likely justified in his hesitancy. However, even a brief perusal of the past year’s state and national Republican-sponsored bills undeniably suggests that an insidious, misogynist, self-serving and hateful agenda has surged in prominence in the Republican mainstream political system.

Don’t wait for the draft! Educate yourself and your loved ones, vote, participate, and fight against the national Republican party and its violently patriarchal platform.

Any woman’s right to choose in Virginia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/02/24/virginia-senate-drops-personhood-bill/

The past couple of weeks in Virginia have been vexing for any woman who likes to make up her own mind, and take care of her body as she sees and believes fit. The Virginia General Assembly attempted to pass two bills, both of which would have enormous impact on the reproductive and individual rights of all women in the state.

The “personhood” bill would grant individual rights to the teeny cells barely beginning slowly after the sperm reaches the egg. The other bill–which has received more national attention–mandated that any woman considering an abortion must first undergo a transvaginal ultrasound: the device is inserted into the vagina. This procedure does not serve any wellness purposes whatsoever. Its irrelevance implies that its purpose is sheerly to intimidate the female patient: physically and psychologically. The “personhood” bill possesses a more symbolic purpose, its intentions being merely to further the anti-choice movement all the way to the complete prohibition of abortion.

Because of an apparently unexpected amount of public outcry, both bills have been (temporarily) shelved. Depending upon the upcoming elections, both bills may be a bit harder to eradicate.

The Future is Female

Near the conclusion of the completely satisfying and nearly completely male-starred film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, some very loud graffiti is considered.  “The Future is Female!” shouts a crumbling wall in the background. The film is thoroughly atmospheric, its 1970’s period details extraordinarily accurate; therefore the noted lingering on the feminist linguistic black splash situated across from the double-agent safe house in residential London must serve a distinct purpose according to the film’s narrative and aesthetic logic.

What might this purpose be? Is the message meant to date the film according to particular “radical” seventies political tensions? Is the message intended to demonstrate one of the many threats MI-5 and MI-6 are up against? Or, is the message one more way the film reveals how much times and desires have truly changed in the past 30 years? Is the backdrop a barometric reminder of a positive restructuring force or a negative destructing one?

The future is female: it’s a statement, a prediction, a warning, an omen. It’s a  feminist ultimatum, displayed as a kind of stop-motion narrative freeze in the midst of building climax near film’s end. When I saw it, I gasped and laughed. It surprised me. It made me happy. In my mind, the film’s Swedish director, Tomas Alfredson, purposefully positioned the exclamation as a kind of counterpoint–a question to ask of the film’s, the moment’s, the universe’s tendencies. An accusation directed towards the world’s past 30 years. A speculative and rooted position, through which to consider how far we’ve come, and how far we haven’t. An imagining of ways, viewpoints, people, we might not have considered. A radical gesture in the midst of crazy, dangerous business as usual. A footnote  reference to the Situationist struggles and  concurrent artwork throughout Paris in the late ’60’s.

But, after my joy came a rueful disappointment. After all, the future wasn’t female after all. But then, I felt hopeful: there’s always a future, perhaps it still may well be…

The virginity test:great structural contradiction

The international news media last week was full of shocking accounts of Egyptian female protesters who, arrested  during the recent violent military crackdown in Tahrir Square and beyond, were rampantly subjected to so-called “virginity tests” while in police custody.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16339398

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had not really heard the term “virginity test” bandied around that often, so I was curious as to what exactly it might mean. Aside from Wikipedia, the sites I found were mostly just articles referring to the tests. (It seems that the term is such an obvious descriptor, that definitions are not totally necessary.) So, I guess the term itself must be thought of in literal terms: the attempt to decipher whether or not the female studied is a virgin. Further, this attempt is activated literally–whether the female subject has a hymen or not.

Why would the Egyptian military and its police arm use such an antiquated, misogynist form of intimidation? Further, how exactly is the virginity of the female protesters relevant?

Well, I guess it is safe to say that the tests themselves point to the Egyptian state being much less advanced than perhaps hoped. Also, despite the general notoriety of Egyptian culture historically, tests such as these point a big fat finger against assumptions of intellectual and cultural advancement.

Think about it this way: the majority of Egyptian men are most likely not virgins. Therefore, in order for them not to be virgins, they are having sexual intercourse with others. It is often commensurate that the female side of the population be statistically in harmony then, as the two sides are having sexual intercourse together. However, if the female partner in the culture is considered more valuable as a virgin, and if the nation-state works to regulate this virginity (as is the case here), then it could be surmised that the men are not having sex with the women, but with unknowable others.

But, who the men are sexing is not as important as the imperative that the women are not. This inherent contradiction–politically, culturally, socially–is not considered important. The status of female purity remains paramount.

So, the average female–be she a protester in Tahrir Square or not–represents sex, in that she must stand in for the lack of it. This all-at-once-while-none-at-all is a form of sexual schizophrenia rooted in a violent misogynist double-standard.

Surely, the men in uniforms and boot-straps are not virgins, nor are they doctors; they are, however, somehow rendered credible judges and juries of the female body and her prior experience. They are somehow considered appropriate evaluators of female citizens they do not know, and to whom they are by no means intellectually, emotionally, or physically superior.

The dangers of protesting while female

In the midst of the continuing protests rollicking Egypt, several female protesters this weekend were singled out by the military police, and were violently and sexually harassed. One woman’s plight, in particular, has shocked people within and outside of Egypt. Beaten repeatedly, stripped of her abaya, and left half-dressed on the street, the woman’s experience has shaken both the protest movement and the military government.

The vibrant blue bra worn by the beaten woman has provoked an enormous array of contradictory responses. Some men were reported as suggesting that, perhaps she desired the attention–violent or otherwise–given her decision to wear such attention-getting undergarments. Others have used the occasion to opine that, had she stayed at home with her father or husband, such things would not have happened.

The Egyptian female response to the incident has seemingly triggered a more coherent response. Thousands of women have descended on Tahrir Square in the past few days, combining to produce the largest collection of female demonstrators and dissenters in the contemporary history of the Egyptian nation. Rather than convince politically and culturally dissatisfied women to stay home, the violent, degrading  and humiliating sexual assault has instead encouraged women of all stripes to join in the otherwise generally male protest movement that continues to threaten the fragile detente between the current Egyptian military government and the people.

Further, this particular image strikes a series of chords connected to personal feelings, cultural customs, and religious traditions situated within Egyptian history in a much more unstable and complicated way than the focus on the Tahrir Square protests would suggest.

The wearing of the veil carries connotations of choice, freedom, restriction, unknowability, autonomy, desirability, chauvinism, orientalism, feminism…I could go on. The point is: the veil’s meanings remain extraordinarily contradictory, complex, and opaque.

An image of a woman protesting: in a veil: stripped down to an electric blue bra: all these singularities themselves carry very strong waves of connotations; the combination they produce together is overwhelming in its capacity to mean so many different things to so many different people.

For the moment, it must be enough to think on the women in the square–angry, in solidarity, and unafraid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/world/middleeast/violence-enters-5th-day-as-egyptian-general-blames-protesters.html

The politics of marriage

When asked to speculate about the recent historic State visit to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that it was too soon to tell, likening the visit to a “first date, not a marriage.” Such a description is a striking turn of phrase to use, particularly given Clinton’s own famous marriage and its ups-and-downs. Ironically, perhaps the relationship with Burma could best be described as a lengthy dysfunctional marriage, full of withholding, abuse, and tyranny.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16016739

Clinton’s meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi took on a very different tone and feeling, however. Indeed, the photos of the women’s two meetings depict a high level of intimacy, understanding, and rapport. Clinton described their first meeting as an encounter possessing immediate connection and emotional affinity.

She spoke of her deep respect and admiration for the long-standing and long-suffering populist figurehead. The women appear to be in the midst of a conversation that began at their first meeting, and will continue indefinitely.

Clinton’s visits with both the official leaders of Mynamar and the long oppressed Burmese freedom fighter suggest a kind of political strategic schizophrenia in approach however, rendering Clinton into a kind of polygamous figure in the meetings. To return to her description of the “first date”: while the meeting with Myanmar’s self-ordained leaders might not lead to marriage, her meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi appears to contain possibilities exceeding those of marriage.

Michele Bachmann: “a fool for Christ” and fool for love

Because of previous statements made by her– on the stump and at the pulpit, Michele Bachmann was asked by a moderator at the recent GOP presidential nominee debate if she would continue her loudly declared policy of submission to her husband while president of the United States.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/08/12/gop_debates_michele_bachmann_says_submitting_to_her_husband_mean.html

Bachmann has stated that she followed a vision sent from God depicting her marrying her husband on his family’s farm, that she obeyed his belief (sent to her via him from God) that she become a tax lawyer, and finally, that it was the two Big Men in her life that convinced her to run for political office.

Portraying her decisions as those initially decided by God, and then funneled through her husband, she implies that her decisions and actions are fundamentally and religiously validated, to be neither questioned nor rejected. A conduit for the will of God, she can only obey Him and her husband, and ultimately still manage to become one of the most visible (read:powerful) women in the United States. To decry or criticize her politics, lifestyle, or belief is to criticize God’s will, a sacrilege and outrage against biblical tenets. (Indeed, to go along is to assume she has been “chosen.”)

Though her husband is a known kook–unlicensed psychotherapist and propagator of the “pray away the gay” ideology, Bachmann has consistently claimed that she has followed her husband’s wishes throughout her political climb; it is therefore impossible not to wonder how any and every decision she might make while holding higher office would be suggested, declared, or relayed as Divine Will by her master, Mr. Bachmann.

While Hillary Rodham Clinton was running for president, many wondered how her husband might influence her political decisions if she was employed in the Oval Office. Generally, such a question would be repellent, implying as it does that a woman does not and could not make her own decisions; however, Rodham Clinton’s husband’s previous job suggested that the wonder was pertinent. In this case, when a politician has vigorously and frequently spoken of her devoted submission to her husband, such a wonder is shockingly relevant.

Harrassment of Egyptian women is a problem that needs confronting!

The NYTimes and The International Herald Tribune publish a series of articles under the title “The Female Factor.” Topics range from countries’ varying maternal leave policies, domestic violence statistics, women in politics, street protests, and issues  surrounding gender and sexuality worldwide. Yesterday’s article concerns the rampant sexual violence committed against women in Egypt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/world/europe/06iht-letter06.html?pagewanted=1&src=recg

83% of Egyptian women reported being victims of sexual abuse, and 62% of Egyptian men reported being victimizers of sexual abuse. These numbers should be considered ballpark, given the amount of women who remain silent, and the amount of men who remain unknown.

The Egyptian protests on Tahrir Square included thousands of women, eager to take part and effect change. Such visibility was most likely not welcomed by all Egyptian men. In fact, a spokeswoman from the Muslim Brotherhood stated that women should adhere to strict dress codes and coverings, if they must be in public spaces. There has also been further criticism of women in the workplace and the public space, implying that it is her sheer visibility that renders her more likely victimized.

Comments like these are nothing more than dangerous red herrings. The truly awful statistics and the violent reality they illuminate did not appear after the protests of the late winter and early spring; therefore it is not women out in the world striving for autonomy, legitimacy, and personhood that is rendering them more likely targets for assault. Further, their persistent struggle despite the horrific odds of assault suggest instead that the average Egyptian woman is courageous.