Culture, Identity and Women's Rights
It's interesting how the paranoia surrounding communism engineered just about every policy emanating from the west at the height of the cold war. The uninhibited use of the religious radical right amidst the mujahideen groups to combat communism has to a large extent defined the lives of women in Afghanistan today. As you rightly mention that the conflict between tradition and modernity are being fought on the terrain of women's bodies. A conflict situation only makes the circumstances even more precarious for women as they get caught in the cycle of violence both in the public and personal domains.
The controversial Afghan Shiite Personal law is a manifestation of the manner in which women's rights can so easily be used to pit against issues of culture and identity. It is a discourse that tends to be extremely tricky as it positions reproductive rights in the realm of a westernized agenda aimed at, primarily, challenging the value systems of more traditional societies. It is an argument that insidiously creeps into very damaging and intolerant religious politics in a multicultural context, especially in countries of South Asia to defeat the very purpose of women's rights and a women's agenda.
Traditionalism and the dependence on religion is often the argument used to draw lines of control around women. But the space to actually practice it comes from the manner in which political institutions function at the time and this is when the discourse on the old sexual order plays a significant role. Why was the response to the Taliban's misogynist rule in the 1990s so slow to come by? Why has sex selection been allowed to take the proportions it has in India before anyone realizes that it is the symptom of a much larger problem? Why should a 16-year old German Afghan girl be yet another victim of an "honor killing" (in Germany and not in Afghanistan) despite prior knowledge of her severe beatings at the hands of the family?
It is this tussle between culture, identity and women's rights that needs to be reconciled.
We in the US have turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed against women across the world for (what I think are ) 2 reasons:
1) Our own patriarchal attitudes on the roles women should have; and
2) Our indifference to those things that do not affect us directly.
This applies equally to the attitudes of ordinary Americans, and those of diplomats and policy-makers whose realpolitik relegates the subordinates of an opposing country to the lowest level of importance. Why let the plight of the powerless get in the way of negotiations that will bring comfort to the comfortable?
This is why the fate of half the human race needs to be re-cast as the human rights issue it is. The basic rights of humanity do not bow to cultural relativity, or religion.
May 7, 2009 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is a good example of how women in the west are still driven by the patriarchal society's view of women's issues and work is unimportant - "why was the response to the Taliban's misogynist rule in the 1990's so slow to come by?" It wasn't. It was immediate by women's rights organizations, led by Mavis Leno and Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation in lobbying, funding, resourcing and protesting the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban. The FMF was successful in lobbying the Clinton administration in withdrawing support for Unacol's oil pipeline across Afghanistan that would have provided the Taliban over 100 million in income. Along with NOW, Women Helping Women and FEMAID they provided financial backing, support systems, lobbying and public relations resources and information pipelines to the Afghan women. In the last several months Hillary Clinton was the lone Obama administration official to confront Karzai on his signage of the secret bill to remove women's rights in Afghanistan, a bill he readily signed in order to advance his political deal with the Shia voting block in Afghanistan. (Did you know that a woman dies every 27 MINUTES in Afghanistan from the complications of pregnancy and childbirth?)
All of these organizations have for years provided financial support, resources, personnel and time to advancing the rights of women in India (and it was British colonial women who successfully lobbied the crown to put an end to the public sanction of septu in India) and Africa
where western women organizers have risked their lives to try and prevent the physical and emotional abuse of women in these states.
So no, the response from the west wasn't and isn't slow, it's the sad fact that even women who call themselves feminists fail to recognize the response by other women because it isn't officially sanctioned by a male dominated government policy paper. written by a government sponsered committee headed by a token women's studies director of a major university.
The greatest disappointment I have with the Feminist movement today is that women of the younger generation who are not affiliated with feminist groups because they judge them irrelevant or focused only on upper white women's rights have no idea of the day to day slogging, gut wrenching, life threatening work carried out by these organizations year in and year out with no recognition, no help and no value put upon their work.
May 7, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
f women's bodies. A conflict situation only makes the circumstances even more precarious for women as they get caught in the cycle of violence both in the pub
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August 18, 2010 9:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a profound and inspired article. The traditionalism and religion were always used for restraining the women rights. Maybe I'm a free speech addicted, but I couldn't understand why it is forbidden to use skin products or to walk with your hair disheveled. It's even sadder in the case of the young German girl, who was trapped in some cruel traditions, such as "honor killing".
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