Monthly Archives: November 2001

Are Bikinis Just as Bad as Burkas?

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In an op-ed for the Boston Globe historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg and women’s health advocate Jacquelyn Jackson argue that while women in Afghanistan are celebrating the demise of the Taliban by removing their burkas, women in the United States have yet to fully realize how oppressed they are by the wearing bikinis and other cultural phenomenon that distort women’s body images.

According to the duo, “our war against the Taliban … highlights the need to more fully understand the ways in which our own cultural ‘uncovering’ of the female body impacts the lives of girls and women everywhere.” Their op-ed continues,

Taliban rule has dictated that women be fully covered whenever they enter the public realm, while a recent US television commercial for “Temptation Island 2″ features near naked women. Although we seem to be winning the war against the Taliban, it is important to gain a better understanding of the Taliban’s hatred of American culture and how women’s behavior in our society is a particular locus of this hatred. The irony is that the images of sleek, bare women in our popular media that offend the Taliban also represent a major offensive against the health of American women and girls.

Whew. Who knew the Taliban were on to something in their extreme misogyny? Islamist parties in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have often demanded the abolition of women’s sports on the grounds that sports are unfeminine and tend to showcase women’s bodies in a lurid manner (Muslim extremists in Kuwait, for example, were horrified at the sexually provocative outfits worn by women’s soccer teams during the 2000 Olympics). Many women’s activists in the Middle East pay a high price for fighting such views, only to have feminists like Brumberg and Jackson mimic the conservative argument that, as they put it, “…American girls and women have been stripped bare by a sexually expressive culture…”

Brumberg and Jackson go on to indict media images for contributing to “eating disorders, teen smoking, drinking, and the depression and anxiety disorders that can occur when one does not measure up…” For good measure they also endorse the American Medical Association’s unwarranted assertion that there is a link between “violent images on the screen and violent behavior among children.”

Brumberg and Jackson’s finish their op-ed with a flourish that is as absurd as it is audacious,

Whether it’s the dark, sad eyes of a woman in purdah or the anxious darkly circled eyes of a grail with anorexia nervosa, the woman trapped inside needs to be liberated from cultural confines in whatever form they take. The burka and the bikini represent opposite ends of the political spectrum but each can exert a noose-like grip on the psyche and physical health of girls and women.

Source:

The burka and the bikini. Joan Jacobs Brumberg and Jacquelyn Jackson, November 23, 2001.

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If You Disagree with Rob Okun, You’re Not a Good Father

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Some feminists and feminist organizations have had a long standing animosity to the Father’s Rights movements, culminating with National Organization for Women‘s 1996 press release claiming the movement was “using the abuse of power in order to control in the same fashion as do batterers.” That animosity was on full display recently in an article penned by Rob Okun and published by Women’s eNews.

After a lengthy look at the role of father’s in family life — which Okun claims can be “a force for great good in family relations and child rearing, or a force of hostility and estrangement” — Okun informs his readers that father’s need support and a fair shake from the courts unless they are in any way involved in the Father’s Rights movement. In that case, all bets are off. Okun writes,

Many such fathers see their children’s mothers as actively trying to deny them access to their children, and more than few get involved in what are often called “fathers’ rights” groups. It’s not uncommon to see handfuls of men with signs advocating the rights of dads picketing in front of family courts in many states in most sections of the country.

…

Nonviolent fathers deserve support as they look for a fair shake in custody cases in which they have legitimate claims. But others have forfeited any such claims for support if they intimidate their children’s mothers, harass the court or affiliate themselves with groups more interested in fueling conflict than in maintaining the well-being of their children.

Presumably, Women’s eNews would not run an article from a conservative suggesting that women who spend their time picketing at NOW-sponsored events are bad mothers who have forfeited any claims for support, but it had no problem giving Okun’s article the headline, “Involved fathers care for kids, not picket courts.”

Right, and a woman’s place is at home caring for children, not in the work place.

Source:

Involved fathers care for kids, not picket courts. Rob Okun, WEnews, October 31, 2001.

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Sisterhood is Powerful — Unless You Happen to be Stuck in Afghanistan

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At the end of October, the Village Voice ran an interesting article by Sharon Lerner examining feminist attitudes toward the war against Afghanistan. In hindsight some of the comments look downright silly, but women’s rights advocate Hibaaq Osman’s take on the war is downright chilling.

Lerner notes that last year Osman gave a speech at the United Nations in which she said that the only place in the world where military force might be justified would be to overthrow the Taliban. But with such a war actually underway, Osman had a change of hart. She told Lerner,

I said it, but I was just making a point. This predicament is a test for feminists. We have seen our worst nightmare — women being dehumanized and shot in public — and it makes us more radical. It makes us angry enough to entertain the idea of war. But do I support war? No. No. No. War is not OK under any circumstances. The whole thing simply breaks my heart.

Which, of course, is precisely what people who hang prostitutes in stadiums filled with thousands of people (as the Taliban did) want to hear.

Meanwhile, the article also quotes Susan Sontag who wrote a controversial New Yorker criticizing the war against Afghanistan. Sontag tells Lerner that, “I continue to wish with all my heart for the [Taliban] regime to be overthrown; I just don’t think the U.S. military can do it.” Apparently military analysis is not exactly Sontag’s forte.

Source:

What women want. Sharon Lerner, The Village Voice, October 31 – November 6, 2001.

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Canada Gives Parents a License to Kidnap

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A recent decision by a jury in a Canadian child kidnapping case gave a new meaning to the word bizarre.

The case started with Carline Vandenelsen, 39, who kidnapped her three children from her husband, Craig Merkley, 45, who had custody of the children. Vandenelsen thoroughly planned the kidnapping, confided in several people that she planned to kidnap her children, then hid them in her trunk while she crossed over the border into the United States. Yet, a jury recently acquitter her of kidnapping by agreeing with her defense’s bizarre legal theory.

See if this makes sense to you. Under Canadian law, parents accused of kidnapping can be acquitted if they committed the crime to prevent the children from imminent harm. Vandenelsen argued that she believed a court was about to sever her parental rights over her children. She reasoned that if her children were deprived of her by the courts, that they would suffer harm. Therefore, she argued, she was acting lawfully to protect her children when she kidnapped them.

And a jury agreed with this idiotic theory. This is especially puzzling since Canadian law requires that there been an objective need for a protective abduction, and it is hard to see a court order regarding custody of children fulfilling that criteria (in fact, the jury implicitly undermines its own decision by agreeing with this reasoning).

The jury did not get to hear the evidence a judge used to first limit Vandenelsen’s visits with her children to alternate Saturdays. Merkley tape recorded calls between Vandenelsen and her children. A court psychiatrist who analyzed the tapes testified that Vandenelsen was so emotionally abusive to her children that her access to them should be restricted to special occasions (the tapes are sealed per a court order). The judge in the case was set to make a final decision on the matter before she fled the country.

Even though the didn’t hear the tapes, it is still difficult to understand why a jury would buy Vandenelsen’s defense. As Merkley put it, “I think that they’ve just declared open season for anyone who wants to abduct their children.

Source:

Abduction of triplets a ‘necessity,’ jury rules. Francine Dube, National Post, October 27, 2001.

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Ann Quindlen: Women Should Have to Register for the Draft, Just Like Men

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Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen wrote a column the other day noting that although 1 in 5 new military recruits are women, men are still singled out and required to register with selective service for a potential future draft. Quindlen argues that this is a sexist anachronism. But, really, the entire selective service process is an anachronism.

To be sure, if there’s going to be mandatory draft registration, it should not discriminate against sex. Quindlen writes that when Jimmy Carter restored draft registration after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, both he and the Army chief of staff wanted registration to apply to both men and women.

Congress, however, rejected that idea and the Supreme Court held that since women were not allowed to serve in combat positions, it didn’t make sense to require them to register for the draft. But now women are actively engaged in combat in Afghanistan, so that argument doesn’t hold much water anymore.

But as much as I agree with Quindlen about the discriminatory nature of a male-only draft, the problem is really with the draft itself. For example, Quindlen chides feminists for not being more vocal about including women in the draft,

In 1980 NOW released a resolution that buried support for the registration of women beneath opposition to the draft, despite the fact that the draft had been redesigned to eliminate the vexing inequities of Vietnam, when the sons of the working class served and the sons of the Ivy League did not.

Huh? On this point I agree with the National Organization for Women — the draft is in principal wrong, and the Selective Service registration requirement should be eliminated. But, beyond that, as NOW put it in that 1980 resolution, people should “oppose any registration or draft that excludes women as an unconstitutional denial of rights to both young men and women.”

Opposition to the draft is not, as Quindlen implies, solely based on the class-based inequities of the Vietnam-era draft. In fact, at this point the selective service is largely symbolic with the Pentagon itself acknowledging in 1993 that eliminating it would have “no effect on military mobilization requirements, little effect on the time it would take to mobilize and no measurable effect on military recruitment.”

Draft registration is an anachronism whose time is long past. Lets kill the program outright, not waste time trying to reform it to be sex neutral.

Source:

Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha: It’s simple fairness: women as well as men should be required to register for the draft. Anna Quindlen, Newsweek, November 5, 2001.

A Dishonorable Discharge for Selective Service Doug Bandow, Cato Institute, September 20, 1999.

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9/11 Attack: Remember the Women?

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For some inexplicable reason, Caryl Rivers, who works with the National Organization for Women‘s Legal Defense and Education Fund, saw it necessary to write an article casting the 9/11 terrorist attacks along sexual lines.

According to Rivers,

Working women are on the front lines of what is being called ‘America’s new war.’

The terrorist Osama bin laden has said that he wanted to make war on all American males, but it seems that women are, more than ever before, in the lie of fire. No longer do they have a special status that protects them — if they ever really did.

What the hell is wrong with Rivers? Bin Laden and other Islamic extremists have made it clear that they are out to kill Americans whether they are men, women, or children. But would the 9/11 attacks have been any less horrific if only men had died?

In fact, Rivers seems to think that the terrorist act was specifically intended to kill women, claiming that, “…in the terrorist war against the United States, women are being blindly attacked as engines of American life and commerce. Seven employees of the TJX retail company died aboard one flight out of Boston because they were traveling on business. In the World Trade Center, we do not know exactly how many working women perished, but the number will be saddening.”

What I find saddening is this obsessive feminist need to reduce every issue to rather parochial men vs. women distinctions. The reality is that based on current information, most of the victims of the 9/11 attack were men.

The Associated press conducted an analysis of 3,000 people listed as missing or dead and found that 75 percent of the victims were men, whose average age was only 40.

Following the Rivers model, this should be the point where this article would go on about men’s contributions to society and how bin Laden is targeting men qua men, but that exercise is absurd regardless of sex. Bin Laden hates Americans, hates our liberal democratic society, and wants to terrorize us — he’s not assembling some manifesto about sexual politics in the United States.

Sources:

WTC victims were mostly young men. John Kelly, Associated Press, October 26, 2001.

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