New Iraqi government seen as setback for women

I have come to believe that a nation's future may be predicted by the involvement of their women in government. As I continue to follow the middle eastern news and the rebirth of the Iraqi nation, I am struck by the patriarchal nature of the new government, which to me suggests a militaristic nation that hold our economic futures in their hands every time we go to the to the gas pump.

Stoning in Iraq was widely imposed in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Although Iran's judiciary still regularly issues stoning sentences, they are often converted to other punishments. The last known stoning was carried out in 2007, although the government rarely confirms or comments on stonings. Nevertheless, since 2006 Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has faced the possibility of stoning. She was taken from prison late Saturday to meet with journalists in another bid by Iran to highlight her purported confession of helping her lover kill her husband. As her name plays across the Yahoo headlines today, I struggle discerning what is truth from propaganda in her case. My renewed alarm at her story brings the following news article even more concern. Taken from the Miami Harold:

BY SHASHANK BENGALI AND SAHAR ISSA

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

BAGHDAD -- When Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki introduced what he called a national partnership government two weeks ago, he included allies and adversaries, Arabs and Kurds, Shiite Muslims and Sunnis. One group, however, was woefully underrepresented.

Only one woman was named to al-Maliki's 42-member cabinet, sparking an outcry in a country that once was a beacon for women's rights in the Arab world and adding to an ongoing struggle over the identity of the new Iraq.

Whether this fledgling nation becomes a liberal democracy or an Islamist-led patriarchy might well be judged by the place it affords its women. Nearly eight years after American-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, Iraq's record is decidedly mixed.

Al-Maliki's last cabinet included four women, and since 2005 the Iraqi constitution has set aside one-quarter of legislative seats for females. Of 325 lawmakers elected in March, 82 were women, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Yet analysts said their political contributions so far have been limited, and activists and female lawmakers seized on their exclusion from the new cabinet as a sign of women's continued struggle to find a place in Iraqi public life.

"It's a mockery," said Hanaa Edwar, a founder of the Iraqi al-Amal Association, a leading women's rights group. "Especially when you take into consideration that this is a retreat from the previous cabinet ... it's really a slap in the face for all of us."

The lone woman in the cabinet, Bushra Hussein, was named a minister of state, a relatively low position without a portfolio or budget. Another female lawmaker, Vyan Dakheel, told McClatchy Newspapers that she was offered the post of minister of state for women's affairs but turned it down because that ministry was "just a show ... without real power to serve women"; it's now being filled temporarily by a man.

After al-Maliki announced his lineup, Alaa Talabani, a female lawmaker from the northern Kurdistan region, delivered a rousing condemnation of the selection process to a packed legislative chamber.

"The Iraqi women feel today, more than any other day, that democracy in Iraq has been slaughtered by discrimination, just as it was slaughtered by sectarianism before," Talabani said, her voice quaking with emotion.

Al-Maliki returned to the lectern somewhat red-faced and said, "I had hoped that this cabinet would have more women than the last." He demanded that party leaders propose female candidates for the handful of vacancies remaining in the cabinet.

The U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Jim Jeffrey, said of the one-sided list: "It surprised us."

Yet many believe that nominating women to cabinet posts - which control the all-powerful government ministries and their massive budgets - simply hadn't occurred to the male-dominated ranks of party leaders.

For decades, Iraq led the region in promoting women's rights, beginning in 1959 with the passage of an extremely progressive civil liberties law and the appointment of the first female minister in the Arab world. Even Saddam was a friend to women in the 1970s and 1980s, passing strong legislation against sexual harassment and bringing huge numbers of women into the workforce as part of a drive to industrialize Iraq.

Now, however, Iraqi women are finding their hard-won freedoms limited by a society increasingly governed by religious conservatives. Many Iraqis say that politicians at the local and provincial levels, whether they hail from Islamist parties or merely take cues from them, are putting pressure on women to circumscribe their public role.

In Wasit, a mostly Shiite Muslim province southeast of Baghdad, women hold nine of 28 seats on the provincial council. Earlier this year, one was in a car accident and had to be carried to safety by her bodyguards, an incident that could have been construed as indecent.

Afterward, the female council members asked to employ a male member of each of their families to serve as a "mahram," or chaperone, when they traveled on public business "to avoid embarrassment," said Zaineb Raheem Abeed, a council member.

"She was pulled, pushed, lifted and dragged by men who do not have any relation to her," Abeed said of the lawmaker in the accident. "This is very embarrassing and not acceptable in our society, as you know."

Last month in Baghdad, a headmaster of a boys-only high school told parents that the school was struggling to field teachers for Arabic, math and biology classes because of pressures from the Baghdad provincial council, which is dominated by members of al-Maliki's Shiite Islamist Dawa party. The headmaster, whose name is being withheld to spare him from recriminations, said that council officials were opposed to women being alone in classrooms with teenage boys.

"Some of our most successful teachers are women," the headmaster told a parent-teacher meeting. "If they have no objection teaching boys of this age group, I don't see why they should be discouraged."

A member of the Baghdad council, Mohammed al-Rubeiy, said that while such policies weren't explicit, "there are high-ranking people who are pushing in that direction."

"If Iraq were to move on the same trajectory that it's currently on ... then, yes, it is moving toward a situation in which freedoms will become more limited," Rubeiy said.

"But Iraqi society by its very nature has both people like Hanaa Edwar and Islamists. And it is my belief that Iraq will never be ruled completely by Islamists."

The tension between the two sides bubbled over last month in Kadhmiyah, a section of northern Baghdad, where local Islamist leaders erected a provocative display outside a major Shiite shrine. It shows four mannequins wearing the hijab, the traditional Muslim head covering for women, while behind four mannequins with uncovered heads are laced with burns, shackled in chains and have red strands lapping at their feet to simulate a fiery afterlife.

The message to women is clear: Dress modestly, or burn in hell.

"It's a reminder that there is a heavenly reward for those who are committed to the instructions of the Quran," the Muslim holy book, said Hazim al-Araji, the head of the social committee for the hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political organization, which helped sponsor the display. "And there is a punishment for those who don't."

Almost immediately, a rival campaign sponsored by secularists erected signs urging Iraqis not to impose the hijab, some carrying the message: "Baghdad Won't Become Kandahar," a reference to the capital of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"They want to fight and punish Islam with their ideas, which are far from the beliefs of Iraq and the Iraqis," Araji said. "What they are selling will never find a market here."

Edwar, whose organization opposed the hijab campaign, said that Sadrists and their allies "want to put the whole Iraqi state under the cover of religion." It's part of a larger fight over the future of Iraq, she said, but for now she's focused on lobbying political leaders to nominate women for the cabinet vacancies.

"This is a unique opportunity for us," Edwar said. "If we don't use it we will lose a lot of our achievements."

Revamping an Image: Iraq's Emergence from UN Chapter 7 Sanctions and the GOI

For the last six months I have watched, with great fascination and growing horror, the emergence of Iraq from chaos to forming a government. This once prosperous nation, 55% female, once had women politicians, chemists, computer programmers and university students. With the damage inflicted by war came a world that offered these women only a veil and a life lived largely indoors. I've read of a woman who heard her company was reopening. She reports that women many no longer safely go to the market alone, let alone to work. So her brother and father accompanied her to her former place of employment where she found herself no longer welcome and unemployed. They could not assure her safety so longer employed women. Nor would they allow this computer programmer to work from home. Her story seems fairly characteristic of what I've been reading. But these are not the stories of the headlines.

As the new government of Iraq has formed, I've read headlines and articles with great interest. One of my most frequented sources may be found here: http://translate.google.com/translate?client=tmpg&hl=ar&u=http://www.al-iraqnews.net/new/&langpair=ar|en. Very few women are a part of their newly formed parliament. And headlines regarding the Women's Ministry being headed by a man were quickly shoved aside for other headlines.

Interestingly, they published an average of about five articles a day about bombings, like the police officer who survived five attacks before three suicide bombers finally got to him. His story has been buried, like his broken body beneath the rubble of the soccer stadium that was converted to a police bunker, and I cannot find anything else about the incident. I grieve for the widow and four children whose stories have been silenced. Or other acts of terrorism throughout the country. Now the headlines, only three days later, have changed. Yesterday the ambassador of the Czech suggested, in the articles I read on multiple sites, that the Iraqi needed to take action to protect their image as acts of terrorism had greatly decreased. WTF???? So today a new article appears in the Iraqi news, entitled "The Low Number of Deaths in Iraq Prove that the Security Forces are Best Place to Fight Terrorism." Hmmmm... Don't think I'm buying this oasis in the desert. Today's headlines boast of captures of a weapons cache south of Baquba and the failure of two members of the Dawa Party, Diwaniya for a failed assassination. Or this just posted:

arrest 5 suspects in al-Bakr

. Meanwhile, the Chez ambassador says is quoted as saying [sic]: The Shuba that embassy “organizes from time to time, art exhibitions and cultural activities in the garden of the embassy called by the diplomats, foreigners and members of the diplomatic staff in Baghdad,” she that “this may impose some constraints and limits the presence of a wider audience for such cultural activities, which requires at its discretion extend farther by expanding the exchange of visits by cultural delegations between both countries, friendly countries." How is it that she cannot see that restricting the arts to an elitist few who are in positions of power and have lots of guns for protection, actually means that there is a serious problem?! I predict that future headlines will be similar as Iraq revamps its image (it is rumored that the news sites are owned by members of the government).

Very few Americans seem to be noticing this country's emergence beyond noting our soldiers returning home. Yet now seems a vital time to be mindful of change as it will affect every trip to the gas station and possibly more in the years to come. Iraq promises to be the leading producer of oil, outrunning Saudi Arabia if they can manage to keep the Kurds and the Shiites on board. Internal bickering and civil war has always kept that region turned inward. Unity may at last be coming, however, against their Western neighbors, as promised by their acceptance in the Federation of GCC Chambers of Commerce. Americans will eventually notice, however, at the gas pumps. As Iraq nears reevaluating their currency, possibly as high or higher than prewar rates, the price of oil rises. Their budget written last summer was written with the expectation of $72 a barrel. Current prices are around $91; sufficient to meet the shortfall in the budget to be approved in January for 2011. It's predicted the $150 a gallon of the seventies will be commonplace within five years.

I'll leave you with the quote from the Iraqi news website:

Our agency is keen (INA) to put our visitors at the core event of the Iraqi daily, as it seeks a balanced coverage of events at all levels. Political, cultural, economic, sporting, social and round the clock, as well as everything that will put our people the true picture of the reality of Iraq .. We greet you and begin stayed for the day Thursday, 30/12/2010 With God's help.

Caster Semenya and Womanhood

To repeat the same question offered across the net, why must Caster Semenya wear glamorous clothes, burgundy nail polish and let her hair down to be perceived as a woman? I find it alarming regarding the message we send our young women. Certainly outward appearance does not define womanhood. Or does it?

It pains me to live in a society where youth and beauty define the person. Where one's achievements are measured by one's genitalia. The secretary of world athletics body IAAF, Pierre Weiss, said: "It is clear that she is a woman but maybe not 100 per cent." Reports have it that an Indian woman underwent a similar situation, and later attempted suicide. Indeed, Caster was placed on suicide watch immediately after her test results were "leaked".

I find so much in this story to be troubling. Certainly the fact that men do have a physical advantage over women is troubling to my feminist soul which screams for equality. I also find it troubling that a woman with feminine genitalia can have her gender questioned based on running quickly and having a deep voice. I also am troubled by a professional organization that would leak such critically sensitive test results so that a woman like Caster might learn the results in the media, rather than privately. Moreover, I am deeply troubled my Caster's appearance in a magazine sporting ultra feminine clothing, cosmetics and hair, and quoted as saying things like “I’d like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance. I’d also like to learn to do my own make-up” and: “I’ve never bought my own clothes – my mum buys them for me. But now that I know what I can look like, I’d like to dress like this more often.”

Maid, Mother and Crone

From my email group: "How do you determine if you are a maiden, mother, or crone within Paganism? Is it age, experience both? And if so what are the guidelines?"

I've actually put a heck of a lot of thought into this question. Indeed, I've even posed part of this question on list recently. So I'm going to give you my thoughts as they are currently. Like the wind and the river, this is subject to change!

Robert Graves, in The White Goddess, theorized these archetypes. A lack of primary sources and primary research has discredited his theory. Nevertheless, it has caught on. Probably, as Carl Jung would say, because archetypes work through our collective unconscious. They become a way to reach into our souls and to connect us across language, culture or age boundaries.

To me, maiden is partly youth. It is also a time before a woman before she moves into mothering/motherhood (with or without children). It is the time of Diana, the Huntress. The place of Warrior Goddesses (maiden does not mean virgin--it means not mother). She is Persephone, Innana. In addition, while I don't agree, some see the maiden as virginal. My attitude is that we are a fertility religion and we celebrate sexuality. Thus I choose to interpret the maiden as unmarried, unpair-bonded. In an arbitrary sense, I often see maiden as teens and twenties. She is the spring before Beltane. She is the young woman in the wheel of the year who is courted, who flirts and who dances the maypole. She is the waxing moon.

Mother is the woman with children, but she much more. Not all women have children, and yet they pass through stages of nurturing. This can be the time of creativity, vibrant energy, and powerful growth. Often this begins in twenties, but can also be thirties and forties. The mother is the summer and fall (pregnancy-harvest). She is the woman of fertility and fecundity, abundance and growth. She is the woman of knowledge. She is Demeter. She is the woman who faces the loss of her daughter six months a year to the Lord of the Underworld. She is a woman touched by love and by grief, who celebrates her children and suffers birthing pains. Mothering is not required for passage through this phase. Freya did not have children, though she was a goddess of unbridled sexuality. She was also a goddess of love and birthing. She loves music, spring and flowers. She is also a goddess of war and death. She was consort to Od. She is the full moon.

Crone is the old woman. Occasionally this begins in the forties, as it has with me, when a woman determines that she has passed through the time of the mother. In my case, mothering ended prematurely, and assuming the role of the crone is comforting, fulfilling. I would argue, however, that I'm still edging into it and this stage will carry me through the rest of my life. More often, women are fifty or even sixty before assuming the role of the crone. This is the time of Ceridwen, of wisdom, of discernment. I would also argue that is the place of the Sacred Enchantress. The woman who knows and revels in her sexuality. This is also a place of post-menapause. This is the time of responsibility and taking responsibility for one's community. This is the waning moon. This is the place of death, of mystery. The chill of winter.

So yes, age and experience have a lot to do with the differentiation between these stages of life. I believe them to be highly individualistic and somewhat self determined. I've been told I'm too young to be a crone, yet my inner wisdom rejects that belief. I'm post menapausal, my children haven't lived home in many years, and in fact, I rarely see them. Because of youthful appearance, folks often say that I project a motherly affect. However, I don't feel motherly -- I believe it to be a step removed and more grandmotherly (which I am a grandmother of two).

Also, I find a lot of psychological healing in restorying my place in life as a crone. Mothering is associated with a great deal of pain and loss. While I care deeply for my clients and patients, I also keep very firm bounaries in place and do not mother them. I find that as I move into the crone aspect, I also move with more confidence, trusting in what I have learned. I also find myself moving into places of responsibility I shied away from when I was younger. But that is my journey, which is different from everyone else.

Afghan Women: Submission Law

When it's quite enough, I enjoy beginning my morning watching the sunrise and reading the paper. Since I start work at 5 in the morning, that ritual does not always happen with the frequent interruptions that are both appropriate and expected at work. This morning was unusually quite, however, so already read one paper and was reading the much smaller second paper (I live between two towns and take the paper for both) when I found an article describing a law that "allows minority Shiite Muslim husbands to refuse food and money to their wives if they deny them sex." Twenty percent of Afghans are Muslim. That's a lot of women to be affected by this ruling. A quick Internet search shows many people are alarmed by this law.

The argument previously came to a head in March, when Karzai signed an earlier version into law which required women to have sex with their husbands every three days "unless she was ill or would be harmed by intercourse". Critics denounced the ruling then as the equivalent of marital rape. That aspect was removed. However, this version continues to enrage activists, because men can starve their wives for refusing sex: "submit to her husband's reasonable sexual enjoyment". The post Taliban Constitution enshrines equal rights for women, but the current demonstration destroys those rights.

Karzai seeks to gain the conservative vote for elections, so just quietly sawed this into law. This week Karzai took advantage of a loop hole to pass his new law. A legislative recess gave opportunity for Karzai to sign it into law by decree. Unlike last spring, now there seems to be little response. While the law only affects Shiite women, the concern remains that now implemented, it will be easier to apply the law to all women. While passage of the law is deeply concerning, reports have it that a passage was deleted from the law preventing women from living the home only if it did not disturb marital relations! Unfortunately, the law can also be used to prevent women from working or studying. In addition the law gives guardianship of child exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers. Additionally, such a law will undercut the likelihood of current legislation passing a domestic violence law.

Female parliamentarians had thought they would get the opportunity to fight this bill before it could be made in law. Karzai's use of the loophole took them by surprise. The only positive seems to be that the law states that the man must provide financially for his wife. Nevertheless, it horrifies that we still have places where women are restricted from work and education, and compelled to provide sexual services. The immediate concern remains that this law may become "a step toward the Taliban's draconian treatment of women". While even one law like this anywhere in the world remains on the books, all women are wounded. These women are being treated as property.