What a powerful entry. I find this so moving and so precise. The only way to stop this is to find the ending point of cultural relativism and own up to the always pervasive global responsibility.

I couldn't bring myself to watch that video either out of sheer disgust, and also because I'm afraid that might be the thing to push me over the precipice and start hating all men.

It makes me ill that we are targets the world over, simply because we commit the crime of existing in this man's world. If people are so stupid to think that only "uncivilized" middle-eastern people are the ones who do this, they should take a good long look at our own rape conviction rates, murder through domestic violence (on a DAILY basis), or how about the debacle of the OJ Simpson trial?

It wrenches my heart to know that there is so much animosity and support of male priviledge, that we really haven't moved forward very much at all concerning equality. We need to keep dialogues open - keep talking and talking about this stuff - until real change happens, whenever that will be.

Thanks for posting on this. I hope those murdering men are held accountable for what they did. I hope some change comes out of this.

Here is our petition

Here are some photos of the demonstrations in Arbil

Here are some photos I took last night in Trafalgar Square, London

There will be a meeting to organise further action in London. Any potential particpants please contact me through the site.

Thanks so much for writing this, Samhita. I'd read about this through Pandagon (great post, by the way), but this post was particularly moving. I couldn't watch the video, either. The fact that there is a video disgusts me. I can't imagine a person getting murdered in the street in front of me and instead of trying to stop it or freezing and wailing in horror and fear, choosing instead to FILM it. Maybe it will help people who don't realize that this is happening to understand what women are suffering throughout the world (though more likely, it will just invoke racism). But I've seen enough women having the shit beat out of them by men in one way or another, and I can't watch anymore.

I know, I hate the whole "they" do this but "we" don't mentality. In fact, I would argue that one of the few things the world's patriarchal cultures (read: most of them) have in common is that they've been colonized at one point or another by European-based people. So it seems to me that "they" learned it from us. I believe this even more after reading the book "When God Was a Woman" where Merlin Stone argues that goddess worship in the Near and Middle East ended because northern invaders came and forced their male-god(s)-only religion on the native people of the Near and Middle East, which then led to complete obliteration of women's status in those societies. And now white Americans and Europeans call everybody else barbarians for what our ancestors forced on them and for what our societies still do.

Muki - your rant disappoints. Indeed, how do you not engage in talk of 'honor killings' without it turning into a "how can we bring democracy to such a backwards place" conversation. Your reluctance to confront reality is to the detriment of women of color and non-Western women everywhere. True enough, rapes happen all over the world, just like assaults, murders and other nasty things. But only in non-Western countries (read: Muslim countries) will you find anything remotely approaching the sort of systematic and institutionalized brutality against women that you claim to be against. By not advocating for liberal democracy in such places, you implicilty support the most brutal institutionalization of the patriarchy the world has ever known.

(Sycamore lane in the house :)

Goddamn.

The world is so fucked up.

Goddamn.

The world is so fucked up.

hey cracksmoker,

What about the systematic sexual assault of female American GIs by male American GIs? You can ask Ranter about that one. And what about the "shoot first, ask questions later" policy that our troops use in Iraq, even towards children? (stories from my friend who came back from fighting in Iraq)

Those aren't really the people I trust to bring democracy anywhere...

Cracksmoker--

Get out of here! You think what the US is doing in Iraq is spreading liberal democracy?

Shorty please, don't make me cut you. If they were, this conversation would look much different. Did I say I don't support democracy? No. I don't support hypocrisy.

Samhita, the fact that you just said "Shorty please, don't make me cut you" pretty much made my day.

Muki - your second rant disappoints even more than your first. In point of fact, I most certainly do think the US is spreading demoracy. (And in point of fact no one here at feministing is doing anything to help that.) Your comment about supporting democracy and not hypocrisy is non-sense pretending to be sense. If you support democracy then you support the invasion. If you support democracy, then all you can object to is the execution of the plan, not the plan itself. But go ahead, ignore the real patriarchy so well entrenched in Muslim lands and its systemic oppression of women. Those women who are burned, stoned and beaten may yet thank you for not being an imperialist.

As for Nina's clever comments: riddle me this: Where would you rather live for the next 6 months: Saudi Arabia, a place completely free of American imperialistic notions of democracy and liberty; or with some American GI's?

Yours truly,
Cracksmoker

(Lakeland in the house :)

My favorite thing about cracksmoker is how apt his/her name is.

Am I showing some kind of ignorance if I ask who the hell Muki is?

Reminds me of a good article I read awhile back about how one can be a multi-culturalist (i.e. embracing all cultures) or one can be a feminist, but one cannot be both, simply because so many cultures are based on the subjection and oppression of women.

Of course, the whole topic is controversial, but I should think it's safe to say that ANY culture that embraces murder isn't really worth celebrating, at least from a humanistic perspective.

Also--I don't think that When God was a Woman is particularly ironclad. It's a highly questionable source among historians and archeologists, as I understand it.

I also wonder why we assume that "spreading democracy" would automatically spread feminism. Spreading democracy means self-determination by a kind of majority-rules method. A majority has never had a problem with trampling on the rights of a minority, to judge by the history of this country. If the majority of people in a given culture or nation are opposed to equal rights for women, bringing democracy is not going to result in feminism. (Leaving aside, for a moment, the fact that that's not what this country's army does, in general.)

"Saudi Arabia, a place completely free of American imperialistic notions of democracy and liberty; or with some American GI's?"

That's a really tough question to answer, honestly, given the high incidences of rape and assault in the American military. Plus, weren't you aware the "Americans" (or at least Bush) loves the Saudis, and they love us?

Read this:
http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/326/the_black_glove/

And then go smoke some crack.

I think tolerance is a better thing to spread than democracy.

Then again, it's hard to spread tolerance via an invasion, so maybe that's why we don't hear about it as often....

I think the only time the United States has managed to successfully spread tolerance at gunpoint was in Japan after its defeat in World War II. Also, as another poster said, "democracy" and respect for the rights of minorities have very little to do with each other.

I am muki. Cracksmoker is someone I went to school with and have known for many years, but clearly we have gone down different ideological paths.

The way you write is so arrogant Josh. Good to see nothing has changed ;) First of all, I would like to know what you are doing to help democracy around the world, or what you think we are not doing. Engaging in public discourse is important and a necessary part of democracy. You are one of THOUSANDS of people that read this site and engaged in the concepts and ideas and sometimes they do translate to real world action.

Secondly, what are you talking about "if I support democracy, than I support invasion?" You sound brainwashed. I will ask again do you REALLY think that the invasion of Iraq is about democracy? I mean, I didn't realize you had become a neo-con (and by the way they hate me, so you can go visit some of their blogs if you want, you may find people that support your opinion more).

The problem with you US foreign policy buffs is you don't listen, you just talk. Why don't you ask what some of the women are saying around the world about whether they want to live here or not?

And you are right, I don't want to live in Saudi Arabia and I am definitely not defending misogyny anywhere, but I don't think invasion is the solution. It is not the purpose of it and quit frankly I am disappointed that you have bought into that rhetoric.

Finally, Muslim people didn't invent sexism, patriarchy or violence. They are global phenomena.

Muslim people didn't invent sexism, patriarchy or violence. They are global phenomena.

I REALLY think this should be on a T-shirt. I have WAY too many friends who think the opposite. :(

You can be anti-racist and feminist at the same time. Multi-culturalism is a crock - to continue the theme of crack on this thread. In both anti-racism and feminism, cultural relativism is discouraged.

"

Muslim people didn't invent sexism, patriarchy or violence. They are global phenomena.

I REALLY think this should be on a T-shirt. I have WAY too many friends who think the opposite. :("

I concur 100%

I just wish I knew something I could do about this. Where should I send my check to? UNIFEM (www.unifem.org)?

Thanks for the petition link, Galloise Blonde.
This is so sad and horrible. :(

"When God Was a Woman" where Merlin Stone argues that goddess worship in the Near and Middle East ended because northern invaders came and forced their male-god(s)-only religion on the native people of the Near and Middle East, which then led to complete obliteration of women's status in those societies. And now white Americans and Europeans call everybody else barbarians for what our ancestors forced on them and for what our societies still do.

-- ACS

Actually, as an Anthropology major, I've got to say that various archaeologists still hotly debate all of those issues, ACS. Add this to the long list of things that we just can't possibly know for sure.

I'd also point out that goddess-worship doesn't really correlate to equality and rights for women in the real world. Consider the veneration of Mary in Catholicism, which is absent in Protestantism. It has not correlated to greater rights for women in Catholic nations and cultures.

Muki --

'Tis not arrogance -- or at least no more so than your post :) Now to the line by line:

1. To help foster liberal democracy around the world I actively support -- by way of a vote, funding and attitude -- American led efforts to transform the world. The US led invasion is the REAL revolution that the pseudointellectual Marxists have been dreaming of.

2. What is the invasion about if not democracy? I so hope you will not bore me with some tired rhetoric of oil or imperialism: if that's what this was about, we could have simply set up Iraq as a puppet protectorate (and skipped Afghanistan altogether). Instead, the Iraqis have been asked to go to the polls and develop their own constitution. It takes a long time to get a stable democracy up and running. And jihadis who blow up women and children don't help the situation. But it's difficult to stop jihadis when so-called progressives think GI's are the problem, rather than killers who would seek to impose a patriarchy the likes of which you cannot even conceive of.

3. The problem -- Muki -- is not that I don't listen (though I appreciate being called a foreign policy buff). The problem is that progressives are blind to reality. Go read Jan Goodwin's The Price of Honor, a collection of narratives by women of color subjected to the horrors of Muslim patriarchy. (Or go read Burned Alive, a first personal narrative by a Palistinian woman burned by her kin.) The evidence from women's voices is near unanimous. The people who don't listen are privileged progressive women who's myoptic gaze extends no farther than rants about fairy tale wedding dresses and the use of the word "girl". (What can I say, I'm a frequent reader of feministing; I know one of the founders. BTW, props to you on its success.)

4. You wrote: "And you are right, I don't want to live in Saudi Arabia and I am definitely not defending misogyny anywhere, but I don't think invasion is the solution. It is not the purpose of it and quit frankly I am disappointed that you have bought into that rhetoric."

I guess you've hit a core issue: I think it's perfectly permissible -- no -- morally obligatory to liberate women from the tyranny and oppression of patriarchy. And while I'd be happy to grant that the West is not utopia, I will deny it is a patriarchy. Moreover, to compare and equate the Muslim lands and their treatment of women with the way the West treats women itself does real actual violence to women. In the US and the rest of the West you're free to publish things like feministing.com. But I doubt you could if you lived in Saudi Arabia or Iran or Indonesia.

5. You wrote: "Finally, Muslim people didn't invent sexism, patriarchy or violence. They are global phenomena. "

That's true (but definitely not worthy of a t-shirt). However, the West actively combats it. Muslims societies actively promote it. Or have you forgotten that in the West a woman can sue if she's discriminated against in the work place; whereas a woman in Saudi Arabia can be raped and beaten for being raped and beaten.

Yours truly,
Cracksmoker
(Josh was good guess, but he didn't live on sycamore, right down the road from you :)

Thanks for posting the guernica article too, Ninapendamaishi.

EG, I take your point, but Mary isn't really goddess-worship. She gets more props in the Catholic scheme of things, but there's still a big angry god at the head of it all.

I'm not trying to pick on you, and I haven't even read the book we're debating, but I AM a goddess worshipper and I personally don't fel that Mary veneration is the same thing. :)

Heh, and Nina, I'm glad we agree on something finally. Who knows? Five months from now and we could be BFF, like noname and I finally ended up being after weeks of disagreement. ;)

In the meantime, where does one go to get T-shirts printed...?

the West actively combats it....Or have you forgotten that in the West a woman can sue if she's discriminated against in the work place

That's not representative of some general beneficence on the part of the West. That's representative of the hard work of feminist activists who were opposed by the establishment of the West every step of the way. Don't co-op their work in order to demonstrate that the order they struggled against is progressive after all.

killers who would seek to impose a patriarchy the likes of which you cannot even conceive of.

Oh, I think we can conceive of it. It was feminists who were raising money for RAWA before Bush & Co. had even learned how to spell "Afghanistan."

I don't feel picked on, don't sweat it! I just would need to see some serious evidence before I accept the idea that we can gauge a society's level of respect for actual women by its level of goddess-worship (there's a big angry god at the head of the Greek pantheon too, but there was actual goddess worship there, and a culture that sucked more for women is hard to imagine)...actually, first I'd need to see some serious evidence that there ever was a culture based on primary goddess worship to begin with, and given that Stone's work is far from accepted, well...

EG wrote: "That's not representative of some general beneficence on the part of the West. That's representative of the hard work of feminist activists who were opposed by the establishment of the West every step of the way. Don't co-op their work in order to demonstrate that the order they struggled against is progressive after all."

Now to the line by line...

1. That's a non-sequitur to my point, which you don't deny. The West actively combats sexism; in non-Western countries (ie Muslim lands) it is actively promoted. You do not deny it. But you ignore it to the detriment of women everywhere.

2. You are mistaken: it IS actually representative of a general societal beneficence. It is representative of a political culture (borne of the Enlightenment and the Judeo-Christian ethic of charity) that allowed women sufficient freedom, privacy and resources in order to obtain political equality. We'll see if the same methods work in Iran or Saudi Arabia. I wouldn't hold my breath.

3. And I will most certainly co-opt "their" work -- but I will be honest about it unlike the cooption you've now just performed. Feminism and its expositors are part of the West. The core ideas of the classic feminists from Wollstonecraft, to J.S. Mill, to Cady-Stanton, as well as contemporary thinkers have been absorbed into the Western cannon (anybody here not think a women is entitled to equal pay?). What's really troubling you is that these once radical ideas ARE the Western establishment. But that would mean that you would have to support the establishment. And that would offend that pseudo-intellectual Marxist revolutionary that lingers in all progressives. The revolution to liberate women has started with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq: you are on the wrong side of history.

cracksmoker-

"What is the invasion about if not democracy?"

According to wikipedia:
“Throughout 2002, the Bush administration made clear that removing Saddam Hussein from power was a major goal. The principal stated justifications for this policy of "regime change" were that Iraq's alleged production of weapons of mass destruction, and purported ties to terrorist organizations, amounted to an imminent threat to the U.S. and the world community.�

Women’s rights (or “bringing freedom� to the Iraqi people) was not the ORIGINAL rational for going to war. Looking for wmds (which were never found) was.

"I will deny it [the US] is a patriarchy."

If we define patriarchy as “a system of gendered power relations through which men exercise power over women,� (from media.pearsoncmg.com/intl/ema/uk/0131217666/student/0131217666_glo.html), then what exactly would you call a country that has not passed the ERA to ensure women equal rights with men, just ruled preserving women’s health is not a concern of the government (while ruling preserving fetus’s lives are) via the federal abortion ban, where women make on average only 77% of men and all forms of martial rape are not illegal and where thousands of women are beaten and raped by men who claim to love them or don’t even know them, etc?

And btw,on March 6, 2007, MADRE, an international women's human rights organization, released of a report on the incidence, causes and legalization of gender-based violence in Iraq since the US-led invasion. Entitled "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq," it documents the use of gender-based violence by Islamists seeking to establish a theocratic state and by the US in its efforts to win cooperation from Islamists.

According to the report, "Under US occupation, Iraqi women have endured a wave of gender-based violence, including widespread abductions, public beatings, death threats, sexual assaults, 'honor killings,' domestic abuse, torture in detention, beheadings, shootings, and public hangings. Much of this violence is systematic—directed by the Islamist militias that mushroomed across Iraq after the US toppled the mostly secular Ba'ath regime."

Well cracksmoker, before we fall victim to your neo-con ideology, lets point out the obvious here.

First, democracy will never take root if it is instituted at the point of a gun (it never has).

Second, democracy won't and didn't prevent the Yazidi honor killings.

Third, honor killings (brothers killing sisters to save tribal honor) are a cultural aspect of the Middle East that has been around long before Islam was even a religion.

Forth, The Yazidi are not Arab, nor are they even Islamic.

I agree the issue of honors killings has to be addressed and protested, but we would be just as evil as the Yazidi were if we forced our values on them.

No culture has a monopoly on values (just as no political party has a monopoly on values).

Cracksmoker

If you want to fight radical Islam in Iraq, I know a lot of people who would like to trade places with you.

If you are not willing to die for what you believe in, then don't ask others to die in your stead.

cracksmoker, if the war in Afghanistan was about liberating women, we would have driven the Taliban out long before 9/11 (or that fucker Reagan never would have funded them in the first place). The war in Afghanistan was about revenge and trying to prevent more terrorist attacks. Women not having to live under the Taliban any longer was a happy product of that war, but they are far from "liberated." If the war in Iraq was about liberating women, the American people wouldn't have been brainwashed into going there through false accusations of WMDs. And we wouldn't have US TRAINED POLICEMEN watching a women get murdered by a mob in cold blood. Explain to me how that's liberating women, again? No, wait, please don't.

Now can we stop having this bullshit argument about the Iraq war? It's only taking away from the topic of this post, which is men killing women because they feel that it's their right to do so.

well cracksnorter:

"I guess you've hit a core issue: I think it's perfectly permissible -- no -- morally obligatory to liberate women from the tyranny and oppression of patriarchy."

Too bad things have actually gotten far worse for the women of Afghanistan and Iraq then since the invasions (at least according to the U.S. GI's accounts, and accounts of Iraqi feminists). Even if things were to be better for Afghan women in another 10 or 20 years (seriously questionable) how do you justify the thousands upon thousands of casualties of women and children (and men) in between now and then?

"It is representative of a political culture (borne of the Enlightenment and the Judeo-Christian ethic"

Islam was born of the Judeo-Christian beliefs. Islam shares far more in common with those religions (including the sexism in their religious texts) than any of them do with other world religions.

"Feminism and its expositors are part of the West"

I doubt the feminists everywhere else in the world, including muslim feminists in Iraq, would agree with you.

I mean, if we have to attribute everything back to its origin, we owe Algebra, table manners, elaborate running water, knowledge about the color spectrum, dessert, and a number of other things to the Arabs...

P.S. Awesome statement, Ranter.