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Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 9:57 PM
Subject: FW: What Abu Ghraib Taught Me
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>
>
> *What Abu Ghraib Taught Me*
>
> By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet
> May 20, 2004
>
> Even those people we might have thought were impervious to shame, like
> the secretary of Defense, admit that the photos of abuse in Iraq's Abu
> Ghraib prison turned their stomachs.
>
> The photos did something else to me, as a feminist: They broke my heart.
> I had no illusions about the U.S. mission in Iraq - whatever exactly it
> is - but it turns out that *I did have some illusions about women*.
>
> Of the seven U.S. soldiers now charged with sickening forms of abuse in
> Abu Ghraib, three are women: Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Pfc. Lynndie England and
> Spc. Sabrina Harman.
>
> It was Harman we saw smiling an impish little smile and giving the
> thumbs-up sign from behind a pile of hooded, naked Iraqi men - as if to
> say, "Hi Mom, here I am in Abu Ghraib!" It was England we saw with a
> naked Iraqi man on a leash. If you were doing PR for Al Qaeda, you
> couldn't have staged a better picture to galvanize misogynist Islamic
> fundamentalists around the world.
>
> Here, in these photos from Abu Ghraib, you have everything that the
> Islamic fundamentalists believe characterizes Western culture, all
> nicely arranged in one hideous image - imperial arrogance, sexual
> depravity ... and gender equality.
>
> Maybe I shouldn't have been so shocked. We know that good people can do
> terrible things under the right circumstances. This is what psychologist
> Stanley Milgram found in his famous experiments in the 1960s. In all
> likelihood, Ambuhl, England and Harman are not congenitally evil people.
> They are working-class women who wanted an education and knew that the
> military could be a stepping-stone in that direction. Once they had
> joined, they wanted to fit in.
>
> And I also shouldn't be surprised because I never believed that women
> were innately gentler and less aggressive than men. Like most feminists,
> I have supported full opportunity for women within the military - 1)
> because I knew women could fight, and 2) because the military is one of
> the few options around for low-income young people.
>
> Although I opposed the 1991 Persian Gulf War, I was proud of our
> servicewomen and delighted that their presence irked their Saudi hosts.
> Secretly, I hoped that the presence of women would over time change the
> military, making it more respectful of other people and cultures, more
> capable of genuine peacekeeping. That's what I thought, but I don't
> think that anymore.
>
> A certain kind of feminism, or perhaps I should say a certain kind of
> *feminist naiveté, died in Abu Ghraib*. It was a feminism that saw men
> as the perpetual perpetrators, women as the perpetual victims and male
> sexual violence against women as the root of all injustice. Rape has
> repeatedly been an instrument of war and, to some feminists, it was
> beginning to look as if war was an extension of rape. There seemed to be
> at least some evidence that male sexual sadism was connected to our
> species' tragic propensity for violence. That was before we had seen
> female sexual sadism in action.
>
> But it's not just the theory of this naive feminism that was wrong. So
> was its strategy and vision for change. That strategy and vision rested
> on the assumption, implicit or stated outright, that women were morally
> superior to men. We had a lot of debates over whether it was biology or
> conditioning that gave women the moral edge - or simply the experience
> of being a woman in a sexist culture. But the assumption of superiority,
> or at least a lesser inclination toward cruelty and violence, was more
> or less beyond debate. After all, women do most of the caring work in
> our culture, and in polls are consistently less inclined toward war than
> men.
>
> I'm not the only one wrestling with that assumption today. Mary Jo
> Melone, a columnist for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, wrote on May 7:
> "I can't get that picture of England [pointing at a hooded Iraqi man's
> genitals] out of my head because this is not how women are expected to
> behave. Feminism taught me 30 years ago that not only had women gotten a
> raw deal from men, we were morally superior to them."
>
> If that assumption had been accurate, then all we would have had to do
> to make the world a better place - kinder, less violent, more just -
> would have been to assimilate into what had been, for so many centuries,
> the world of men. We would fight so that women could become the
> generals, CEOs, senators, professors and opinion-makers - and that was
> really the only fight we had to undertake. Because once they gained
> power and authority, once they had achieved a critical mass within the
> institutions of society, women would naturally work for change. That's
> what we thought, even if we thought it unconsciously - and it's just not
> true. Women can do the unthinkable.
>
> You can't even argue, in the case of Abu Ghraib, that the problem was
> that there just weren't enough women in the military hierarchy to stop
> the abuses. The prison was directed by a woman, Gen. Janis Karpinski.
> The top U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq, who also was responsible for
> reviewing the status of detainees before their release, was Major Gen.
> Barbara Fast. And the U.S. official ultimately responsible for managing
> the occupation of Iraq since October was Condoleezza Rice. Like Donald
> H. Rumsfeld, she ignored repeated reports of abuse and torture until the
> undeniable photographic evidence emerged.
>
> What we have learned from Abu Ghraib, once and for all, is that a uterus
> is not a substitute for a conscience. This doesn't mean gender equality
> isn't worth fighting for for its own sake. It is. If we believe in
> democracy, then we believe in a woman's right to do and achieve whatever
> men can do and achieve, even the bad things. It's just that gender
> equality cannot, all alone, bring about a just and peaceful world.
>
> In fact, we have to realize, in all humility, that the kind of feminism
> based on an assumption of female moral superiority is not only naive; it
> also is a lazy and self-indulgent form of feminism. Self-indulgent
> because it assumes that a victory for a woman - a promotion, a college
> degree, the right to serve alongside men in the military - is by its
> very nature a victory for all of humanity. And lazy because it assumes
> that we have only one struggle - the struggle for gender equality - when
> in fact we have many more.
>
> The struggles for peace and social justice and against imperialist and
> racist arrogance, cannot, I am truly sorry to say, be folded into the
> struggle for gender equality.
>
> What we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no illusions. Women do
> not change institutions simply by assimilating into them, only by
> consciously deciding to fight for change. We need a feminism that
> teaches a woman to say no - not just to the date rapist or overly
> insistent boyfriend but, when necessary, to the military or corporate
> hierarchy within which she finds herself.
>
> In short, we need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate
> into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to
> infiltrate and subvert them.
>
> To cite an old, and far from naive, feminist saying: "If you think
> equality is the goal, your standards are too low." It is not enough to
> be equal to men, when the men are acting like beasts. It is not enough
> to assimilate. We need to create a world worth assimilating into.
>
> Barbara Ehrenreich is the author, most recently, of "Nickel and Dimed:
> On (Not) Getting By in America." This article was first published in the
> Sunday Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times.
> ------------
> About the author
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Ehrenreich
>
> Stories by Barbara Ehrenreich
> http://www.alternet.org/alsoby.html?Author=811
