Once again, women have to fight a battle we thought was already won.

Have you noticed how often the 23 per centers who still argue that the wars were a good idea say, without qualification, that women have been liberated in Afghanistan, girls are going to schoolin Afghanistn, how can you oppose that?

When I try to point out that that didn’t last very long or spread very far around the country, that Taliban and other conservatives were attacking girls schools and terrorizing families into keeping their girls out of school just as bfore, they generally don’t believe me.

But this law—well, I suppose it’s pretty much the way things were, we knew women couldn’t go out without permission (or pretty much at all under Taliban rule), but ye gods. obedience “readiness for intercourse”-wow just wow.

The only good thing I see out of this (not for Afghan women, of course) is here in the U.S. Commentators I’ve heard in mainstream media have appeared shocked, even the men, that a law could make “rape within marriage ” legal.
I’m old enough to remember the first prosecution of a rape within marriage, and the firestorm that resulted over whether the concept of rape could even exist between husband and wife.
There were no laws in the US stating that wives had a duty to be ready for intercourse, but it was commonly accepted that a husband couldn’t rape his wife, because a duty to have sex with her husband was implied in the institution of marriage.
Thankfully, we got past that, and apparently “our” mental concept of marriage no longer includes it.

But, re Afhanistan – here we are again, back to the late nineties early 2000’s – when there were organizations trying to get attention to the Taliban’s treatment of women, but which really got no traction until the US invaded to pursue al Qaeda.

Oh, I see I’ve done a long rant again. I was really hoping I was in time for PUAC, the kinder gentler FDL, but this just got me going.

Vomit. Vomit. Vomit. That’s all I can think of when I hear how human beings treat each other. Especially the most vulnerable among us…

Vomit, indeed, conniptionfit. I just read the link to the Hill article, and this statistic boggled even my mind:

According to Womankind Worldwide, a charity based in the United Kingdom, 80 percent of Afghan women are affected by domestic violence, over 60 percent of marriages are forced and half of all girls are married before the age of 16.

Words fail.

I’m not optimistic our involvement in Afhghanistan can make a huge difference; but even incremental change is devoutly to be desired.

I can’t help but think that we wouldn’t be having this conversation (or at least it wouldn’t be this bad) if G. Duhbyah Bush had not decided to “cut and run” from Afghanistan in favor of his cockamamie adventure in Iraq. What a mess…

In a divorce, a father always gets custody of any children, according to the law.

Men do earn more money I think this rule is to prevent Men from seeking a divorce and then leaving their wives and kids without a dime. Even with all our laws child support is paid how often?
This rule which is common in that part of the world I think is a more primitive societies way of trying to make sure that a man takes care of his kids.
Granted at the expense of the mom. Also this rule favors those men rich enough to have more than one wife to take care of those kids.
But for poor men and the majority of men are poor trying to hold a job and take care of kids, young kids especially would be frightening.
I am totally in favor of divorce personally. I think though that I can see what this rule is trying to do.

No idea if anything further will come from this but this story just went up at the NY Times: Karzai Vows to Review Family Law

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai ordered a review on Saturday of a new law that has been criticized internationally for introducing Taliban-era restrictions on women and sanctioning marital rape.

The president defended the law, which concerns family law for the Shiite minority, and said Western news media reports were misinformed. Nevertheless, he said his justice minister would review it and make amendments if the law was found to contravene the Constitution and the freedoms that it guarantees.

What does Laura Bush think? She is a greatly admired American who once had valued opinions about the plight of Afghan women and girls. Why doesn’t she speak up again?

Maybe some progress is being made – this is another article from the NYT on the issue:

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters…..-nato.html

Christy – keep up the great work!!

The law – which has not yet been published but was leaked by a UN agency – rules that a Shiite woman must seek her husband’s permission to go outside.

“Obedience, readiness for intercourse and not leaving the house without the permission of the husband are the duties of the wife,” states the law.

It sounds like our puppet government wants to make peace with the Taliban by surrendering in everything but name to them just so America can leave with her pride intact for a few years.
Then of course the Taliban will take over. Bush does nothing for years. America funded the Taliban because Pakistan wanted a puppet they liked talk about not evaluating a government program.
But now Obama is stuck trying to leave and women’s rights which be the first thing to suffer.

Obama said the new law legalizing rape of married women by their husbands is “abhorent” but then he also found bonuses to banksters distasteful but is working behind the scenes to circumvent Congressional inititives. Will Afghanistan become Obama’s Vietnam? Is he another victim of American exceptionalism and hubris?

Think Progress has Obama’s response to this law
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..law-obama/
Why do I keep having visions of Rush pushing to have this law passed in America

Shinkai Zahine Karokhail, like other female parliamentarians, complained that after an initial deal the law was passed with unprecedented speed and limited debate. “They wanted to pass it almost like a secret negotiation,” she said. “There were lots of things that we wanted to change, but they didn’t want to discuss it because Karzai wants to please the Shia before the election.”

Attempts to buy Shia votes? I thought the Southern Tribes the Taliban came from were the majority? I suspect that pleasing the Shia is better spin for Americans than pleasing the Taliban “the translator is a Traitor” perhaps? ( I know I heard that saying somewhere.
I fear the worst of both worlds American troops dying to protect a government that supports these laws.

GOP Taliban simliarites

Women should not be educated or you get Feminazis.
Private Religious Shira Charter Schools Schools should be mandatory! No money for public schools in the Stimulus! No Money for Birth Control in the Stimulus! No abortion!
This is a religious country founded by Christians Muslims we should live like it under Sharia Bible law.
Global Warming is a myth spread by liberal Jews/Zionists designed to hurt our Saudi Friends after all where would Bush and the Taliban be without Ossama and his Saudi friends money.
Its so hard to tell the Taliban position on issues from the GOP’s they are so alike.:)

It’s not at all the correct understanding.

The Afghanistan war is another misguided exercise in imperial power.

This is a country that needs some help, but not then military kind.

The Taliban and AQ is not a threat to the USA any more than any group of disgruntled thugs would be and it certainly doesn’t merit the billions of dollars that doing a war costs, not to mention the unnecessary deaths of innocents.

This militarism is so wrong headed and it is both shameful and amazing that our nation pursues such ill advised adventures.

Ike warned about the military industrial complex and he was dead on the money. Our nation, and other western nations have been terrorized by the military into seeing everything in the world as needing a military solution. They have flooded the world with all sorts of dangerous weapons and too many of them fall into the wrong hands. These are the creations of the MIC and then their hair is on fire and want us to build more and bigger and fight all the enemies our aggressive imperialism seems to have created.

We wouldn’t have anything resembling an enemy were it not for our predatory economic policies and practices. Sure there are regional and local conflicts and disputes. But they are not our fight and could serve peace by trying to mediate disputes rather than fueling them with weapons or using them for proxy fights against nations we compete with economically for resources and markets.

It’s time to stop the military madness. We don’t need carrier groups, nuke subs, nuclear tipped missiles aimed at nations which are not even declared enemies. If we are not at war with Russia, why are we still targeting them? tracking them? aiming our mega radars and satellites to spy on them?

Shrink the military way way way down and have them protect our borders from invasion. What invasion?

Then what is?

Because she wants to wait and then blame Obama and claim he is undoing all that her husband did for women?
Never mind Bush changed things in name only, but little facts like that won’t matter nobody challenges a First Lady to her face when she is wrong unless she is Hilary.

If we want things to get better for women then the society needs security first Maslows’s Hierarchy of Needs Security Food Shelter etc must be met first then other higher needs can be pursued.
Right now our troops can’t control the place and bring peace/security so they are just one more faction stirring up fights.

Children have value to the husband and the wife who defiantly leaves doesn’t get to take assets with her.

Saudi supported Muslim Schools the kind that educated the Taliban in exile in Pakistan they can’t be brought to Afghanistan or women’s rights are over.

Christy, thank you for this important post.

Book Salon up at the Mothership with Dr Nathaniel Frank’s Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America.

Hosted by Christopher Lisotta

Women before rules like this were thought up by primitive societies didn’t get to take assets with them before, these rules came about so I’m doubting that part of your argument.

Alright Christy I will bite. Afghan proverb coming up:

“The poor eat shame”

In particular the poor man eats shame because he has imperfect (or no) control over his wife.

Why not?

Well you see Christy it is like this:

The standards of modesty are set by the rich.

The poor man can’t afford to seclude his wife. He needs her to work the fields with him. Poor people in Afghanistan have to live with the fact that it is shameful not to seclude their women, but that to survive it is necessary to live with this shame.

Did I mention that in Afghanistan the Shia are among the poorest and most oppressed of all Afghans?

So you need to see this realistically.

Karzai is no fool and he is desperately in need of support. He might not like the Shia but he is willing to do what it takes to get their votes. And one way to get their votes is to ramp up the patriarchy.

This is an attempt to pander to the fact that poor men supports the rules of modesty. Because these rules ensure the general dominance of men over women, of himself over his wife. The poor man thinks that without the rules of modesty and the threat of killing, or rape, that his wife could run away with somebody else and his daughters marry without brideprice.

His fear makes it impossible for him to see the other side of such a change. So he supports the whole ideology of shame and control. As there’s no way out of shame for him this adds virulence to his support for the rules of modesty.

For if only all women were modest, if only all could be secluded, and be completely obedient if only other men observed the deceneies … then he would not have his shame to bear.

Thanks for this post, Christy.
I’d like to call attention to the organization, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).

RAWA was established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977 as an independent political/social organization of Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan. The founders were a number of Afghan woman intellectuals under the sagacious leadership of Meena who in 1987 was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan, by Afghan agents of the then KGB in connivance with fundamentalist band of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. RAWA’s objective was to involve an increasing number of Afghan women in social and political activities aimed at acquiring women’s human rights and contributing to the struggle for the establishment of a government based on democratic and secular values in Afghanistan. Despite the suffocating political atmosphere, RAWA very soon became involved in widespread activities in different socio-political arenas including education, health and income generation as well as political agitation.

I have followed women’s issues in Afghanistan for about 10 years as a result of the work of a friend of mine, a gynecologist, who donates her professional services in Kabul for a few months per year. Women’s health in Afghanistan is really, really primitive, and women suffer considerably as a result. A glimpse of what she’s been doing can be seen here:

Afghanistan, Kabul
10/14/2008

Kathy Deasy – HOPE worldwide is an international charity whose mission is to change lives by harnessing the compassion and commitment of dedicated staff and volunteers to deliver sustainable, high-impact, community-based services to the poor and needy. They are opening a new 7-bed emergency/outpatient department at Malalali Hospital. HOPE worldwide has received extended funding for an emergency department training program and are looking for a M.D., (ob/gyn, family physician, emergency, medical, etc.) a midwife, nurse practitioner, etc. Training to begin mid to late January 2009.

Name of Diocese – Arizona – since 1991
Contact: Kathy Deasy – Email address: SDeasy@aol.com
Website: http://www.hopeww.org/; Email: hope_worldwide@hopeww.org
Blog: http://www.afghandoctors.org/

Bob in HI

I’m not sure how understanding the reasons for the law or for Karzai’s support of it much improves it’s appeal.

I am even less impressed by your debating tactics than my colleague is. The law’s appeal, or lack of it, to westerners, particularly to westerners from the hated invaders is irrelevant. Its appeal to Afghans, particularly to poverty stricken Afghans who see their dominance of their women as an essential part of their lives is what matters.

If you say that’s what matters, then what right do hated westerners have to an opinion.?
No debate from myself shall be forthcoming.

No one can even begin to change the civil status of women without understanding the religious and cultural underpinnings of their oppression. Dubhaltach’s comments are vital information.

The idea that Western armies can go into Afghanistan and impose sexual equality is ludicrous. That doesn’t mean that we can’t continue working to change that culture of fear and abuse. But it needs to be done from within the culture, and carefully, and with good examples.

Still unimpressed. You have every right to your opinion and to express it – lucky you. The fact that you have the right to your opinion and the motive means and opportunity to express it does not vitiate the fact that Karzai is in a winning position with this law.

Even if it does not pass the mere fact that he supported it is a gain for him.

If he supports it in the teeth of opposition from the hated invaders that is even more of a gain for him.

Word is that Secretary Clinton has been working behind the scenes

One thing that might help, at least a little, is frequent visits from Sec. Clinton and other female members of the Administration.

Anyway, this is another symptom of how badly things are going in Afghanistan. As many critics have observed, it’s not an ideal place for an enlightened national society, but somehow I think it could be doing better.

women’s rights is one of those things that gets pulled out whenever the american public starts to lose patience with war. recently the Rs have been using “fear, fear, fear” propaganda and the Ds try “humanitarian” propaganda – but it’s important to remember that that is all it is. propaganda.

there are many ways to help the plight of the oppressed that don’t require bombs and occupation.

Reducing women’s right almost seems like a policy of the United States in the Middle East. Our “friends” like Saudi Arabia don’t do women’s rights. Our enemies in the region have tended to be more liberal toward women. After several years of war in Iraq, we have reduced the freedom and status of women. I’m not quite sure where the attack on the Afghans fits here, but gradually things are moving to where they were before. The government in Israel is certainly close to their religious community which crops out pictures of women in the news.

Don’t forget the treatment of women in our military. I wouldn’t be surprised if Karzai got permission from us regarding the new laws restricting women?

It has not been that long in the United States that rape or abuse within marriage has been regarded as a crime. A few years ago in Kansas there was a woman senator who asserted that everything had gone downhill since women got the vote. If we’ve got politicians who are still trying to cancel Social Security, it is likely that we’ve got some of them who believe that women should know their place.

The other side of that rule is to subject and oppress women. A mother’s fear of losing her children is a primal one. What better way to control the person with the most influence in a valued son’s developing early years?

Religious Fundies are ALL THE SAME, from Mormons to Jews to Muslims:

I’d like to see what the WH response to THIS is –

Guardian: “Two female ministers within a 30-strong cabinet may not sound like such a big deal to most. However, it was two women too many for Israeli ultra-orthodox newspapers, so they simply airbrushed the offending female figures out of photographs of Binyamin Netanyahu’s new cabinet, on the grounds that printing pictures of women is “immodest“.

Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver, the two apparently inappropriate ministers, simply “disappeared” from a photograph of the new cabinet in the weekly newspaper Shaa Tova, with black holes visible in the spaces where they had been standing. Meanwhile, in the newspaper Yated Neeman, male cabinet members were blown up and superimposed on to the images of the two female ministers in the frame. This sector simply does not believe that women should have a public life, or even vote,” says Galia Golan-Gild, professor of government at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Centre.

She points out that ultra-orthodox newspapers have in the past refused to print pictures of the Kadima party leader Tzipi Livnik, or even to use her first name. “It is absolutely typical of the ultra-orthodox movement.” Campaign posters featuring Livni were vandalised in ultra-orthodox neighbourhoods in Jerusalem in the run-up to the February elections.

But Golan-Gild said she was concerned about “creeping religiosity” in Israeli society, and reported that restrictive attitudes towards women were spreading into the religious Zionist sector. “In the army they are already asking for separate units and all male-entertainment,” she said.

and we all know about that “sex on Friday nite” thing…

This is over at Juan Coles (unable to link from this computer)

Friday, April 03, 2009
Top Ten Ways the US is Turning Afghanistan into Iraq

1. Exaggerating the threat. An Afghan army foot patrol was attacked by guerrillas in Helmand Province on Wednesday, according to AP. US and Afghan soldiers responded, engaging in a firefight. Then the US military called in an air strike on the Taliban, killing 20 of them. On Tuesday, a similar airstrike had taken out 30 guerrillas.

It is this sort of thing that makes me wonder why the Taliban (or whoever these guys in Helmand were) are considered such a big threat that the full might of NATO is needed to deal with them. They have no air force, no artillery, no tanks. They are just small bands, apparently operating in platoons, who, whenever they mass in large enough numbers to stand and fight, can just be turned into red mist from the air.

2. The US has actually only managed to install a fundamentalist government in Afghanistan, which is rolling back rights of women and prosecuting blasphemy cases. In a play for the Shiite vote (22% or so of the population), President Hamid Karzai put through civilly legislated Shiite personal status law, which affects Shiite women in that country. The wife will need the husband’s permission to go out of the house, and can’t refuse a demand for sex. (Since the 1990s there has been a movement in 50 or more countries to abandon the idea that spouses cannot rape one another, though admittedly this idea is new and was rejected in US law until recently).

No one seems to have noted that the Shiite regime in Baghdad is more or less doing the same thing. In Iraq, the US switched out the secular Baath Party for Shiite fundamentalist parties. Everyone keeps saying the US improved the status of women in both countries. Actually, in Iraq the US invasion set women back about 30 years. In Afghanistan, the socialist government of the 1980s, for all its brutality in other spheres, did implement policies substantially improving women’s rights, including aiming at universal education, making a place for them in the professions, and so forth. There were socialist Afghan women soldiers fighting the Muslim fundamentalist guerrillas that Reagan called “freedom fighters” and to whom he gave billions to turn the country into a conservative theocracy. I can never get American audiences to concede that Afghan women had it way better in the 1980s, and that it has been downhill ever since, mainly because of US favoritism toward patriarchal and anti-progressive forces.

3. The US is building a mass of hardened bases costing over $1 bn. in Afghanistan. That’s about the annual budget of the Afghanistan government.