Due Credit to Madam Secretary

United State’s archenemy Bin Ladin is finally captured and killed. Unfortunately even this unexpectedly good news did not stop media from undermining one of the most powerful women in America; Hilary Clinton. 

Dead silence of the media about her role in the decision making, planning and implementation of the raid to capture Bin Ladin as the Secretary of State is appalling. On top of it, only coverage that mentions Mrs.Clinton’s involvement on the Bin Ladin’s fall is about her reaction while watching the operation in the White House situation room with the President and other officials.

In a recent photo released by the White House, Secretary of State happened to have her hand on her mouth while watching the commando operation and the news article in Reuters has the explanation for it; she had allergies. The article claims this was her answer when asked about the photo.

I am not sure if I am more offended by the news asking her why she was covering her mouth or her answer to try to conceal her most natural reaction as a human being watching a video where people were probably about to get killed.   

Never mind that all the other people who happened to be men –there was one other woman- have similar expressions on their faces, we should ask why Mrs. Clinton was singled out as the only one should explain her body language? And why showing concern and “anguish,” as Barry Moody of Reuters puts it, is a problem or oddity? Any normal human being would show similar reaction to watching such a critical operation, especially when it was about your country’s national security and the stakes of failure were enormous.   

Expressing humanity does not make one weak, fearful or incompetent, and these qualities do not belong to only women. I am not sure if Secretary of State, knowing the sexist undertones of our politics and culture still pervading, was trying to look tough or simply telling the truth, but I will go with her being honest. I am more concerned about the amount of –or little of it- media coverage that gives her the credit for the decision to go after Bin Ladin.

After 10 long years, billions of dollars, countless sacrifices and thousands of deaths, we finally got the man who was considered one of the most dangerous criminal masterminds of our times, and the only news Reuters cover about our –female- Secretary of State is why did she cover her mouth? No one praises the woman for her involvement in the planning of this operation, no one asks her the details of her responsibilities during the execution of the plan, but the only question asked was; why did she cover her mouth?

I will do what the entire news media failed to do for our Secretary of State who is one staffer has proven herself many times over; I will give her the credit she aptly deserves.  Thank you madam Secretary! Thank you for your hard work on bringing this man to justice and offering some closure and comfort to our country’s people and to the families of the victims of 9/11 tragedy. Thank you for your service to our country, a job well done!

*This article has been published by The New Agenda and The Pragmatic Progressive 05.07.2011

Not just a Grumpy Old Man, but a Sexist; Donald Rumsfeld

Emine Dilek, Editor WVoN

Host Women’s Voice Radio

Although not a big fan of Condoleezza Rice, I wanted to write a piece to congratulate her for speaking up against Donald Rumsfeld’s criticism of her abilities as a Secretary of State under the Bush Administration on a recent news article on Yahoo News.

Rumsfeld wrote in his book Known and Unknown Ms. Rice "almost never wanted" to dissent to President George W. Bush. He also asserted in several interviews that Rice was not fit for the office.

Incase if you missed the past decade; Ms. Rice was the first African-American woman secretary of state, as well as the second African American after Colin Powell, and the second woman after Madeleine Albright.

Ms. Rice’s answer to Rumsfeld’s criticism was “He doesn't know what he's talking about.” She added “First of all, I didn't have modest experience in management. Managing Stanford University is not so easy. But I don't know what Don was trying to say, and it really doesn't matter. Don can be a grumpy guy. We all know that.”

It is not unprecedented that African Americans are held to a different set of standard and their abilities, eligibility or qualifications are severely scrutinized as we have seen with the “Birther Conspiracy.”  Being an African and a woman means you need to deal with a double doze of bigotry.

Condi was not any less qualified for the Secretary of State position than any others before her. At age 19, Rice was inducted into the honor society Phi Beta Kappa, and was awarded a B.A., cum laude, in political science by the University of Denver. While at the University of Denver she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega, Gamma Delta chapter. She obtained a master's degree in political science from the University of Notre Dame in 1975.

She first worked in the State Department in 1977, during the Carter administration, as an intern in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. In 1981, at the age of 26, she received her Ph.D. in political science from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Her dissertation centered on military policy and politics in what was then the communist state of Czechoslovakia.

Of course her qualifications do not automatically give her a free license to screw up the country’s government but the mess Bush Administration created and left behind was not entirely her fault. I blame the entire cabinet and the President as the Commander in Chief. Especially when it comes to making the decision to wage wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were the ones primarily advising the President.  

Whatever the results of the Bush Administration, Mr. Rumsfeld’s actions towards one time colleague is garish and irresponsible, trying to divert attention from his own massive failures. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tries to put the blame on someone else’s shoulders, he will still be remembered as one of the most inept and brutal Secretary of Defense in our lifetime.

As I often do, I will end my article with a comment from one of the readers: “When the men from the Third Infantry Division rescued 173 starving prisoners from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, a reporter asked Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what troops should do if they see a human rights violation.

"Why, stop it, of course!"

Rumsfeld, standing next to him, said, "NO! You will NOT stop it. You will REPORT it!"

This article has been published by The New Agenda on 05.02.2011

Pink as a Girl

In a recent article on Fox News online, Dr. Ablow claims J. Crew is defining gender identity, and confusing children along the way, by featuring a 5 year old boy with neon pink nails. Because I guess in his world, pink is exclusively a female color or nail polish is only for girls.

He says this advert is a dramatic example of our culture’s “psychological sterilization” by which he means gender neutralization. So dresses and pink for girls, blue and pants for boys.

Yes, let’s not get confuse about our differences, let’s clearly identify our sharp edges and lines. After all what can be more important than defining their children’s gender for parents, and as early as possible? Let’s box them so neatly and tuck them into little categories of social acceptance and identification so that they don’t ever feel different or confused.

If you have ever traveled outside of USA, you will experience a wonderful feeling of strangeness and discovery; men wearing vivid colors and jewelry, keeping long hair and even sporting long dresses. Women will look different too. Most will not have surgically enhanced breasts; they will have different skin colors and textures, some even will be walking around naked.

How wild is that and how incredibly beautiful! An assortment of bodies, colors, smells and sexes, like an assortment of a box of candy; all taste different but surprisingly delicious. Of course you do not have to like all the candies but among the 6 billion of us there will be many many would like and prefer the ones you left out in the box. And this is what makes our world so incredibly, divinely, unequivocally precious.

At a first glance, all these differences can be overwhelming and threatening. I can understand that. But that does not give us the right to impose our traditions or customs on them. That does not give us the right to demand absolute conformity, and preach them what we think is proper mode of social living.

And why can’t we extend this courtesy to our own children? Why do we want them to be perfectly fitting robots; all of them acting, thinking, feeling same way? Is that what makes a society? A group of people who can not be identified one from the other, Barbies and Kens of 21st Century?

Gender and sexuality are much more complex than we like them to be. There are men like to wear women clothes but are straight. There are women who are very “girly” by our culture’s standards, but are lesbians. There are people born with male genitalia and ovaries. There are people born with female genitalia but have male chromosomes. So which one of these people will we categorize as men or women? It is much more complicated than we think and never black and white, or in Mr. Ablow’s case, pink.

A neon pink nail polish will not make your boy child gay any more than putting pants on your girl child. How about dropping our idea of what our children should be and embracing the fact that they should have the right to who they want to be, and allowing them to be joyful, happy and free in their choices; loving them unconditionally. Let’s see how peaceful, inclusive and tolerant our societies will be after that.

*This article has been published in The New Agenda on 04.18.2011

Opinion Piece: Libya: When In Doubt, Blame It On The Women

When In Doubt, Blame It on the Women

Emine Dilek, Editor WVoN

Radio Host Women’s Voice

I am not a big Robert Dreyfuss fan. I admit this was his first article I’ve ever read in The Nation. He has done an excellent job getting my attention with a title “Obama's Women Advisers Pushed War Against Libya.”

This title in and of itself has managed to put women and the President down at the same time. War is bad, women caused it, President can’t make his own decisions, and takes advice from women.

Article did not have to mention the gender of the advisors; the writer could have just written "President's advisors," but he choose the word "women" to make his case which as we mentioned before made the President look weak because, it is assumed in our culture, if you take advice from "women" as a man you are less-than...

As our country is financially and emotionally struggling with the two major war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, another one was not going to be popular regardless of its legitimate reasoning. Mr. Dreyfuss obviously is clever enough to know that, so he found an excellent way to twist it.

I don’t know who said “How good does a female athlete have to be before we just call her an athlete?” But this article reminded me of it. And I ask “What does a female advisor have to do before we just call her an advisor?” Come to your own conclusions and tell me why this writer had to mention the “gender” of the President’s advisers.

He also makes the assumption that women are pacifists and less pro-war. I agree that more men waged wars than women, but women are neither pacifists nor warmongers; women are just human beings with similar thoughts and emotions. Like Robin Morgan once said “Women are not inherently passive or peaceful.  We're not inherently anything but human.”

These are the subtle insinuations we need to work on. These are the undercurrents of deep rooted sexism and patriarchal tendencies, let’s not be timid in recognizing and correcting them.

This feature has been published in The New Agenda

My Feature: What is the Color of Honor?

What is the Color of “Honor”?

By Emine Dilek

WVoN co-editor

Medine Mehmi was a 16-year-old girl who was buried alive under a chicken coop in Adiyaman* because she was “befriending” boys.

Her father and grandfather decided that their family’s “honor” was stained by her behavior. Her life was the price she had to pay.

As in most countries where honor killings go on, there are laws in place in Turkey to protect women, but they are not enforced and even if they were, families know how to get round them.

Many of these murders are kept secret, underreported and underestimated. A woman is murdered without a name and a gravestone, every minute of every day.

A girl is poisoned, stabbed, hanged, beheaded, burned, stoned or buried alive, every minute of every day, somewhere. “Honor” is worth more than her little life.

I could give you endless statistics and describe in detail here how girls and women murdered in the name of “honor” are abused under a banner of “dignity” and “tradition.”  

But one is too many. One is enough to cry out and scream - stop! Medine Mehmi is another one too many!

I grew up in Turkey, dark tea, warm bread, mountains and the Aegean Sea. And with the women, like secrets, sins, bitter sweet, with big black eyes, small chins, quiet and doleful.

They are also smart, frugal, modest, and beautiful. Great mothers, better wives, best friends; but always belonged to others, other then themselves.

Owned and purchased, sold like commodities, like cattle. They were also carriers of “honor,” custodian of the family’s dignity.

But the concept of “honor” in my country is lost in translation. Honor is an active verb in Turkish, something you do, achieve, hold. One does not live with “honor,” one carries it, works for it and shares it. It is a systemic disease mix of custom and confusion.

 

Being born a girl, and surviving it, is nothing short of a miracle if you are born in Asia, the Middle East or Africa, and especially if you were born into a Muslim family.

But it’s not just about religion.

“Honor” killings go on in Christian and Hindu communities too; but Iraqi Kurds, Palestinians in Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey are the worst offenders.

Yes, I can sugar-coat it and say, “Oh, it only happens in the rural areas, and Turkish women are mostly modern and educated and advanced,” but this would do nothing to heal the bleeding wound.

An artery is cut, blood is all over, and I can’t bring myself to think my arms and legs are working so forget the injury. I can’t ignore it.  

I really would like to see this precious “honor” once. What color is it? How does it smell? Sound?

Obviously it must sound better than a girl’s giggle, or the milky smell of a baby girl. It must be stronger than the bond between a father and his daughter,and more powerful than love. Sounds awfully similar to the other “h” word, doesn’t it? Hate.

So what needs to change?

What needs to change are wrong, outdated patriarchal tendencies, the definition of “girl”, “honor” and “love.”

What needs to change is the idea that a girl is less valuable than an ox or a goat or a horse. Having a vagina and a couple of breasts does not automatically make us less than  human. Men’s consciences, entire societies, beliefs, traditions, dogmas, tenets, these are what need to change.

It’s a tall order, I know. ,But when fathers start to smile at the first sight of their baby daughters, when the men start to think may be, just may be, this human being deserves to have a life and to keep her life regardless of her gender, we will proceed to a better world.

Like the old French proverb said “Hope is the dream of a soul awake.” 

Adiyaman* is a city in the Eastern Anatolian region of Turkey

 This feature has been published in The Vibe UK, Women's Views on News, w.e.a Women at Work, The New Agenda and Amazing Women Rock.  

DR. Brené Brown: The Gifts of Imperfection and Vulnerability

WHAT MEN CAN DO TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN by Michael Beasley Ⓥ

Be aware.

■Words are very powerful, especially when spoken by people with power over others. We live in a society in which words are often used to put women down, where calling a girl or woman a “bitch,” “freak,” “whore,” “baby,” or “dog” is common. Such language sends a message that females are less than fully human. When we see women as inferior, it becomes easier to treat them with less respect, disregard their rights, and ignore their well-being.

■Don’t fund sexism. Refuse to purchase any magazine, rent any video, subscribe to any Web site, or buy any music that portrays girls or women in a sexually degrading or abusive manner. Protest sexism in the media.

■Rape and relationship abuse won’t be taken seriously until everyone knows how common it is. In Australia alone, one in six adult women has experienced sexual assault since the age of 15. Approximately 99% of the perpetrators of sexual violencen are men. 45% of women sexually assaulted since the age of 15 had experienced more than one incident.

■Understand the arguments against pornography depicting adult women. Realize that the sex trade in this country is worth billions of dollars. Examine your thoughts about the existence of strip clubs, prostitution and related sex trade businesses. Question the purpose behind the proliferation of explicit and graphic sex sites on the Internet. Think about how eroticizing violent sex contributes to violence against women.

Speak up.

■You may never see a man abusing his partner or witness a rape, but you will see and hear attitudes and behaviors that degrade women and promote rape and abuse. When your best friend tells a joke about abusing women in some way, say you don’t find it funny. When you read an article that blames an abusive relationship survivor for being abused, write a letter to the editor. When laws are proposed that limit women’s rights, let politicians know that you won’t support them. Do anything but remain silent.

■Don’t engage in any forms of sexual harassment, such as wolf-whistling, cat-calling, unwanted touching, outrageous or inappropriate behavior. Women are not public property, available for our intrusions. Neither are men.

■Develop an awareness of the cultural supports for violence against women. Develop the ability to recognize myths which support violence against women.

■If a brother, friend, classmate, or teammate is abusing his female partner—or is disrespectful or abusive to girls and women in general—don’t look the other way. If you fell comfortable doing so, try to talk to him about it. Urge him to seek help. Or if you don’t know what to do, consult a friend, a parent, a professor, or a counselor. DON”T REMAIN SILENT.

Talk with women…

■About how violence against women and fear of violence against women affects their daily lives; about how they want to be supported if it has happened to them; about what they think men can do to prevent sexual violence. If you’re willing to listen, you can learn a lot from women about the impact of relationship abuse and how to stop it.

■Become an ally to the women in your life – do not participate in sexist behavior by objectifying or stereotyping women.

■Believe people when they tell you they’ve been raped or abused. Support what they say about it. Don’t ask about their behavior, what they were wearing, etc. Listen to them.

■Recognize that women neither ask for nor deserve to be raped or abused ever.

Talk with men…

■About how it feels to be seen as a potential abuser; about whether they know someone who’s been abused. Learn about how relationship abuse touches the lives of men and what we can do to stop it.

■Mentor and teach young boys about how to be men in ways that don’t involve degrading or abusing girls and women. Volunteer to work with gender violence prevention programs, including anti-sexist men’s programs. Lead by example.

■Approach gender violence as a MEN’s issue involving men of all ages and socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. View men not only as perpetrators or possible offenders, but as empowered bystanders who can confront abusive peers.

Confront Yourself

■Have the confidence to confront your own actions, beliefs, and opinions. Have the strength to look inside and admit your own faults and to commit to changing the way you think and act.

■Become educated and engaged. Attend training sessions, read books and articles, join a student group. Learn the myths and realities of violence against women and understand how our society condones it.

■Be aware of sexual stereotypes and how they influence attitudes and behaviors. Social roles and expectations may affect a man’s decisions about relationships. Men are taught that expressing feelings is not masculine. Examining your social role and learning ways to express feelings directly and non-violently can help to create deeper and more meaningful interpersonal relationships. You don’t have to prove yourself.

■Don’t have sex with anyone against their will. Be responsible with your penis. “Having an erection doesn’t mean you have to put it somewhere.” Take “no” for an answer, and heed the “no” equivalents (“stop,” “I don’t want to do that,” “I’m not ready,” etc.) Don’t assume that when women say “no” they really mean “maybe” or “yes.” It is never okay to use force or coercion. Don’t assume that because a woman dresses or flirts in a manner you consider to be sexy it means she wants to have sex with you.

■Don’t abuse girlfriends or partners. This includes controlling, intimidating, manipulative, threatening, and harmful behavior. Realize that abuse takes many forms, and that abuse is a choice. A partner always has the option of leaving the room or breaking up.