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May 03, 2006
Feminist utopias
News flash! Saddam Wasn't a Feminist. Well, duh, you might say. But some on the left have already started to spin Saddam's Iraq as a time of equal opportunity for women. This includes equal opportunity to be falsely imprisoned, tortured (with the added bonus of guaranteed gang rape), murdered, and having your culture threatened with obliteration (if you were a Kurd or Marsh Arab), but they don't mention that.
This reminds me of the way communists and fellow travelers spun the Soviet regime.
Women in Russia were doctors! Engineers! Got the same pay as men! I guess that's some consolation for having to get permission to travel anywhere, tiny apartments shared with your inlaws, few food or clothing choices, stultifying Social Realist art, pervasive censorship, having no access to birth control except abortion, and the ever-present threat of being sent to Siberia if you said the wrong thing to the wrong person.
There is no doubt that women in Iraq are threatened by theocratic militancy that Saddam's regime kept at bay, and that they will need constant support to hold their own in the new government and enforce their right to be secular if they choose. (For that matter, many Iraqi men want a secular civic space as well.) But let's not paint Saddam's era with a rosy glow.
Judith | 05/03/06 at 09:27 PM | Categories: - Useful idiots
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Comments
This is no surprise, Judith. To strong elements of the feminist movement the only thing worth considering is the relative place of women--well, except in the Arab-Israel conflict, but see the Bensky Corollary to Everything (which Meryl Yourish calls the Exception Clause and can be found on her website) for that.
Alex Bensky | May 4, 2006 07:09 AM
But Alex, the feministas think that Palestinian women are "liberated" equals to their freedom fighting menfolk, at least the buttons being distributed at the feminist bookstore here in Toronto suggest.
Lynne | May 4, 2006 02:07 PM
Judith, who exactly are these feminists you're talking about, who are paiting Saddam's rule in rosy colors? I'd really like to know.
Ampersand | May 7, 2006 01:15 AM
Just a side- the Soviet female doctors were not paid the same. The majority of doctors in the Soviet Union and currently in Russia are female and they are paid significantly less than doctors in the US and other ocuntries.
eas | August 18, 2006 12:01 AM
