With every step forward that women in Afghanistan take, violent incidents highlight the fact many still struggle for basic human rights eight years after the ouster of the conservative Taliban regime.

In a speech commemorating International Women’s Day on Sunday, President Hamid Karzai challenged Afghan religious leaders to denounce violence against women and reject traditional practices that treat women as property.

“The forced marriages, the selling of women — these are against Islam,” Karzai told some 600 women gathered in a high school auditorium in the capital, Kabul.

The Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 forced women to stay at home and banned them from appearing in public without a body-covering burqa.

There have surely been improvements, as the article details (it’s an AP article, and they are very picky about having those reprinted). Thank heavens for that.

But that is not the end of the story. The same day President Karzai was speaking to this group of women, a woman, a widow, set herself on fire to escape the poverty in which she lived, and from which she saw no escape:

The incident occurred in an area where scores of women have killed themselves by self-immolation to escape abuse, forced marriages or other oppressive customs. As a widow, Bibi would have been on the bottom rung of traditional Afghan society — undesirable for marriage and unemployable because of her gender.

Even in the cities, where women have made great strides in employment and recognition, there are signs of backsliding in recent years. Karzai noted in his speech that the number of women working in government ministries has actually dropped to 21 percent from an earlier figure of 32 percent.

A U.N. report this week on human rights in Afghanistan said that “threats and intimidation against women in public life or who work outside the home have seen a dramatic increase.”

Things are getting better in some ways for women, but too much is still the same, or getting worse.

And not just in Afghanistan, unfortunately, but in Iraq in which mothers are selling their daughters into prostitution (H/T to Cheneywatch.com). This TIME article describes the far-reaching extent of this practice, with many of the daughters not yet teenagers, some going to our close friends in the Middle East. For the sake of space, I am not reprinting the whole article here, but I urge you to read it all:

…That underworld is a place where nefarious female pimps hold sway, where impoverished mothers sell their teenage daughters into a sex market that believes females who reach the age of 20 are too old to fetch a good price. The youngest victims, some just 11 and 12, are sold for as much as $30,000, others for as little as $2,000. “The buying and selling of girls in Iraq, it’s like the trade in cattle,” Hinda (an undercover human rights worker) says. “I’ve seen mothers haggle with agents over the price of their daughters.”

The trafficking routes are both local and international, most often to Syria, Jordan and the Gulf (primarily the United Arab Emirates). The victims are trafficked illegally on forged passports, or “legally” through forced marriages. A married female, even one as young as 14, raises few suspicions if she’s travelling with her “husband.” The girls are then divorced upon arrival and put to work. (See Iraq’s return to “normalcy”.)

Nobody knows exactly how many Iraqi women and children have been sold into sexual slavery since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, and there are no official numbers because of the shadowy nature of the business. Baghdad-based activists like Hinda and others put the number in the tens of thousands. Still, it remains a hidden crime; one that the 2008 US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report says the Iraqi government is not combating. Baghdad, the report says, “offers no protection services to victims of trafficking, reported no efforts to prevent trafficking in persons and does not acknowledge trafficking to be a problem in the country.”

Mere children are being sold into sexual slavery in Iraq, and it has gotten WORSE under our watch. Sadly there is more, horrifying information in this article, but Hinda’s experience is pertinent:

Hinda the activist-investigator also knows what’s its like to be betrayed by family and considered human merchandise. Raped at 16, she was disowned by her family and left homeless. In many parts of the Arab world, the stigma of compromised chastity, even if it was stolen, is such that victims are at best outcasts and at worst killed for “dishonoring” their family or community. Desperate and destitute, Hinda turned to prostitution.

Now 33, she is using her knowledge of the industry to infiltrate trafficking rings across the country. She gathers information about the victims, where they are from, how much they’re sold for and who is buying them. Most often she poses as a buyer for overseas clients, a cover that enables her to snap pictures of victims and claim that they are for her potential customers. She drags out the negotiations for several days, knowing that the victims are usually sold during that period. Playing a disappointed pimp helps keep her cover intact, she says. She can’t rescue the girls, but the hope is that when the government decides to take trafficking seriously, her work and that of others will eventually help prosecute offenders and identify victims. She moves away from each trafficking ring as quickly as she can. To linger would be to invite suspicion.

But these days, she says suspicion is getting harder to avoid. She has been beaten before, by the security guards of pimps who suspect her of encouraging young victims to escape or offering them help. But in the past week she has received several death threats, some so frightening and persistent that she penned a farewell letter to her mother. “I’m scared. I’m scared that I’ll be killed,” she says, wiping away her tears. “But I will not surrender to that fear. If I do it means I’ve given up and I won’t do that. I have to work to stop this.”

So do we. But not just in Iraq, or Afghanistan. We, too, have a government that needs to work to stop this abuse of women. I have written before about domestic violence, and rape, but in more general terms. Today, though, it will be more specific. Today, I speak out for our women in the military. Yes, I said the women in our military. More than 1 in 4 women, officers and enlisted, are either raped or sexually assaulted. More than 25% of our women in uniform are sexually assaulted. And they are assaulted by fellow military personnel (96%). These women are putting their lives on the line for US, and while in the service of our country, over 25% are assaulted in the most horrendous way possible for a woman (at least in my opinion).

The statistics above came from a House panel on Friday, March 7, 2009. Again, thanks to Cheneywatch.com for bringing these to my attention. If you do not have time to watch all 4 of them, please watch the first one:

I am sickened by this, absolutely sickened. But it is cultural, unfortunately, here in the States. Valuing men above women, using women as a means to an end, using women as objects, treating them with callous disregard and with violence.

In our military, where women go to serve their nation, too, too many are being subjected to the most despicable form of violence, taking something by force that can never be returned, and from which most never fully recover. By their contemporaries. With whom they are forced to remain in contact. Can you even begin to imagine the psychological effects this has on them?

We saw the most qualified person, a woman, with the majority of support by members of her party, forced to concede her victory to a lesser qualified, far more inexperienced man. This was able to happen because of the tacit acceptance of rampant sexism and outright misogyny (as a reminder – misogyny means HATRED of women), perpetrated by men in that party and in the media, as well as from the women who wanted, no, craved, men’s approval. It is a matter of degrees, and in this country, we have made it quite clear – even the very best, most qualified women are not as good, not as WORTHY, as the worst of con men with little to offer.

And this has effects on all of us. The lessons it teaches us, our daughters, our nieces, our grandchildren, is that they are less than, they are tools to be used, they are objects. Like Afghanistan and Iraq, while some strides may be made, there is always a price to be paid, and too many women in our country, in our military, are paying that price. That is simply unacceptable, and it must stop. Now.

Hell, Obama ran a very negative campaign against HILLARY (remember those “Harry and Louise” ads? NAFTA ads?). The issue seems to be “robo-calls” connecting Obama to – wait for it – AYERS!!! How DARE the McCain campaign say something that is TRUE about Obama’s history??

Yet, both Biden and Degeneres act as if JOHN MCCAIN, and McCain alone, has changed his entire character. Mr. Hope-y Change-y Unicorn is spreading sweetness and light wherever he goes, apparently, and John McCain has completely morphed into Darth Vader or something. Take a look:

Yeah, okay. I guess he didn’t hear Obama claim that supporters at a Palin rally yelled, “Kill him!”, a claim debunked by none other than the Secret Service. I don’t know about you, but with Obama’s problems with “truthiness,” I’ll take the Secret Service’s word over Obama. I guess Biden hasn’t watched any of Obama’s ads. Or seen the tee shirts worn by the Obama supporters, beginning with the “Bros Before Hos” and escalating to the vulgar Sarah Palin tee shirts. Or his supporters who call a 12 year old girl a racist for wearing a Palin tee shirt. Or the man who had his 2006 Lexus LS 430 scratched with “KKK” on it, and American flag burned on it, and some other damage done to it (just so you know, this model, new, cost close to $70,000. That’s a mighty expensive piece of property to “vandalize.”). Oh, what prompted this attack? The man had the audacity to have a McCain/Palin sticker on it. How DARE he?!? Apparently, that is what the thugs who trashed his car seemed to think, anyway.

Oh wait – here is one that is McCain specific! Yes – one of McCain’s offices, right here in South Cackalacki, was defaced in York County with the claim that “Republican means Slavery.” Well, hell, Biden himself has engaged in race baiting as a manipulative ploy.

But McCain has changed? Are we to infer, then, that Obama has always been an arrogant misogynist and liar whose supporters can act anyway they see fit without fear of repercussion? So it would seem, anyway.

Oh, but it gets better. Here is the second part of the interview:

Did you notice the glaring omission here by Biden when Degeneres asked about Proposition 8? When he said he would vote against it and all of that? Well, here’s a little reminder:

Despite appearances to the contrary, OBAMA DOES NOT SUPPORT SAME SEX MARRIAGE! It was disingenuous at best to frame it the way BOTH of them did. Degeneres asked about an initiative on which Biden would NOT be voting, so he could say whatever he damn well PLEASED, but did NOT ask him where the Obama Camp stands on same sex marriage. I expected better from Degeneres, at least, because she certainly DID ask John McCain about it.

Anyway – this whole thing of painting McCain as being incredibly negative for looking into Obama’s history, and denying the 18 months worth of negative campaigning from the Obama camp, is absurd. I know some of it is just plain politics, but some – a LOT – is how it is reported (or not) in the MSM. Even when reports come out proving Obama is more negative in his campaigning, the MSM turn it around on McCain, and talk CONSTANTLY about his “anger” problem. Wow. So this is the new spin, just to keep you updated – McCain has totally changed his entire character, and Obama is merely trying to do what is best for the country. Got it? You must ignore all facts and evidence to the contrary, and simply accept that Obama will bring a kinder, gentler Administration to the White House. Yeah, right. A little “truthiness” wouldn’t hurt right about now from the Obama camp – oh, wait – that’s right. Joe Biden DID actually speak a little ‘truthiness,” much to The One’s dismay – claiming that Obama will be tested, and tested early by international factions. Oh, goody – that’s JUST what the country needs in the midst of economic hardship – “testing.” Well, thanks, Joe, for finally telling the truth about SOMETHING in this campaign. I reckon there’s a first time for everything! I take that back – you also acknowledged that Hillary Clinton would be a better VP than you, and was definitely qualified to be President, unlike your running mate, so there was that – have to give credit where credit is due! Ahem. Now, if you will only start telling the truth about your race-baiting, and character assassination of John McCain, we’ll be in business…

I just finished reading Ms. Brownworth’s piece, “Why Do They Hate Us.” It moved me to tears. As one who has followed this election campaign VERY closely, I have been horrified, and furious, at the treatment of an attorney who worked for poor women and children, a Former First Lady of Arkansas, a Former First Lady of the United States, and a TWO-TERM Sitting US Senator by the Mainstram Media, Senator Barack Obama, and the DNC.

It is simply staggering how accepted sexism, even misogyny, is in this country. It is mind boggling that Main Stream Media can make demeaning, disparaging remarks about a US Senator because she is a WOMAN. I am a lifelong (50-year-old), straight-party-ticket Democratic voter, or I should say I was, until the treatment of Senator Clinton, and ALL women, by the DNC elite and Senator Obama.

I have now left the party to which I have dedicated myself, my money, and my vote. (I might add, my decision was reinforced when the RBC/DNC decided to take actual votes cast for one candidate, Clinton, and give them to a candidate who was not even on the ballot, in addition to the sexism, even misogyny, in which the above three have participated this year.)

And I am saddened. As one who actively worked for women’s equality for over 32 years, it is incredibly discouraging and disheartening to see how quickly people – men AND women – revert to blatant sexism, almost with GLEE. They act as if they have been holding back these comments and feelings, but are now free to let loose with their derogatory comments. There is not a DOUBT in my mind that if these same comments were expressed in a racist manner, they would – RIGHTLY – be decried far and wide. Yet, since they were *only* about a woman, well, haha,” weren’t they funny, and we all know they are true anyway, right? Nudge, nudge, wink wink,” it was just fine. Sigh.

And now, the more qualified candidate (IMHO), the one who has been a STALWART supporter of women, children, the LGBT community, and numerous other groups as diverse as veterans and Native Americans, has been subjugated to the less qualified, far less experienced, male candidate. It seems we have not moved very far at all…

Thank you, Ms. Brownworth, for writing what many of us have experienced, and for pointing out the cruel facts of what it means to be a woman in this country, in this world. We have much, much work to do…

Sincerely,
The Rev. Amy

And juxtapose this to Obama’s recent remarks about how Senator Clinton was “brutalized,” equating the treatment his wife got during this campaign season to the treatment Senator Clinton has endured. No apology, no acknowledgement of his, and others, horrific treatment of her during this campaign. Just deflection, and “look over there.” I’m sorry, but from where I sit, Michelle Obama has been treated pretty fairly by the MSM. The grief she has gotten has been more a DIRECT response to what she has SAID, not that she is an African American woman. There is a world of difference between the two.

And now seeing these articles and photographs of Senator Clinton and Senator Obama together, him with his hand on her back, just makes me cringe. Frankly, it makes me almost physically ill. See, I have done a lot of work in the Domestic Violence movement. And I have seen this cycle before: the man abuses, attacks, and lashes out at the woman. The woman makes excuses for, and accepts blame from, the man for his attacks. Not unlike Senator Clinton saying now that they are friends, respect each other, and support each other. I know what respect looks and feels like – Senator Obama has shown NONE for Senator Clinton. Senator McCain has, but Obama? No. Seeing these photos of her with him now reminds me of battered women wearing sunglasses to hide the bruises, and saying, “Oh, he didn’t really mean it. It was my fault, really, I shouldn’t have made him mad. He really does love me, in his own way, really! Don’t be mad at him!” Not only did Obama make sexist remarks about Senator Clinton, INCLUDING at the fundraiser the other night, but he reaped the benefit of the sexist and misogynistic remarks made by others, the veiled death threats (talking to YOU, Keith), the threats of violence, the degradation, not on her record, or on her speeches, but because she was a woman. As Ms. Brownworth wrote,

Clinton was the focal point for American misogyny, writ long and large. She was tough enough to take it and not cry foul, but why do women and girls have to take it? Why are we called bitches and cunts if we speak the truth about our lives? We are treated as less-than-human in a myriad of ways in our society. We are victims of violence, discrimination, and hate, and that diminishes us daily as human beings.

(Vol. 18, #6, p 34)

And now, for the facts I mentioned above. These are not pleasant. Stop reading here if you do not want to be disturbed. Okay. Here I go, from Ms. Brownworth’s article:
Vaginal destruction:

For over a decade, war has raged in the eastern province of Congo. Gangs of militia have preyed on women and girls and made rape and vaginal destruction major tools of that war. Vaginal destruction – an act so violent a woman can never again have vaginal sex or bear a child – was defined as a war crime in April…In Congo, women have been raped so brutally and by so many men at one time that some have been eviscerated. Eviscerated by rape. That is how much they hate us. (p 34)

Honor killings:

What has never made the news is that nearly all of the murders of women in Palestinian territory have nothing to do with the political situation there: They are the result of honor killings…Honor killings are a leading cause of death among women in the Middle East. Since the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the number of honor killings has risen exponentially because the once secular nation is now an Islamic theocracy. (pp34-35)

Lest you think all of this violence is only in other countries, here are some U.S. statistics:

One in six women will be raped in her lifetime. One in four has survived child sexual abuse or an incestuous relationship with a male relative. One in three has been the victim of domestic violence. Over 1.2 million women are forcibly raped by an ex-husband or ex-boyfriend each year. The leading cause of death among pregnant women is murder by a spouse or boyfriend. Four out of every five female murder victims in the United States were killed by men they knew: a spouse or boyfriend, a male relative, a co-worker…This means millions of American men – men we know, men we may love or have loved – hate us enough to rape, main, or kill us. Millions. It’s a difficult reality to face: Women and girls are so hated that our lives and bodies mean nothing to these men.

(p34)
Brownworth continues,

Perhaps that reality and the inchoate knowledge of it is why it was easy for people to refer to Clinton with the vilest of hate speech and feel no remorse and receive no recrimination from either the general populace or the media… (p34)

Wow, Speaker Pelosi – it seems that SOMEONE wasn’t too busy to document all of the sexism and misogyny, even if YOU were too busy to do so…(Ref: Pelosi’s interview with Greta Van Susteren this past week on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.)

As I said above, Obama did not even have to say despicable comments himself – having others do so as his surrogates was sufficient. That is the whole thing with domestic violence – the THREAT of it is sufficient to keep many women in line. Their partners may not engage in violence themselves (and psychological and emotional battery still counts as domestic violence, by the way. Some would argue, convincingly, I think, that they are worse as they are more insidious, and stay with the woman much, much longer than physical abuse), as other men engaging in this behavior is enough for the fear to be present in most, if not all, women.

More from Brownworth:

It doesn’t matter if we are siting U.S. Senators or sitting at home taking care of our children or sitting by a stream getting water right before we are gang-raped. It doesn’t matter if we are in the United States or Congo or Gaza or Iraq. The one common denominator for women, the thing that unites us, is that we are all hated equally for our gender.

To some men – even the men who loved us before they raped us or beat us or murdered us – we are all cunts. For ourselves – and for the women and girls of Congo, Gaza, Iraq, and every other nation where women are being eviscerated in body and spirit – we must stand up and speak out against the global terrorism of women and girls. (p35)

And so, as much as I admire and respect Senator Clinton, I cannot, and will not, participate in this Party-, this Country’s- sanctioned cycle of violence. Please stop asking me, us, to do so. I deserve better. YOU deserve better. We all deserve better than to keep feeding into this cycle. I, for one, will not.

I’ve been out of town visiting my family for the past several days, and it’s for the best that I haven’t had the energy to blog, because I needed to let the news about Tavis Smiley resigning from the Tom Joyner Morning Show truly soak in and marinate before I came here to vent. There is a lot of speculation about why he is leaving the show, but he says in a statement released on Friday:

“Contrary to what has been suggested, I have decided to clear some things off my plate so that I can devote my time and attention to some exciting and empowering projects.”

I don’t know if this statement is true to word, but if I were him, I would have resigned because I was sick and tired of the death threats, tired of the completely unfounded insults and just damn tired of trying to make a people see some of the most basic necessities of survival. Examine your surroundings and assess the situation… Other groups are doing it. Do you think any number of organizations that have endorsed Obama have done so without at least attempting to make sure he has their interests at heart? Do you think they haven’t requested, in many cases, and received some sort of idea as to how he feels about their issue or cause?

But, the majority of African-American Obama supporters are in a sick fog of emotions that convinces them that it is okay for him to ignore our issues while campaigning–because after all, we’ll all be going down the Soul Train Line and doing the Soulja Boy and the Electric Slide at the Inaugural Ball after he wins and it will all have been worth it in the end…….silly, silly fools.

Tavis never once said a negative word about Obama. Not once. He merely cautioned Black America to truly examine him along with the other candidates and not simply hand him our votes just because he is Black. I believe that’s only common sense, considering the fact that most African-Americans don’t even know who Obama is [hell, who does???]! They only see his skin tone and that’s more than enough for them. If Colin Powell had run, even though he’d more than likely have run as a Republican, at least we know who he is. Same for that kook Alan Keyes. We know who those guys are. But Obama, this flash in the pan, does not deserve unquestioned support. The mere idea is unconscionable to me.

Even in the comment section of the previous post here, some idiot calls this little water cooler in the blogosphere the Uncle Tom Network. Probably hasn’t read a single post outside of the NO-bama posts, but feels comfortable enough to call this the Uncle Tom Network. The ignorance is palpable. In a Washington Post article Saturday, Roland Martin, that fat stooge, says this about Tavis Smiley’s resignation:

“You have to expect to get heat the moment you decide to offer critical comments about politics or social issues,” Martin said. “You have to be tough enough to take it.”

Added Martin: “For a long time, Tavis was used to people applauding him for taking tough stances. . . . This was the first time he had taken a position that flat-out ticked off his core audience. But [criticism] comes with the territory.”

It’s one thing to “criticize” with concrete examples of why you believe a person is wrong in their view. It’s quite another to simply say that someone is “hating” or to call them an “Uncle Tom”. Oh, that’s right. They couldn’t exactly say, “Look at all of the work Obama’s done as Chairman of that Senate Foreign Relations Sub-Committee,” because he hasn’t done a damn thing. They also couldn’t say, “Look at how well he organized those neighborhoods and looked out for minorities in Chicago,” because we should all know by now that he and his pal Rezko sold those folks up the river and let a number of his “constituents” freeze their asses off in the dead of winter due to political expediency. Those were Black asses freezing might I add.

Tavis, keep your head up. I can only imagine what you have been going through, seeing as how you’ve been trying to slap some sense into millions of folks on a weekly basis. I’m sure you will come out on the other side of this even stronger than you are now. Tom [Joyner], you are as much to blame for this as your listening audience. You guys sat in that booth and had some great laughs at Tavis’s expense over the past few months when if anybody, Tom, you should have been the voice of reason. There will be a high price to pay when this is all said and done. A very high one. So, let me go ahead and issue a collective, “kiss my ass” to all of you Obama supporters who will wake up soon with one helluva hangover, wishing you hadn’t drank that kool-aid…..regretting how you’ve wronged so many.

Sugar N Spice