Two women wearing burqas shop for textiles at Kabul's main market on July 24. Although a rule imposed by Afghanistan's former Taliban regime requiring women to wear burqas at all times outdoors has been lifted, most women still wear the garments, either because they feel safer, or to follow the wishes of their families in what remains a conservative Islamic society. -Reuters photoGlenda Simms
ONE BENEFIT of globalisation lies in the access that we all have to information. No longer can the strengths and weaknesses of nation states lie hidden from international scrutiny. This revolution which has created the 'global village' offers a unique opportunity for women of the world to evaluate how far they have come along the road to true liberation and freedom from oppression.
In this process, women are confronted with many of the contradictions that still determine their life chances and choices. Some of those contradictions are highlighted in the January 2001 edition of Equality Now. This publication reported that in Kuwait women are still struggling for the right to vote. Even though women in Kuwait hold and have held high-profile positions such as director of the university, ambassador and senior public sector worker, in 1999 they were refused the right to vote by the defeat of a Bill which was brought forward to the National Assembly.
In 2000, five courageous male parliamentarians brought forward another Bill to grant political rights to the women of Kuwait. This Bill is yet to be considered by Parliament. According to Equality Now, the male politicians who opposed the granting of women suffrage often cite religious and social reasons for their opposition. They are quick to point out that a woman's role is essentially one that links her to hearth and home while men were designed by Allah to 'run things'.
KEEPING WOMEN BACK
In a real sense, the teachings of the Islamic Allah and the Christian God are conveniently used to keep 'women in their place'. But the women of societies such as Kuwait are fighting back. More and more of them are educated and they know their rights. "Despite the vehemence of the opposition, the movement for women's suffrage is gaining support and Kuwaiti women are hopeful that they will soon win their long-awaited political rights," asserts Equality Now.
At the same time that Kuwaiti women are fighting to vote, the young girls of Tanzania continue to face the knife in an inhumane cultural practice called 'female genital mutilation'. Even though these practices are forbidden by Tanzanian law, individuals and groups continue to defy the authorities. In December 1996 it was reported that 5000 girls were 'cut' in one ceremony and 20 of them died from medical complications.
This is a case of a Government which has passed a law but does very little to take action against those who defy the law. Could it be that the male legislators are not really opposed to the sexual repression of women at the deep structure of their psyche? Could it be that they 'hold their noses' and pass laws to give them a facade of respectability in the international arena and to get votes at the national level?
Another example of the continuing dehumanisation of women in the name of culture and societal practices detailed in Equality Now is an established practice of the abduction and rape of girls in Ethiopia. It is said that "in some regions of Ethiopia abduction is an old cultural practice used to take a girl as wife by force". According to the report, the girl is typically abducted by a group of young men and she is ritualistically raped by the one who desires her for his wife. Because the young woman has been forced to lose her virginity, her family generally agrees to her marriage to her rapist who might or might not have been known to her before her ordeal.
Ethiopian girls can only be protected from these barbaric 'cultural events' when the Government create the legal framework in which abduction and rape become criminal offences.
Another example of the precarious position of women globally can be seen in the dilemma faced by some women who have separated themselves physically from one geographical space while they remain committed to ideas of justice and human rights. One such woman was Zahra Kazemi. In June 2003 this Montreal photojournalist of Iranian origin was branded a spy and brutally murdered by the authorities in Iran.
Because Miss Kazemi had the privilege of Canadian citizenship her death created a diplomatic row between Iran and Canada.
David Warren in a commentary in the July 17 edition of the Canadian daily The National Post pointed out that "Iranians get beaten to death every day and the victims of the regime have included not only talented female photographers but many of Iran's most gifted writers, artist and thinkers." He went on to suggest the Canadian citizenship is what distinguished Zahra Kazemi from the rest of the victims of Iran's regime.
In the same edition of The National Post, Mary Vallis argues that "Miss Kazemi's gender may have compounded the severity of her beating." She quoted Dr. Kaveh Rod who asserts that in Iran "women are subordinate to men under the current government."
AN AFFRONT
It is conceivable that Miss Kazemi's courageous act of using her camera to record the atrocities of the Iranian regime was not only an affront politically, but was totally unacceptable because she was a woman who dared to be "like a man". After all, women are not expected to challenge male dominated regimes, nor are they expected to demonstrate their intellect, their courage and their commitment to social and political changes.
In this case the Canadian immigrant of Iranian origins was also special because she had Canadian citizenship. But Zahra Kazemi's life story and the responses to her brutal death must not be seen as the triumph of the ideas of the western world. In the true spirit of global feminism, women must have a clear idea of what behaviours are right or wrong, primitive or civilised, just or unjust in any society of the world.
In short, the processes of globalisation and rapid communication create well needed guideposts on which we can hang the best aspects of our humanity while we respect the positives of diverse views and ways of being. Women, therefore, must act on the realisation that Western and so-called modern democracies continue to do business with regimes who treat women very badly. The situation of women is either ignored or bargained away in the crass international market place.
Even societies that accommodate the mutilation, rapes and murders of women and girls are allowed to sit as equals at the international tables when economic and political alliances are being forged. Since not all Third World women can have the privilege of western citizenship, there is a need for deepening forces of solidarity of women across cultures and political divides.
Virginia Guzman, the author of Gender Relations in a Global World, argues that, "Globalisation emancipates only a select number of human beings; those who have the ability to free themselves from the territorial restrictions that characterise industrial societies. Public sphere continue to be the preserve of the élites who free themselves of local shackles, and continue to be out of the reach of the communicational capacity of the people who remain in the region."
FEW WOMEN HOLDING THE
REINS OF POWER
In most cases only a few women are attached to this group of international élites who sit at the bargaining tables. The majority of women and poor men continue to languish under the most debilitating aspects of the cultural practices that are designed to keep them in their places.
So now that technology has expanded our global view, when will the governments of the world be held accountable to the international conventions that they have signed and ratified?
Will we ever see the day when all women can assert their God-given right to be treated justly and equitably? Will there be a time when little girls can walk the streets and byways of the urban and rural sectors of their societies without fear of violence, sexual assaults, harassment and insults and deaths?
In order to get to positive answers on these issues we must be unceasing in our endeavours to bring these issues to public attention, not just for intellectual ruminations but in order that the authorities will develop policies and strategies that clearly target the systemic barriers to change barriers which are strengthened by cultural practices, historical precedence and a deep psychological blueprint that manifests itself in the oppression and marginalisation of women and girls in nearly every country of the world.
Glenda Simms is executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs.
