The book is narrated by a man, and is in some ways his own coming of age story -- so perhaps an odd choice for a book club focused on women's human rights.
But the core of the book is a violent attack on the young man's mother, an attack in which the attacker remains out of reach and the woman and her family confront the personal cost of violence against women. As we have read elsewhere, rape is not a "women's issue" (it's a human issue) and it is not a "third-world issue": it is a global issue that has long-reaching cost to men and women, to communities and economies, and to governments.
In case readers would like to consider how widespread or current this issue is, HRW just released preliminary information on a report they have been working on in Canada. Violence against native women there, as is also often the case in the USA, has not been taken seriously. We may have a better idea of why after having read the book, but from the HRW article, we know that there are disproportionately high numbers of indigenous missing and murdered women and girls in Canada, and that their numbers are not even being tracked now due to budget cuts.
We should have the opportunity to confront some really challenging questions about the intersections of race, gender, culture and violence in the US through this book, following up on our readings about juvenile justice, integration in the southern US, and modern underage prostitution.
Editor Minky Worden is HRW Director of Global Initiatives; it is impeccably researched and founded in historical and global perspectives; some of the chapters are written by amazing HRW researchers and we have seen the results of their work in the form of HRW briefings, reports, and press releases; there is an incredible collection of HRW photographs; and the book is a collection of some of the most influential voices speaking on the cutting-edge issues in the area of women's human rights.
We will be reading this book in two sections in November and December.
In the 1980s, the Guerrilla Girls (an anonymous feminist punk protest group) put posters with statements like "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?" on the sides public busses; they have used shocking and humorous imagry to challenge and unsettle. They protest sexism, racism and corruption--particularly in the art world and in visual culture, but also more broadly. They are still active.
The Pussy Riot group, founded in 2011, consisted of about 12 members, who protected their identity by wearing brightly colored clothing and balaclavas during public performances; they modeled some of their protest strategy and their identification with superheroes after the Guerilla Girls. The superhero theme comfortably travels accross cultural borders, and supporters held "superhero flash mobs", performances and protests organized on facebook and elsewhere, after members of the band were arrested by Russian authorities. Their superhero identity has clearly been adopted as girl-empowering in the US and western Europe; big-name musicians, local artists, and even politicians have joined the global outcry. A German town even nominated the band for the Luther Prize, in honor of the Martin Luther, the man who protested the linkages between Catholic Church and state, leading to the Protestant Revolution.
Reactions inside Russia are far more mixed. In fact, there is strong resistance to the idea that western style feminism is even needed in Russia; the group's song was more than a song about girl-power: it took on the Russian Orthodox Church, social conservatism, and the growing linkages between church and state. Everything about the band is confrontational, squarely in the punk-protest tradition.
These kinds of protests bring up questions about how to approach problems in society, how to advocate for change. People disagree about the distance between aspirations and what "really" can be attained; they disagree about how to fight for that change. The choice of confrontational protest like that of Pussy Riot illustrated this tension for our group: there is an ongoing challenge for feminists and for human rights advocates who must dance the line between integrating into the system (in order to advocate change) and being ghettoized (and therefore shut out of mainstream political discourse). To integrate into the system, groups have to be in for the long-haul; they must be able to stay on-message; they must find ways to re-define the terms of the game. Protest movements like Pussy Riot are not taking this kind of strategy, but they might help jump-start certain issues from the outside. And they might just end up being absorbed or ghettoized.
Human Rights Watch was there for the verdict that sent two members of the band to prison and released on on probation. Particularly disturbing and important for those concerned with the future of feminist thought and political action are the conclusions of the Russian courts in this case:
"The judge also argued that feminism, ultimately, was at the core of
the “religious hatred” charge. “Feminism is not a violation of the law
and is not a crime,” the verdict stated. “Although feminism is not a
religious precept, its proponents cross the line into the spheres of
decency, morals, family relations.”(HRW October 2012)
In other words, instead of ignoring Pussy Riot's feminist claims, the court decided to redefine feminism as a hate-based, anti-religion ideology. This allowed the court to redefine the Pussy Riot protest as hate crime, and not political protest, which would be protected under free speech laws. In doing so, the judge put feminist thought ("ideology") in the same category as hate groups that attack people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, language. This is a dangerous and troubling redefinition of hate crime, and in spite of the obvious theoretical and practical idiocy of the claim, the strategy is potentially devastating.
We are reading a collection of short works about Pussy Riot and their recent trial:
Basing their feminist punk style of protest on the Guerrilla Girls, the punk band/artist collective Pussy Riot and their ongoing trial for their 'punk prayer' protesting Putin has illuminated the state of Russian legal system. The dark comedy of trial, the pre-conviction incarceration the three women have endured, and some anger they face all illustrate what so many Russian activists risk if they are singled out. This shows how important it is to seriously consider the state of Russian civil society more broadly. The trial has also brought to the foreground some challenging questions about art as protest, and the commodification of artistic protest. Solidarity from
artists and activists all over the world means that the trial is
forcing a conversation about politics, power, and feminism at a global
level: and dialogue was the original goal of the group's action. But activists like Pussy Riot face an uphill battle. Many in Russia believe Russian women are already powerful enough in their femininity, and that they are past any need for feminism. But there are serious problems in Russian society that suggest otherwise, not least a problematic disinterest in violence against women.
Those of you interested in the historical context of this trial may want to look into the 1964 trial of Joseph Brodsky,
a Jewish Russian poet who was targeted as anti-Soviet. This trial was
also full of dark comedy, and apparently the PR defendants themselves
have pointed out similarities (thanks to Rachel, HRW's deputy director
of Europe and Central Asia for this information).
For even more background, check out the HRW page for latest news on human rights in Russia.
This is a detailed account of life in Annawadi, a half-acre slum of 3,000 people in Mumbai, India. She chose this place because it was "fraught with possibilities". Boo spent years in this slum near the airport and her book is a detailed description of the lives of some of the people who live there, including Asha, a woman who creates problems and then gets people to pay her to solve them; Fatima, who sets herself on fire over a dispute with a neighbor; and Abdul who makes a living selling trash and gets caught up in a murder charge.
From HRW reporting, we know that caste discrimination, accountability of the criminal justice system concerning gender-based violence and political participation, and issues of maternal health care are three key issues. Particularly appropriate for our focus this month, HRW is focusing on the responsibility of the Indian government to protect vulnerable communities--and usually among the most vulnerable in these communities are women. Keep an eye on the HRW India page for press releases and updates.
For a very detailed description of the work Katherine Boo did to write this book, and to read about her background and earlier work (which is impressive) see the New York Times.
In fact, the NYT article also contains a very interesting example of global media streams. In the article, we read an account of how her New Yorker article of 2009 (which she wrote in reaction to the Slumdog Millionaire movie) was translated and read by people in Mumbai: and as she was still doing research for this book, the people in Annawadi heard about it and her approach actually improved her reputation in the slum. Even after the publication of the book, the residents of the slum apparently not only read the book but support and appreciate Katherine Boo's work--despite the fact that her writing exposes some of the most intimate, difficult and painful things in their lives.
Entrepreneurial spirit is the motivating force behind Gayle Tzemach Lemmon's book about Kamila, a young woman who puts her career goals of being a professor on hold when the Taliban take hold of Kabul. Because of the new rules forbidding women from working outside the home and the ongoing civil war, Kamila's family is split apart and their hope for survival depends on the bravery, inventiveness and skill of Kamila and her young siblings. She starts a dressmaking business in their family home, and turns it into a community hub, training center, and career. She continues her work now, helping to build more businesses run by women.
One of the powerful and inspirational lessons of this story is that Kamila and her family manage this in Kabul, under the Taliban, with no outside help. Not only does the dressmaking business help Kamila's own family, she ends up employing about 100 other neighborhood women and girls. This is for Kamila a conscious decision, based on a sense of responsibility for her community and country as well as for family.
There are a few ways this book builds on insights from previous book club discussions. Kamila's story illustrates the thesis of Half the Sky: that the effect of investing in girls' education and entrepreneurship can be a powerful force, and can help lift entire communities out of poverty. Her story also illustrates how important it is (and how common it is) for women in these restrictive societies to have the support of their husbands, fathers and brothers. We discussed this in the case of Iran most recently. In Kamila's case, her father was a staunch advocate for his daughters, and he insisted that they all complete their education. Her brother worked hard and at personal risk to support her business by working as her escort, helping with the purchase of supplies and with the embroidery work. A male neighbor who worked for the Taliban warned Kamila she needed to be extra careful about Taliban searches in the neighborhood.
We decided to read this book in part because of the HRW report that was just released, "I Had to Run Away", documenting the continued discrimination against women in Afghanistan under laws against "moral crimes". Women who have escaped abusive marriages or who have been raped or forced into prostitution are imprisoned under these laws, instead of being protected from their abusers. This is a particularly useful juxtaposition, I hope. In Kamila's words:
Money is power for women. If women have their own income to bring to the family, they can contribute and make decisions. Their brothers, their husbands, and their entire families will have respect for them... if we can train a woman who never had the chance to study, and she can start her own business, it will be good for the whole family as well as for the community. Her work will create jobs for other people and pay for both her boys and her girls to be educated.
A few other very notable things in this story:
the path-breaking work of Samantha Reynolds and the UN Habitat strategy of empowering local women to rebuild their communities
the business consulting work that is Kamila's new project: Kaweyan
the international organizations that support entrepreneurs like Kamila: business professionals supporting entrepreneurs in conflict-affected areas such as BPeace; humanitarian organizations that support training for local businesswomen such as Mercy Corps
of course, the rigorous reporting and focused advocacy work of HRW
Our discussion this month (as is often the case) took us to some unexpected places, and expanded our knowledge of women's rights issues.
A key theme this time was complexity.
Women's issues in Saudi Arabia are nothing if not complex.
In the middle of this complexity is the undeniable fact: male guardianship laws and sex segregation in Saudi Arabia are so extreme that women face massive insecurity, lack personal autonomy and experience violations of even the most basic human rights. They are Perpetual Minors in the eyes of the law.
Qanta Ahmed, the author of In the Land of Invisible Women (a moderate Muslim and a British-born, American-trained doctor of Pakistani descent) was a particularly helpful guide through some of this complexity. This is because she was well-positioned to confront a lot of this complexity in a very personal way-she was both an outsider (a foreigner, with no real knowledge of Wahhabism) and an insider (a Muslim, highly educated, a doctor) in the relatively elite social context of the military hospital ICU where she worked.
Imprisonment and Empowerment
One of the most contested and complex issues is obviously the (often violently enforced) extensive covering of women in public. Even before the author, Qanta, lands in Saudi Arabia, she is worried about the appropriateness of her clothing. The first thing that she does after settling in her apartment is to go shopping for an abbaya with her secretary. Qanta passionately declares:
"... polyester imprisonment by compulsion is ungodly and (like the fiber) distinctly man-made."
But as soon as she puts the abbaya on, Qanta also recognizes the safety and empowerment that it lends her as a woman who must navigate exceptionally predatory and aggressive male-dominated public space. For a beautifully crafted personal statement by one woman about choosing to cover herself in public, watch the video-poem "The Shield". And still, there is the opposite experience of emotional and physical illness about being compelled to cover.
At the same time, men are not as free as they may initially appear: Qanta notes the emotional imprisonment of many privileged and relatively empowered young Saudi men, who seem to be caught in an impossible struggle for a sense of purpose. Many of these young men from privileged backgrounds have unlimited access to cars and material things, but are faced with a weak sense of social belonging and too much freedom. She called them "lost boys" and treated them in the hospital when their drug-taking, alcohol consuming 120mph recklessness landed them in the emergency room.
Identity and Belonging
One of the main threads in this story is the question of the shifting personal identity of the author: she is challenged to confront her identity at multiple levels throughout her time in Saudi Arabia. This may be familiar to those in the book club who read Lipstick Jihad, several years ago, and is familiar to anyone who has struggled with hybrid or multiple identities based on religion, heritage, ethnicity, citizenship or language. Qanta gives us a lot of clues about the divisions of class and race in Saudi Arabia, and how qualified the sense of belonging can be in the face of so much pressure for conformity and homogeneity in public spaces.
Social Change
One of the most challenging and hopeful elements of our discussion recognized the very sensitive issues of human rights critique and enforcement that comes from "outsiders"and acknowledged the importance of change happening from inside Saudi Arabia itself.
In reading about many human rights abuses all over the world (including in the US) we can often see education as the key to ending violence and suffering. But the people Qanta describes are highly educated. In many cases, the lack of basic economic security appears to be a related issue: with better access to shelter, food and health care, human rights will improve in many situations: but in spite of class disparity and some economic vulnerability, basic needs are not the main issue in the Saudi case. The end of civil war, violent rebellion, or occupation is another common solution to human rights abuse in many countries, but not in Saudi Arabia where the country is at "peace" and the violence that is most rampant is domestic violence.
In Qanta's description of Saudi Arabia, we see a wholehearted embrace of consumer culture, a country that has mastered modernity and is also highly resistant to external pressure to adopt liberal democratic concepts such as multiculturalism, religious tolerance, universal suffrage. The power of the traditionalists' arguments for cultural/religious 'exceptionalism' rests on a foundation of resistance to the erasure of difference and a defense of identity. Outsiders trying to criticize and change things are not going to be very helpful here. But there is a lot of hope for improved women's rights in Saudi Arabia, and it is coming from inside the country:
There are many men in Saudi Arabia who support women who strive for more autonomy by owning businesses and professionals, and are their supporters and allies. Samar Badawi's lawyer and husband Waleed Abu Alkhair helped her challenge Saudi guardianship laws that allowed her father to continue abusing her: she recently won a 2012 Woman of Courage award.
There are organized movements of women in Saudi Arabia who are pushing for change, and who have made progress. The movement to allow women to legally drive, for example.
Saudis understand the dynamics of "religious conservatives... (who) emotionally blackmail Saudis by preying on their weaknesses to always be good Muslims" (Sabria Jawar), and have found ways to resist this, with impressive results. The focus seems to be on incremental change, although impatience is mounting.
This month, we will read a book about Saudi Arabia. The author, Qanta Ahmed, is a Muslim woman, a Pakistani who was born in Britain and trained as a doctor in the United States. Her book, In the Land of Invisible Women, she describes her choice to go to work in a hospital on a military base in Saudi Arabia.
The main reason we are reading this book right now is because of the recent campaign that Human Rights Watch launched in Los Angeles: Let Them Play. The February 2012 press release that launched the campaign was on the report, Steps of the Devil, which documents the broad discrimination against women in Saudi Arabia- from girls in public school not getting any physical education to no official sporting events for women athletes anywhere in the country to no Saudi sportswomen supported by the government to compete abroad in any competition- and links this discrimination to the International Olympic Committee's responsibility to hold member countries to account when they fail to live up to the values and rules of the Olympic Movement. Along with Qatar and Brunei, Saudi Arabia is the only other country that has never nominated a women to compete in the Olympic Games.
The fantastic news is that this campaign has made some waves! Now, a Saudi Arabian female sports commentator will run with the Olympic torch in London. Not only that, the IOC is actively encouraging the government of Saudi Arabia to send women to the Games; Qatar is sending at least two women, and Saudi Arabia has apparently submitted a list of four women, and Brunei has submitted a list of female athletes to the IOC to compete in London as well.
We chose the book by Qanta Ahmed so we could get some more perspective on the country of Saudi Arabia. Some of the interesting things to look for in this book are:
the oppressive and liberating aspects of the hijab and abaya (this may contain some links to our discussion of Orhan Pamuk's book).
the complexity of belonging- the author assumed that she would fit in and understand a lot more in Saudi Arabia because she was Muslim, but she discovered that it was not that simple. At the same time, when she was in Saudi Arabia, she went on the hajj to Mecca and found a deeper connection to her religion.
the complexity of oppression and rebellion in a highly controlled and traditionalist society; the racism and other complex divisions in a society that from the outside is usually seen as monolithic; also the dramatic complexity of consumer culture and conservative social norms.
For February 2012, we are reading Elizabeth and Hazel, written by David Margolick. It explores desegregation and the civil rights movement--and particularly the desegregation of public schools through Brown vs the Board of Education--by examining the lives of the two girls in a famous photograph taken when nine African American students first entered the previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
This book builds on a growing interest of book club members in the work of HRW on human rights and specifically women's human rights in the US. In the past, we have read about incarceration of war on terror suspects in Guantanamo from the perspective of a young woman law student and first generation American from a Pakistani family; we read about young women in New York City pressured or forced into prostitution (the issues of child prostitution and the criminalization of juvenile prostitutes is a pressing one in the Los Angeles area, too), and following up on that, we read about the history of the juvenile justice and incarceration system in the US.
Following up on that topic, at the beginning of January, HRW released a report on youth offenders serving life without parole in the United States, Against All Odds.
Young people, because of their age, physical size and lesser experience
in the corrections system, are more vulnerable to violence and
coercion; female prisoners are particularly vulnerable, and juvenile
female prisoners are extremely vulnerable. For more, check out this (below) video, and share widely.
Issues of race, class, and toleration of difference are pressing issues in the US. We know that race and poverty shape incarceration and punishment patterns in the US. The effect of these patterns of prejudice extend far beyond issues of policing, prisons, and juvenile justice: they shape immigration policy, the US tradition of religious toleration, and importantly, general respect for human rights, civility and international law. These issues have a long history, and hopefully, we will be able to explore this a little through the story of the relationship between Elizabeth and Hazel.
This story also brings up serious questions of responsibility and the use of visual documentation in the media. Both of these women's lives were dramatically changed because of this one photograph. They became symbols of a painful and violent time in US history, and it is a useful and important lesson to revisit that when we look at dramatic photos of human rights abuse, of 'anonymous' victims and perpetrators and bystanders, these are also photos of real people--whose lives may be changed in unforeseen ways because of our gaze and because this moment in their lives has now been documented in a specific and powerful way.
For some background on the story, watch this PBS video. Importantly, Elizabeth and Hazel were only 15 years old when the photo at Little Rock Central High School was taken.
Education and Human Rights
Education is a human right: in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is Article 26. The idea that everyone has the fundamental right to education is still questioned and challenged, however. A new documentary on the Baha'i in Iran, Education Under Fire, addresses how the Iranian government has methodically excluded Baha'i Iranians from technical and higher educational opportunities, and has repeatedly disrupted the Baha'i community's attempts to educate themselves.
In a 'back to the future' sort of serendipity, recent reports of white students bullying Hispanic students have emerged recently, in the wake of the Alabama law HB56 that was designed to encourage "self repatriation" by requiring that state residents deny illegal immigrants access to any social service or business transaction.
HRW has recently issued a document specifically on the way that schools have turned into battlegrounds in many countries including Afghanistan, Thailand, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India. This kind of violence can permanently disrupt and destroy access to education for entire communities. More recently, HRW has reported on the Separate and Unequal access of handicapped children in Nepal to education. A quick search of the 2012 World Report reveals:
ongoing segregation of Roma from schools in eastern Europe (p46, 431, 448);
that only one in 45 child domestic workers in Indonesia is attending school (p62);
the use of schools in Ethiopia for political indoctrination (p124);
attacks on schools in Somalia and the forced recruitment of children into militias (p161);
a general inability of accessible education in south Sudan, where less than half of all children are in school (p176);
the worsening of access to education in Haiti after the earthquake (p156);
the ongoing targeting of schools, and particularly school girls, in Afghanistan (p291-2);
China's closing of private schools that catered to illegal internal migrants in cities like Beijing (p323);
insurgent attacks on schools in the border regions of India (p330);
Malaysia's practice of taking 'effeminate' schoolboys out of school and putting them into correctional camps (p345);
inaccessibility of schools in Tibet to children with disabilities (p353);
expulsion of students because of their religious affiliation in Pakistan (p365);
a serious lack of investment in education in Papua New Guinea (p394);
the use of children as soldiers and the use of schools for military purposes in the Philippines (p380);
the killing of government school teachers by insurgent groups in Thailand as well as the use of schools as barracks (p397-8);
the blocking of migrant workers' children from school in Kazakhstan by Philip Morris Kazakhstan (p469);
the exclusion of girls who do not wear the headscarf from school in Chechnyya (p485);
Uzbekistan's policy of forcing children to miss school for months to work the cotton harvest (p426);
the exclusion of minority Bidun children from government schools in Kuwait (p584).
Clearly, access to education is a serious problem all over the world. And it is often something that is taken away based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality.
