'But there’s another side of Islam as well, represented by an extraordinary Somali Muslim woman named Dr. Hawa Abdi who has confronted the armed militias. Amazingly, she forced them to back down — and even submit a written apology. Glamour magazine, which named Dr. Hawa a “woman of the year,” got it exactly right when it called her “equal parts Mother Teresa and Rambo.”'
Heroic, Female and Muslim - NYTimes.com
But one night in the midst of the secession crisis, while staying at the house of another black leader, a vision came to Tubman in a dream that all of America’s slaves were soon to be liberated – a vision so powerful that she rose from bed singing. Her host tried in vain to quiet her; perhaps their grandchildren would live to see the day of jubilee, he said, but they themselves surely would not. “I tell you, sir, you’ll see it, and you’ll see it soon,” she retorted, and sang again: “My people are free! My people are free.”
There’s much debate about why women in some countries are presidents and business executives, and women in others are locked up in the home and beaten or brutalized if they try to stand up for themselves. Obviously the differences are rooted in culture, but there are diverse theories about why some cultures resulted in more emancipated women and others in more oppressed women.
One theory, which originated with Ester Boserup in 1970, is that it has to do with the emergence of the plow in agriculture. The idea is that in areas (such as Africa or southern India) where plows were little used, women engaged in agriculture and became important to the economy. They became valued by society to some degree. In contrast, where the plow was introduced, such as northern India and parts of the Middle East, women could not compete so readily because plowing required great physical strength. The result was that women were relegated to work in the home, were valued less, and even today women have less labor force participation in those countries.
This issue is the topic of a thoughtful new paper and Aid Watch blog post. Apparently there’s a correlation between plow use and the marginalization of women, and it makes sense to me. But I also think much depends on whether women were part of the cash and trading economy: where they were, they had more economic value, while where they grew vegetables for subsistence they had less value. I also look at China, and it’s not apparent to me that there’s any correlation in terms of the status of women with those parts where the plow was used and those where it wasn’t.
Your thoughts?
She's been the face of Versace, Dior, Armani, and Gaultier -- and after 16 years commanding catwalks around the globe, the porcelain-skinned belle is still at the very top of her profession.
But beyond the extraordinary physique and angular, painterly features that define her appearance, O'Connor has emerged as a vocal proponent of change within the pressurized, often exploitative industry she inhabits.
Miller once called Marilyn “a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.” - Maureen Dowd
During their time as correspondents in China, WuDunn and Kristof learned of the phenomenon of an estimated 30 million "missing" baby girls in the nation.
WuDunn says part of the gap could be attributed to infanticide by families who were determined to have a male child under China's one-child policy and in part to the development of the sonogram. That medical device can be used to determine the gender of a child before birth, prompting some parents to obtain abortions.
"One peasant in the southern part of China once told us, 'The sonogram's great, we don't need to have baby girls any more.'
Ada Lovelace has emerged as the most popular role model in a day dedicated to celebrating women working in the fields of science and technology.
I have seen evil from the eyes of the subversive fatwas in a time when what is lawful is confused with what is not lawful;- Hissa Hilal
When I unveil the truth, a monster appears from his hiding place; barbaric in thinking and action, angry and blind; wearing death as a dress and covering it with a belt [referring to suicide bombing];
He speaks from an official, powerful platform, terrorizing people and preying on everyone seeking peace; the voice of courage ran away and the truth is cornered and silent, when self-interest prevented one from speaking the truth.
An American Muslim working here says there are hard adjustments, like hearing men use the occasional epithet “Dog” to address her, and not being able to leave the airport coming home from a business trip because she has no husband or male relative to pick her up.
She had to secure a letter from her employer stating that she could leave the airport on her own. When she wanted to buy a car, she had to use the subterfuge of having a male friend buy it for her, and even then, she can’t drive it except in one of the exclusive compounds with looser rules.
A recent article in The Arab News headlined “Working Mothers in a Double Bind” showed the growing pains of Saudi suffragettes. It told of a woman who secretly hired a cook to deliver meals and assuage her husband’s demand for home-cooked dinners. When her husband caught her, he divorced her — and Saudi divorces are easy as long as you’re male.
“He forgot his promises and left me just because of food,” said the woman, Huda.
...Americans are sometimes shocked to see Saudi women and realize “we’re not cowering, we’re actually quite professional. Are there issues here? Absolutely. There isn’t a place in the world that doesn’t have issues.
“I’d like to live in a Saudi where the woman that chooses to cover from top-to-bottom is equally as respected as the woman who chooses not to cover her face, and people from the West can accept that it is a lifestyle choice, inasmuch as wearing a miniskirt or a long, flowing dress is a choice. I find a lot of people minimize the women’s cause in Saudi by how we dress, and that is actually offensive.”
In a fitting show of solidarity for International Women's Day, First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made light of the brutal 2008 battle Clinton conducted to defeat Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. As Michelle Obama launched a State Department commemoration of International Women's Day, she briefly stumbled over Clinton's job title. "Let me thank my dear friend, Senator - Secretary Clinton. I almost said, 'President Clinton,' " said the first lady to laughter and applause. "But let me thank you for that kind introduction, and most of all thank you for your friendship, thank you for your support, and thank you for your indispensable advice in getting me through this first year and helping me figure out how to get my family settled in our new life in D.C."
The exchange stood as another rebuke to a favored theme of the Beltway pundit set: that tensions between the Obamas and the Secretary of State still run high. More than that, though, the series of events that the first lady presided over drew wider attention to the stubborn lags in gender equality beyond the developed Western world. Both women stressed this issue in their respective speeches. As Secretary Clinton put it, the world "can't solve problems of financial crisis, climate change, disease and poverty if half of the population is left behind."
As you celebrate (if you do), remember the female foeticide and infanticide that still goes on in India and China, among other places. Remember the sex slaves in streets and brothels around the world. Remember the victims of female circumcision (RIP Katoucha Niane). Remember the victims of honour killings. Remember the girls being forced into marriage and women in traditional communities who are dying of AIDS, infected by their husbands. I could go on, but I'm getting a bit depressed, and more than a bit enraged. So please, don't wish me Happy Women's Day (again) this year.
Whatever the outcome, the teams reflect how much the military has adapted over nine years of war, not only in the way it fights but to the shifting gender roles within its ranks. Women make up only 6 percent of the Marine Corps, which cultivates an image as the most testosterone-fueled service, and they are still officially barred from combat branches like the infantry.
But in a bureaucratic sleight of hand, used by both the Army and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan when women have been needed for critical jobs like bomb disposal or intelligence, the female engagement teams are to be “attached” to all-male infantry units within the First Marine Expeditionary Force — a source of pride and excitement for them.
“When I heard about this, I said, Oh, that’s it, let’s go,” said Cpl. Vanessa Jones, 25.
The idea for the teams grew out of the “Lioness” program in Iraq, which used female Marines to search Iraqi women at checkpoints. Over the past year in Afghanistan, the Army and Marines have assembled ad hoc female engagement teams, but the women were hastily pulled from work as cooks or engineers.
Nujood is a Yemeni girl, and it’s no coincidence that Yemen abounds both in child brides and in terrorists (and now, thanks to Nujood, children who have been divorced). Societies that repress women tend to be prone to violence.
Young Saudi women whom I interviewed said that the popular king has relaxed the grip of the bullying mutawa, the bearded religious police officers who patrol the streets ready to throw you in the clink at the first sign of fun or skin. Their low point came in 2002 when they notoriously stopped teenage girls without head scarves from fleeing a fire at a school in Mecca; 15 girls died. Two years ago, they arrested an American woman living here while she was sitting in a Starbucks with her male business partner, even though she was in a curtained booth in the “family” section designated for men and women.
“It is not allowed for any woman to travel alone and sit with a strange man and talk and laugh and drink coffee together like they are married,” the religious police said.
 Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years |
 Burma extended Ms Suu Kyi's arrest after an intruder visited her home |
“They never thought that a woman, a housewife who didn’t know anything, not even where the courts were located, would take up the battle cry,” said Mrs. González, now 84, in an interview in the same modest home on Santiago’s outskirts where she lived with her husband and children. Faded pictures of her missing family members still hang in the dining room.
