V-Day Blog Archive

The McCarthy Era at Fordham

Fordham University has slipped through the Twilight Zone, back in time, to the McCarthy Era. During that dark period in our nation’s history, the government used fear tactics to silence dissenting voices. People were required to take loyalty oaths or face losing their jobs, or their liberty. A climate of fear blanketed our nation, in which people were afraid to speak out in support of their friends. Those who did take risks to stand up for the things they believed in were threatened, intimidated into silence and fired or jailed if they spoke up. In the 1950’s, in America, the ‘threat’ was Communism. Today, at Fordham, the ‘threat , it seems, is vaginas.

The Dean of Student Life has taken a very strong position on the Vagina Monologues, and refuses to allow the production of the play as a student activity. Undaunted, the students sought the support of the faculty. Outraged at Fordham’s attempt to censor this world-famous play, the faculty responded with enthusiasm. The Vagina Monologues will soon be performed as an academic event, proudly sponsored by 11 of the Departments on this campus.

As an academic event, it would seem that this play would now be out of the reach of the Office of Student Life. But there has been an astonishing new development: student employees of Residential Life have been instructed that if they show various forms of support for the play (such as attending in groups, or putting posters promoting the play on their dorm room doors) they will be fired. This new development is far more serious than the censorship of a play. We have now moved from censorship to economic intimidation. This tactic forces students who work for Residential Life to choose between their values (if they are in favor of the play) and their wallets. Unfortunately, most students don’t have the luxury to ignore the economic imperative . That, of course, is what makes this a very effective means by which to strong-arm students into submission.

What’s next? Will the Office of Student Life take up the practice of scrutinizing all other academic events, and set up a clear set of criteria regarding which events are sufficiently in line with Catholic teachings to render them suitable for support by their staff? Will talks by Fordham faculty on topics that offend the Dean of Student Life be placed on the forbidden list as well? Or, perhaps RAs will be encouraged not to take certain courses, with certain professors, or pressured not to chose certain majors? Does working for Residential Life now mean that students must be — or must pretend to be conservative Catholics?

What a wonderful set of lessons for our students. They came to Fordham for an education, and here is what they are being taught: the best way to deal with a controversial message is to silence it. If that doesn’t work, the lesson continues, threaten those who support the message with economic sanctions; frighten those who would like to speak up on behalf of the message into silence. As they leave us, and go out into the world, our students will take this model with them. Are these really the kinds of policies we want them to support as young voters? Are these the kinds of policies that are truly consistent with Catholic — or American values?

Let’s look for a moment at some facts about this ‘dangerous’ play: The V-Day movement is a global campaign to raise awareness about the many forms of violence against women and girls, including rape, incest, genital mutilation and sexual slavery. The Vagina Monologues has been running, around the world, for over 7 years and has raised over 25 million dollars. It was named as one of Worth Magazine’s “100 Best Charities”. Last year, over 2000 V-Day events were presented by volunteers around the world. On the college level, over 600 campuses will be staging productions of the show this year. All proceeds of the play are donated directly to local organizations working to stop violence against women.

How odd that Fordham University, which prides itself on training students to do good works for others would want to prevent the production of a show dedicated to helping prevent violence. At the heart of all censorship efforts is fear. Those who attempt to censor the speech of others do so out of the fear of what they see as the potential consequences of the ‘offensive’ message. What is the Office of Student Life so afraid of? The real risk here is not that someone will attend the Vagina Monologues and be offended by the script. Far more serious is the danger that our University will continue to abandon its principles to fear mongering and intimidation.

Op-ed published in Catholics For Choice, Summer 2003:
The Catholic church’s desire to censor is alive and well, but fortunately these attempts often rebound. Despite a recent campaign by the Cardinal Newman Society—a conservative campus group with links to the Catholic hierarchy—to prevent the Vagina Monologues being put on at Catholic colleges, all but one of the planned “V-Day” events took place. In fact, in response to news of efforts to ban these benefit productions, many community members offered off-site space to support the V-Day organizers who were being censored.

Indeed, attempts to ban the productions usually created a healthy public and media debate within the community about free speech, the problem of violence against women and the need to address it, and also raised questions about the true goals of the Cardinal Newman Society, which attempted to stop students from doing good works and pressured university administrators and their alumni toward censorship.

At Xavier University in Ohio, the attempted ban led to on-campus rallies and news coverage in the major daily newspapers and on radio and TV stations. In an article in the Cincinnati Post with the headline, “Play rallies campus on academic freedom,” the reporter noted, “By Friday, however, the so-called “V-Day” project also had clearly become about censorship and student freedoms. ‘What started as my idea to bring ‘The Vagina Monologues’ to campus has ended up being something that has united students and faculty alike,’ said the play’s director, a Xavier junior, Chris Sims.” The faculty declared their overwhelming support of the student-run V-Day production.

V-Day is a global campaign that envisions and is working to create a world in which violence against women and girls no longer exists. V-Day hopes that the devastating and true stories that are the foundation of “The Vagina Monologues” will inspire people who see productions of the play to help V-Day create V-World and stop all violence against women and girls.

Through the V-Day College Campaign, which launched in 1999, thousands of student organizers have raised funds for local groups on their campuses and within their communities. To date, V-Day has raised over $14 million dollars for local community groups who do anti-violence work on the ground every day. Along the way, millions of people have been empowered and educated and have become active in the fight to end violence against women and girls. I don’t wish to cast any aspersions on the motives of the Cardinal Newman Society, but isn’t that a good thing?

V-Day Edition’ Is a Campaign for Change

Doug Hunt
http://www.journalreview.com/Main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&Article…
There is an epidemic of violence against women throughout the world. “The Vagina Monologues,” a play by Eve Ensler, attempts to help women overcome problems involving gender issues.

Ensler talked Sunday afternoon during a press conference in the Wabash College Fine Arts Center. Her play was performed Sunday night in the Fine Arts Center’s Ball Theater.

The “Monologues: The V-Day Edition” are part of Ensler’s campaign to obliterate dishonor and disconcertion many women associate with their bodies and sexuality. The play has been gaining critical acclaim throughout the world.

Last year, there were 2,300 “V-Day” events, celebrations in more than 1,100 cities, villages and towns.

Ensler understands sexual abuse and violence first-hand. She was sexually abused by her father until she was age 10, but still had to live through the punishments her father inflicted.

Ensler’s concern is to help women not to become victimized, through such meaningless acts as physical and mental abuse. “To stop violence from women there are more people getting involved,” she said.

Ensler classified the soldiers against violence as Vagina Warriors.

“Vagina Warriors can be both women and men,” Ensler said. The men and women who have experienced or saw violence are now taking a new role by becoming politically active instead of using violence to solve violence, she said.

Ensler believes Iraqi women are suffering more now since the U.S. bombed Iraq than under the previous Iraqi leadership.

“There has been an illusion of freedom for women in Iraq,” Ensler said. “There has been a rise of Islamic fundamentalists and violence against women.”

There was no way people in the U.S. could understand the years of tribalism between the Sunnis and Kurds, and the increase is terrorism among Arabs that has occurred since the U.S. bombed Iraqi, she said.

“We will look back on this whole period of time when the whole earth changed,” Ensler said.

It was not right for the U.S. to have the arrogance to think “they knew what was best for Iraq,” Ensler said. “There is no way for me to assume what people in Crawfordsville want,” a reason why Iraq would have been tough to figure what was best needed for its people, she said.

Ensler is still optimistic that caring men will help make a difference in helping to stop the violence against women. She has already seen something of a start, event at Wabash.

“The world is changing,” Ensler said. “I saw a guy sitting on a couch, wearing a ‘Vagina’ T-shirt. That is real change because he will not grow up and beat women. He has changed.”

V-Day Edition’ Is a Campaign for Change

Doug Hunt
http://www.journalreview.com/Main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&Article…
There is an epidemic of violence against women throughout the world. “The Vagina Monologues,” a play by Eve Ensler, attempts to help women overcome problems involving gender issues.

Ensler talked Sunday afternoon during a press conference in the Wabash College Fine Arts Center. Her play was performed Sunday night in the Fine Arts Center’s Ball Theater.

The “Monologues: The V-Day Edition” are part of Ensler’s campaign to obliterate dishonor and disconcertion many women associate with their bodies and sexuality. The play has been gaining critical acclaim throughout the world.

Last year, there were 2,300 “V-Day” events, celebrations in more than 1,100 cities, villages and towns.

Ensler understands sexual abuse and violence first-hand. She was sexually abused by her father until she was age 10, but still had to live through the punishments her father inflicted.

Ensler’s concern is to help women not to become victimized, through such meaningless acts as physical and mental abuse. “To stop violence from women there are more people getting involved,” she said.

Ensler classified the soldiers against violence as Vagina Warriors.

“Vagina Warriors can be both women and men,” Ensler said. The men and women who have experienced or saw violence are now taking a new role by becoming politically active instead of using violence to solve violence, she said.

Ensler believes Iraqi women are suffering more now since the U.S. bombed Iraq than under the previous Iraqi leadership.

“There has been an illusion of freedom for women in Iraq,” Ensler said. “There has been a rise of Islamic fundamentalists and violence against women.”

There was no way people in the U.S. could understand the years of tribalism between the Sunnis and Kurds, and the increase is terrorism among Arabs that has occurred since the U.S. bombed Iraqi, she said.

“We will look back on this whole period of time when the whole earth changed,” Ensler said.

It was not right for the U.S. to have the arrogance to think “they knew what was best for Iraq,” Ensler said. “There is no way for me to assume what people in Crawfordsville want,” a reason why Iraq would have been tough to figure what was best needed for its people, she said.

Ensler is still optimistic that caring men will help make a difference in helping to stop the violence against women. She has already seen something of a start, event at Wabash.

“The world is changing,” Ensler said. “I saw a guy sitting on a couch, wearing a ‘Vagina’ T-shirt. That is real change because he will not grow up and beat women. He has changed.”

Actors Reach Out To Aboriginal Audience with Vagina Monologues

Michelle Macafee

http://www.canada.com/travel/story.html?id=1397c1f2-bf5b-4570-b007-0e8d2…

WINNIPEG (CP) – When Tantoo Cardinal was scouting a location to mount her first production of the Vagina Monologues, she had to settle for her second choice.

The University of Calgary hosted the successful event two years ago after Cardinal faced some resistance from nearby First Nations reserves. “They didn’t want anything like Vagina Monologues,” Cardinal, perhaps best known to many for her role in Dances With Wolves, said in a phone interview from Saskatoon.

“Most of the chiefs and council are male, and even the older women – somebody was saying, ‘Can you change the title?’

“No, face it. Every human has come into this planet because of the vagina. So why run, hide, pretend?”

Powered by her strong desire to continue reaching out to her own community with Eve Ensler’s award-winning, poignant reflections of female sexuality, Cardinal is moving her production this year to Ottawa and Winnipeg.

She hopes this will serve as a dress-rehearsal for a full national aboriginal tour.

The two performances – Feb. 14 in Ottawa and March 8 in Winnipeg – are part of the V-day movement, an international grassroots phenomenon spawned by the success of the Vagina Monologues to stop violence against women.

V-day benefits, held each year in February and March, have raised more than $26 million US for battered women’s shelters, rape help lines, safe houses in Africa to protect women from genital mutilation and other similar causes around the world.

Cardinal, who this year is partnering with fellow actor and friend Tina Keeper to produce the shows, said her aim is to raise awareness, foster healing and spark a frank discussion about sex and violence among people who normally wouldn’t be comfortable with such blunt conversation.

“That is the hope, that every time you do the show you pull in a few of them,” said Cardinal, who will also recite some of the monologues in both shows.

“I find the show is really healing, it goes deep, I think it’s very, very necessary and when it hits the community it’s so inspiring.”

The shows will be entirely directed, produced and performed by an aboriginal ensemble.

Several organizations, such as Amnesty International and the Native Women’s Association of Canada, are also involved, and proceeds will go to aboriginal women’s shelters in Ottawa and Winnipeg.

Amnesty International intends to use the Ottawa event to help spread the word about its recent Stolen Sisters report, which found that aboriginal women in Canada face double the risk of violence compared with society as a whole.

The report, released last October, also concludes no one knows how many aboriginal women have been murdered or have disappeared, in large part because of government indifference.

The findings are a powerful inspiration for Keeper, star of the former North of 60 series and spinoff movies.

She sees the Vagina Monologues as a perfect vehicle to raise awareness and honour the victims.

“I’ve done projects on residential schools, racism, sexual abuse, but I’ve never found a script that was so captivating and really made me feel as an artist that I have an integral role in society,” Keeper said from her home in Winnipeg.

“It cuts across cultural lines and it’s a way for women in the audience and those performing to go, ‘We are all women, we’re all the same and we have to stand together and be united.’ “

In addition to the monologues, which encapsulate more than 200 of Ensler’s frank interviews with women about everything from childbirth and masturbation to rape, Keeper says the aboriginal productions will also include a segment from a documentary about the missing women, as well as a traditional honour song and prayer.

Both the Winnipeg and Ottawa performances will also feature amateur performers from the aboriginal community.

Beverley Jacobs, a Mohawk lawyer and president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, admits to some performance anxiety in the run-up to her acting debut at the Ottawa show.

She also can understand some of the awkwardness that comes with using the monologues’ blunt language to break down sexual taboos.

“I think it’s important to not be ashamed or afraid,” said Jacobs.

“But even for myself, going through the script and thinking of the language, you have to get over what we’ve been taught about our bodies and who we are.”

“It creates a self-confidence so it becomes more about respecting our women.”

Eve Ensler, Patrick Reilly take on ‘The Vagina Monologues’

HEATHER LIEBLING

As the In Strength I Stand (ISIS) production of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” inches ever closer (the play is slated for Feb. 18 – 20), it is clear that the struggle for free speech is far from over. Playwright Ensler, while encouraged by the ongoing hard work of ISIS and its constituents, remains frustrated with what she considers the success the Cardinal Newman Society has had over Fordham University. Founded by Patrick Reilly, FCRH ’91, the Cardinal Newman Society has tried to encourage Fordham, as well as several other Catholic universities, to thwart production of the play on campuses.

Ensler continues to follow the battle ISIS has fought at FCLC, and she is disturbed that our administration could be influenced by the Cardinal Newman Society’s agenda.

“It really makes me sad to think that there is anybody at that school who wouldn’t support the idea of women becoming empowered,” Ensler told The Observer.

Jeffrey Gray, vice president of Student Affairs, and Christopher Rodgers, dean of students at FCLC, declined to comment for this article.
“The way women become empowered,” Ensler said, “is to know their bodies and to own their bodies and to feel comfortable with their bodies and to feel agency over their bodies. And I don’t believe that’s at odds with anything spiritual.”

But according to Reilly, Ensler is incorrect. “There are ways to discuss women’s bodies in ways that are proper and ways that are improper,” he said. “We feel [‘The Vagina Monologues’ is] improper, not only to Christians, but to social decency.”

The dispute became a public issue when the Cardinal Newman Society took out a full-page ad in USA Today in Feb. 2004 imploring the community members of Catholic institutions to send in letters to have future productions of the play on campuses shut down. Ensler feels the Cardinal Newman Society should be focusing on more pressing matters.

“Does the Cardinal Newman Society stand up and talk about all the pedophiliacs in the Catholic Church?” Ensler asked. “The fact that most of the money spent in the Catholic Church is spent on legal fees to defend priests [accused of] molesting little boys and girls? … I don’t see the Cardinal Newman Society taking out a $20,000 page ad to protest all of the priests who have raped and molested little children. To me, that would be money well spent.”

According to Reilly, Ensler’s arguing of this point is a “red herring,” and attacking priests in the Catholic Church is not part of the Cardinal Newman Society’s agenda. “In two instances where professors at Catholic colleges have been accused of sex abuse, we’ve reported on that,” Reilly said. “As far as going after priests who have abused children, that’s not part of our mission.”

Perhaps the most contentious issue surrounding “The Vagina Monologues” controversy is the monologue titled “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could,” in which a previously abused 16-year-old girl describes sexual activity with a 25-year-old woman as being her salvation. The older woman also provides the young lady with alcohol. Reilly and the Newman Society feel that, in this way, women are being made to look like “aberrant sexual beings,” and that the play therefore demeans women instead of dignifying them.

“That piece is based on a true story,” Ensler said. “I didn’t create it. That’s real. It’s not taking a good or evil position. It’s ambiguous. Life is complex. Life is full of mystery. … And that was that woman’s experience. … You can’t rob people of their experience whether it fits into a certain code or not. And I’m not endorsing anything. I’m sharing a woman’s story and I’m sharing her experience.”

In reference to the alcohol consumption by the teenager, Ensler defends the material by citing the realistic nature of the situation. “Should we think that 16-year-old girls don’t drink?” Ensler questioned. “If art is going to now become something that has nothing to do with life, how will it ever help us transform our lives?”

But according to Reilly, “the play does not present reality. Anyone who suggests it does is sick in the head. … The molestation scene—that is openly encouraging that practice. … There’s nothing ambiguous about it, the character is saying that was a good thing. It’s presented in every way as a good thing for this girl.”

So how would Reilly have reconstructed the play? “I wouldn’t have presented that story,” he said. “Or I would at least make it clear that what this woman thinks is not a good thing.”

Ensler maintains that this particular monologue is just as essential as the others in the play. “I would never take the ‘Coochie Snorcher’ piece out because I’m not ashamed of the ‘Coochie Snorcher’ piece,” she said. “It reflects a point of view, a character, a story. That’s what art is.”
Another issue that has been raised in this ongoing debate is the question of why the use of the word “vagina” itself seems to be so controversial.

Reilly feels that the word is “a technical term” and one that is “not always used in polite conversation.” In fact, when the Cardinal Newman Society’s ad appeared in USA Today last year, the word was altered, appearing as “V*****” in all mentions of the play’s title, according to the article, out of “respect for women’s dignity and young readers’ innocence.”

Ensler posits that the reasoning behind some people’s fear of the word “vagina” is that it’s a source of women’s power and that people are terrified of women’s power.

She feels it is important for vaginas to be given a voice in order for women to become empowered. “I believe that where vaginas are kept in the dark, where women have silence and women aren’t able to talk, usually terrible things happen to them,” she said. “And where people are able to openly speak out, then amazing things begin to happen.”

Reilly, however, feels that a woman’s dignity should not be symbolized by a woman’s vagina. “The general public does not consider vaginas to be the symbol of women’s dignity,” he said.

As of now, in regard to Fordham’s production of the play, ISIS intends to, with the support of many sects of the faculty, put on “The Vagina Monologues,” having been denied access to the Student Activities funds by Student Affairs. ISIS has, as in the past several years, been working closely with V-Day, an organization founded in 1998 by Ensler and other New York women, to put on productions of the play. The money raised by ticket sales will be distributed to “grassroots, national, and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls,” according to vday.org, the organization’s official Web site.

Ensler said that, so far this year, 651 colleges worldwide, from countries as far away as Cairo, Lebanon and Japan, have signed up to put on a production of “The Vagina Monologues.”

“They all understand the value in girls knowing their vaginas and feeling good about their vaginas and telling the true stories of their vaginas,” she said. “It would be a shock to me that Fordham University, smack in the middle of Manhattan, would come out to be the most conservative university in the world. … [The Cardinal Newman Society] is one interest group. It’s one very limited point of view. The fact that a university would be shut down by that is not something to be proud of.”

But Ensler remains proud of the efforts of Fordham students who have been active participants in this debate. “[They] are really working to get the play done in spite of these obstacles,” she said. “I’m very proud, and I stand with them.”

Houzan Mahmoud: Why I Am Not Taking Part in These Phoney Elections

Following is an election commentary by V-Day awardee – Organization For Women’s Freedom In Iraq.

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=605289
Women are the new victims of Islamic groups intent on restoring a medieval barbarity

I am an Iraqi woman, and I am boycotting Sunday’s elections. Women who do vote will be voting for an enslaved future. Surely, say those who support these elections, after decades of tyranny, here at last is a form of democracy, imperfect, but democracy nevertheless?

In reality, these elections are, for Iraq’s women, little more than a cruel joke. Amid the suicide attacks, kidnappings and US-led military assaults of the 20-odd months since Saddam’s fall, the little-reported phenomenon is the sharp increase in the persecution of Iraqi women. Women are the new victims of Islamic groups intent on restoring a medieval barbarity and of a political establishment that cares little for women’s empowerment.

Having for years enjoyed greater rights than other women in the Middle East, women in Iraq are now losing even their basic freedoms. The right to choose their clothes, the right to love or marry whom they want. Of course women suffered under Saddam. I fled his cruel regime. I personally witnessed much brutality, but the subjugation of women was never a goal of the Baath party. What we are seeing now is deeply worrying: a reviled occupation and an openly reactionary Islamic armed insurrection combining to take Iraq into a new dark age.

Every day, leaflets are distributed across the country warning women against going out unveiled, wearing make-up, or mixing with men. Many female university students have given up their studies to protect themselves against the Islamists.

The new norm – enforced at the barrel of a gun by Islamic extremists – is to see women as the repository of honour and shame, not only on behalf of family and tribe but the nation. Ken Bigley’s abductors perversely wanted to redeem the “honour” of Iraq through obtaining the release of female prisoners. Since when did Islamic groups – the very people doing the hostage-taking, torturing and killing – start caring about the rights of Iraqi women?

Take the case of Anaheed. She was suspended to a tree in the New Baghdad area of the capital and then first shot by her father (a solicitor no less) and then by each member of her tribe. She was then was cut into pieces. This to clear the shame on the tribe’s honour for having wanted to marry a man she was in love with. This happened in late 2003, months after the “liberation”.

In the last six months at least eight women have been killed in Mosul alone – all apparently by Islamic groups clamping down on female independence. Among these, a professor from the city’s law school was shot and beheaded, a vet was killed on her way to work, and a pharmacist from the Alkhansah hospital was shot dead on her doorstep.

The occupation has in effect unleashed this new violence against women, while in some cases adding its own particular variety. Iraqi women have been tortured by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. The social taboo against speaking about sexual abuse is so strong in Iraq that these women will almost certainly have no-one to turn to upon release.

Methal Kazem is one woman who has spoken publicly of her treatment at the hands of the occupiers. Last February a US helicopter landed on the roof of her house. She was hooded and handcuffed and taken to Abu Ghraib. Accused of being a former Baathist secret policewoman, she was made to run on sharp gravel, tied up and suspended and made to listen to the screaming of other inmates. She heard one man repeatedly screaming “do not touch my honour”, and Methal believes that the man’s wife was being raped in front of him.

When Allied forces handed over power to the interim government last June, they should, as Amnesty International has argued, also have handed over prisoners. Instead they have illegally detained over 2,000, without charge. Few of these may be women, but it still leaves thousands of wives, mothers, sisters and other family members in distress and despair.

I also believe that Iraqi women have been raped by American soldiers. They dare not talk about it, however, as they face being killed by their own families if they do. My associates in Iraq have been counselling Liqaa, a former Iraqi female soldier, who was raped by an American soldier in November 2003. The savage truth is that if she returns home, male family members may murder her for her “dishonour”.

If Iraqi women take part in Sunday’s poll, who are they to vote for? Women’s rights are ignored by most of the groupings on offer. The US government appears happy to have Iraq governed by reactionary religious and ethnocentric élites.

The one glimmer of hope is that courageous demonstrations against rape and kidnapping have taken place. In September, a women’s protest fused opposition to the occupation, a demand that all Islamic militia forces leave cities, and a call for safe streets for women. This new women-led secular progressive movement is against the interim government and against the violence and restriction of political Islam. Those who support us should publicly renounce these phoney elections and campaign for a truly free Iraq.

The writer, an Iraqi living in Britain, is the UK head of the Organisation of

Going Backward

By Rory McCarthy
Since the war, life has badly deteriorated for women in Iraq and girls are being forced to wear the veil again. Rory McCarthy meets those determined to fight back

http://guardian.co.uk
A workman is pinning a banner to the wall as a chill draft swirls through the near-empty ballroom at the Palestine hotel. “An equal, secular constitution is the first step to total fairness,” the sign says in Arabic. This is supposed to be one in a series of pioneering public meetings to address the growing inequalities of women in the new Iraq. A year ago, in the weeks after the invasion, hundreds of women marched in the streets outside this hotel in central Baghdad. The women were optimistic, most walked without veils and they made forceful speeches in front of the TV cameras.

Those days of mass protest are over. Today there are barely a dozen women present. Half are veiled and most have come with male relatives or colleagues for protection. It is a quiet indictment of the occupation and underscores the astonishing collapse in security, particularly for women, that it has brought.

“Do you feel how threatening it is to go out in the streets? Can you guarantee that you are safe and alive by the end of the day?” asks Yanar Mohammad, the conference organiser and one of the most ardent women’s rights activists in Iraq. “It is the insecurity that handicaps the organising of woman.”

The few women there describe how things have changed for them since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent rise in Islamic parties. Many more cover their hair now, sometimes in belief, often through peer-group pressure or simply to protect themselves in anonymity.

“Veils are imposed on young girls,” says Nadam Moaeed. “What do girls understand from this veil? It will have a bad psychological effect. She will become a negative presence in society.”

She describes the new pressures on children in schools and the pervasive influence of the religious parties, particularly the conservative Shia groups, which are certain to dominate the new parliament after this weekend’s elections. “Political parties come and take a room in the school building and they impose on every female student veils and even gloves,” she says. “Where is the humanity in that? They are always putting up Islamic pictures in the school and the children don’t understand it at all. We heard of one school where Christian girls were made to wear the veil.”

Thiqra Faisal, a student, has travelled up from Basra, a city regarded as more liberal than most. “Even in the universities, women can’t wear what they want,” she says. “If you see a woman without a scarf in the street, everyone will be surprised. You have to be fully covered.”

It was not always this way. In the 1950s, Iraq was the first Arab country to appoint a female government minister. Women worked freely in banks and government and administrative departments and were involved in a vibrant public debate. The changes came in the 1990s when Saddam Hussein began to appease the tribes and the imams. He allowed men to take four wives and ruled there would no longer be any punishment for a man who killed a woman in his family if he suspected her of an “honour crime”. These conservative rulings have been inherited and tacitly endorsed by the major religious parties. At one stage a year ago, hardliners in the US-appointed governing council tried to pass article 137 that would impose Islamic Sharia law over rights of personal status, drastically diluting the legal protection for women. After a series of vocal protests the article was dropped, but it was a clear warning of the conservative political programme that lies ahead. These are the public problems. In private there is so much more that remains unspoken.

The conference organiser Mohammad, 44, runs the Organisation for Women’s Freedom in Iraq, an outspoken campaigning movement. She is rare among Iraqi women: avowedly secular and unafraid to stand up in public and pugnaciously condemn the failings of the male-dominated establishment. She dresses as she might in the west – today she is wearing a smart trouser suit and her long dark hair is, as always, uncovered. Her views are so radical in today’s Iraq that she has twice had death threats, always travels with a guard and has a small silver pistol hidden in her purse.

Her group has already established two women’s shelters – in Baghdad and Kirkuk. In the past year perhaps a dozen women have been taken in and many more have asked for help, telling stories of brutality and oppression rarely acknowledged in public.

They found one woman from a strict Islamic family in the Kurdish north who had been raped before she was married. “After her husband found out he decided she was filthy and not allowed to touch her newborn child. It was bad, daily beatings. We found her on the street weeping,” says Mohammad. Now the woman, 23, is back at school, living in the shelter and planning to go to university.

The group’s campaigning and shelters is largely down to the energy of Mohammad herself. An architecture graduate from Baghdad University, she lived abroad for 10 years before the war, mostly in Toronto. There she met socialist feminists and decided to return to Iraq to campaign after the fall of the regime. She sold her house and left her husband and 17-year-old son behind in Canada.

“I became obsessed with the shelter. It had to be done,” she says. Now, a year on, she is worried that many people’s frustration at the failures of the occupation are being channeled into hardline Islamic movements. “The liberation should happen through a civil and secular alternative.”

She makes her case in an unrepentant way. The latest copy of her group’s newspaper, al-Musawat, or Equality, shows a photo of her burning a veil. “They should be afraid of us,” she writes. She refuses to take part in the elections this Sunday, even though rules are in place to ensure that each party includes 25% women among its candidates. She argues that the overwhelming influence of the Islamists has unfairly tipped the balance and says her group would be unlikely to win a seat. Instead she will continue campaigning from outside government.

“There are thousands of secular people supporting me. With short, certain steps we will get somewhere,” she says. “But it will take time.”

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

Vagina Warriors Invade the Sydney Opera House

http://press.xtvworld.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3964
Several female celebrities, including the Sydney Lord Mayor, will perform in a one-night only performance of Eve Ensler’s award winning play, The Vagina Monologues, at the Opera House, to combat domestic abuse and violence against women.

(PRWEB) January 16, 2005 — Celebrities from all over Australia have pledged to help stop domestic abuse and violence against women by acting in a one off performance of The Vagina Monologues. The cast is set to include Imogen Bailey, Bec Cartwright, Bianca Dye, Mia Freedman, Corrine Grant, Chloe Maxwell, Gabby Millgate, and Clover Moore. The performance is to be directed by Danielle Lauren.

V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, announced today that this one-night-only performance of The Vagina Monologues shall be performed in the world-famous Sydney Opera House. This intimate performance is limited to only 300 people.

The Vagina Monologues, a critically heralded and award winning play by American playwright, Eve Ensler, redefined the way we look at the word, “Vagina”. It is based on interviews conducted by Ensler with women, about the most private part of their anatomy.

When asked why she was performing in The Vagina Monologues, Gabby Millgate answered, “Because I failed the Puppetry of the Penis auditions”. On a more serious note though, Millgate did comment that, “along with women from all walks of life, from all over the world, I am declaring that domestic abuse is not acceptable.

“I am affirming that there has been an error in our perception that nothing can be done, that nothing can change that this is the way it was, is now and ever shall be”.

Sydney joins cities throughout the world in celebration of V-Day. Through V-Day campaigns, money and awareness shall be raised for local organisations that deal with domestic abuse and violence against women.

V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls. It is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations.

The Vagina Monologues will be performed on 16 February, 2005 in the Studio, at the Sydney Opera House. All proceeds from the performance are to be distributed amongst three charities: JewishCare (domestic branch), NSW Rape Crisis Centre and V-Day head office who have pledged to distribute all money received to women in Iraq.

Tickets for The Vagina Monologues are between $80 and $120. They can be purchased through the Opera House Box Office either at http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/sections/whats_on/boxoffice/ or by calling (02) 9250 7777 from January 19, 2005. For further information, please visit http://www.vdaysydney.com

David Skapinker
V-Day, 2005: Sydney
http://www.vdaysydney.com/

Afghanistan’s New Cabinet Includes Three Women

http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=8832

President Hamid Karzai recently announced twenty-seven ministers that will serve in his new Cabinet, including three women. The only female presidential candidate to run in Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban elections, Dr. Masooda Jalal, was named the Minister of Women’s Affairs. Jalal, a medical doctor, was also the only women to run for president of the Interim Afghan Government. According to the Associated Press, Jalal received death threats during her campaign for the presidency.

Sediqa Balkhi, the second woman named to serve in the Karzai Cabinet, will be the Minister of Martyrs and Disabled. Balkhi was one of three women who participated in the December 2001 Bonn Conference that outlined the formation of the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan. During the Taliban years, Balkhi led the Afghan Women’s Political and Cultural Activities Center in Iran. She is also a former teacher who has a bachelor’s degree in Islamic Studies.

The Youth Affairs Ministry was created to address the issues and problems confronted by Afghan youth who have lived through years of war. This new ministry will be led by Amina Afzali, a woman who also participated in the Bonn Conference in December 2001. Afzai served on the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the commission that drafted the new Afghan constitution.

Both Balkhi and Afzali participated in the Afghan Women’s Summit for Democracy convened in Brussels in December 2001 by Western feminist organizations including Equality Now, the European Women’s Lobby, V-Day and the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Vigil Brings Out Men’s Voices Against Violence

Students met on the Diag last night at a vigil held in memory of all women who have been victims of violence at the hands of men. The vigil last night marked the end of Ann Arbor’s White Ribbon Campaign, sponsored by the organization Men Against Violence Against Women.

The campaign began in 1991 as a response to the Montreal Massacre, in which a man shot and killed 14 women at the University of Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989. Today marks the 15th anniversary of that incident.

The now-international campaign is held annually during the first week of December and raises awareness of the seriousness of violence against women.

Nearly 25 percent of college women are subject to the violence of men, Coert Ambrosino, a member of the group, said last night during the vigil. “By taking part in the White Ribbon Campaign, we hope to change people’s perception that men’s violence against women is acceptable.”

During the vigil, MAVAW observed a moment of silence for women who have died as a result of violence. Some participants handed out candles to students and spoke in memory of three women associated with the University who had died as victims of men’s violence.

Last week, MAVAW distributed white ribbons and held events in order to raise awareness about men’s violence against women.

Almost 75 group members helped hand out ribbons to students and encouraged other men to take a personal pledge to end violence against women. Men wearing the ribbon agreed to never commit, condone or remain silent about such violence.

“If every man was to take a personal pledge, we wouldn’t have a problem,” said Ambrosino, an LSA sophomore.

This year’s campaign was the most successful ever, according to MAVAW. Overall, 5,000 white ribbons pinned to flyers were distributed to men and women alike passing through the Diag. Many female students took ribbons to give to their boyfriends or other men they knew, Ambrosino said.

In addition to distributing ribbons, the group held a poetry event on Wednesday. During the poetry session, male students read pieces that related to violence against women.

“It was a good way to express their feelings about how they felt about violence against women and violence in general,” said Vincent Paviglianiti, an active supporter of the group.

Paviglianiti, an LSA senior, hopes that events like these will help people realize that such violence is a serious issue. “The first step is admitting that there’s a problem that needs to be dealt with,” Paviglianiti said.

LSA senior Megan Shuchman, one of few women present at the vigil, said she was pleased with the campaign. “Male participation is really important in the issue of violence against women,” Shuchman said. “We appreciate that men are willing to get involved in this struggle.”

MAVAW also participates in other events throughout the year, including “Take Back the Night,” a march and rally; “Femme Fair” and “V-day,” which is a global campaign against violence against women.

“Change occurs with little things,” Paviglianiti said. “We need to be aware of the issue. Violence against women is no joke.”

MAVAW will continue to spread its message through events like the White Ribbon Campaign. The group holds weekly meetings open to everyone on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. in the Michigan Union.