Op-Ed: Is Women's Movement dead in West?

As bigotry and the violation of women and their rights as human beings is under assault in Afghanistan and the Middle East, where is the Women's Movement?

That President Karzai of Afghanistan recently felt sufficiently emboldened to officially condone marital rape, child marriages and radical restrictions against Afghan women is more compelling than the fact that he backed down after Western leaders threatened to turn off the foreign aid faucets and take away his defenses. While the U.S. and coalition members were pouring billions of dollars and tens of thousands of troops into his fight against Taliban extremists (who believe they have the right to rape their wives and punish them for leaving their homes unescorted) Karzai was inviting such primitive Islamic extremism to be practiced against the women of Afghanistan. While there was sufficient outrage voiced on enough political fronts to officially stop the madness, it was unofficially approved by Karzai in his original confirmation - a huge step backwards for the global women's movement, if there is one. The women of that society are in more danger than before the Karzai waffle. In Pakistan, the Taliban recently stuck its collective finger in the eye of all women by enforcing harsh Islamic laws that reduce women to the equivalent of social slaves to men. Consider the implications of the vile chauvinism that these men are trying to uphold and impose against women in the name of Shria Law and culture. The following exerpt of a Tom Coghlan article in the April 28, edition of timesonline.co.uk as reported from Kabul is a glimpse of what the struggle is about. Having said that, there are many more subtle forms of chauvinism. One article stipulates that the wife “is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires”. Another passage sanctions marital rape. “As long as the husband is not travelling he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night . . . Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.”

Article 133 reintroduces the Taliban restrictions on women’s movements outside their homes, stating: “A wife cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband” unless in a medical or other emergency.

Article 27 endorses child marriage, with girls legally able to marry once they begin to menstruate. The law also withholds from the woman the right to inherit her husband’s wealth.

When its contents were made public it was condemned widely by Western governments, with President Obama describing the new law as abhorrent.

The Afghan Government had insisted that criticism of the law was misplaced. “We understand the concerns of our allies,” Mr Karzai said on television earlier this month. “Those concerns may be out of inappropriate or not-so-good translation of the law or a misinterpretation of it.” So where is the women's movement? Where are the hundreds of thousands in protests of extreme and official bigotry? Where are the passionate speeches and pumped fists of outrage in the U.S.? Too busy baking cookies? As the free world fights Islamic extremism on many fronts, its women are mostly silent, but it is they who are potentially the most affected. As the world grows smaller through technology, all women will be endangered by the spread of Islamic extremism and there needs to be a strong women's movement in the fight. Men did not make the difference in the 60s movement. It was your mothers and grandmothers. Contemporary women should not politely ignore what is happening to their sisters around the world. Where are the daughters of yesterday's fight for equality?