Remains of the Day

REMAINS OF THE DAY- Why Iraqi women should read The Taming of the ShrewSecond Thoughts Githa HariharanThere was a time when March 8 meant more than an official lip-service towomen’s rights, or advertisements in Indian newspapers for pre-fabricatedginger-garlic paste that saves women the trouble of grinding fresh masala.For those of us who grew up believing in March 8, the day tells the story ofordinary women as makers of history, and the struggle of women everywhere toparticipate in society on an equal footing with men. The symbolism ofInternational Women’s Day is rooted in a rich range of historical andimaginative moorings. There are echoes, for instance, of ancient Greece’sLysistrata, who initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war —an appropriate echo, given the sustained link between women’s movements andpeace movements. Again, there are the powerful memories of Parisian womencalling for liberty, equality and fraternity as they marched on toVersailles to demand women’s suffrage.Since the idea of an International Women’s Day first arose at the turn ofthe century, its context has been the popular movements for women’s rights.In the early years, universal suffrage for women was one of the recurringspecific themes. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office,the day also reminded the world of women’s rights to work, to vocationaltraining and to the injustice of job discrimination. International Women’sDay has, time and again, protested against the horrors of war. One eloquentexample: as part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War I,Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on the lastSunday in February 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around March 8 of thefollowing year, women held rallies either to protest against the war or toexpress solidarity with their sisters. With two million Russian soldiersdead in the war, Russian women again chose the last Sunday in February tostrike for “bread and peace”. Though political leaders opposed the timing ofthe strike, the women went ahead. Four days later, the Czar was forced toabdicate and the provisional government granted women the right to vote.With such a history, International Women’s Day became, by tradition, a timeto reflect on progress made in different parts of the world, to call forfurther change, and to celebrate acts of courage by ordinary women. I belongto a generation for whom March 8 is one of the most important days of theyear. In fact, I know several women who chose to get married on the day,with what now seems touching hope — hope encouraged either by their youth,or by the fact that they were growing up in a time different from thepresent. At any rate, such a sense of hope — of better times to come — waspossible when we were allowed to be clearer about what March 8 stood for.The day had not yet been appropriated by a range of conservatives ready touse anything to further their own causes. Now that all kinds of unlikelychampions of women’s rights have discovered March 8, the day may never bethe same again.Consider a recent mockery of March 8. On International Women’s Day in 2004,Colin Powell announced grants of $10 million earmarked for the greater goodof Iraqi women. Apparently, a number of senior government officials from thestate department, the National Security Council, the US Agency forInternational Development and leading non-government experts and activistsgathered at the White House to discuss the role of Iraqi women in the“historic transformation” of the country. No doubt these wise and generoussouls were convinced that they had helped women in Afghanistan transformtheir country, and that women in the other theatres of American warfaredeserved a similar gift.The objective of this $10 million gift, the “Iraqi Women’s DemocracyInitiative”, is to “to help women become full and vibrant partners in Iraq’sdeveloping democracy”. To this end, the state department signed on severalnon-profit organizations to bring democracy to Iraqi women. The claim isthat thousands of Iraqi women will be “trained” in political leadership,advocacy, entrepreneurship and organizational skills — knowledge that “couldfacilitate and encourage their participation in Iraq’s elections in 2005”.In the grand words of the lady of the manor distributing largesse, Americanunder-secretary of state for global affairs, Paula Dobriansky said, “We willgive them the tools to manage their own associations and to build coalitionswith others, and we will provide the information and experience they need torun for office, lobby for fair treatment and lead Iraq’s emerginginstitutions.” Clearly, what women of the world need to do is unite toagitate for the Americans to come and occupy their countries as well.One of the recipients of $10 million in grants to “train Iraqi women in theskills and practices of democratic public life” is the Independent Women’sForum. The IWF, with its partners, has begun implementing a 12-month womenleaders programme and Democracy Network Information and Coordination Center.The Center will be a key source of information and educational materials ondemocracy, campaigning and governance for a variety of Iraqi democracy andwomen’s rights advocacy organizations.What exactly is this IWF, and how is it qualified to train Iraqi women toshed their chains? The IWF, it turns out, was started precisely to oppose“radical feminism”. Ann Lewis, in an article called “Anti-feminists forIraqi women”, lists several rather dubious achievements of the IWF. Theseinclude lobbying against the Violence Against Women Act for its “wishfulthinking about the power of the federal government to curb violence againstintimate partners”. The IWF has disputed the existence of a wage-gap betweenmen and women; naturally it opposes greater enforcement of the Equal PayAct, since it explains away disparity in income as linked to the fact ofwomen “choosing” to have children. An IWF-sponsored study criticized women’sstudies curricula at 30 universities, and the study’s author, ChristineStolba, claimed on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor that women could learn more aboutgender politics by reading Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew thanreading any of the many important books in the various syllabi.The group receives regular contributions from some of the most conservativefamily endowments in the country, including the Olin and RandolphFoundations, and the IWF’s board of directors includes such notableanti-feminists such as the vice-president’s wife, Lynne Cheney; theClinton-hunter, Midge Decter; and Wendy Lee Gramm, the former Enronboard-member and wife of former Texas senator, Phil Gramm.This International Women’s Day, consider the awful irony of two simultaneoussets of signals competing for our attention, and making a travesty of whatMarch 8 used to stand for. On the one hand, “democracy” at gunpoint: the newcustodians of Iraqi progress pushing money into women’s rights in a countrythey have ravaged with war. On the other hand, headlines hinting at thelives of women in occupied Iraq: “City of ghosts”, “Parents concerned aschild kidnappings increase”, “Gunfire is the only common language”, and “Noescape for civilians in Iraq war of attrition”.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050307/asp/opinion/story_4406476.asp