Peter Daou has a great piece up at UN Dispatch about Obama’s speech in Cairo, and the emptiness of his rhetoric surrounding women’s rights. Obama is certainly not in an enviable situation: The previous administration paid lipservice to women’s rights as an excuse to invade entire nations, and framed gender equality as a Western invention that we were going to bring to the backwards, barbaric Middle East by force. As a result, American talk of feminism is understandably met with skepticism and even hostility, and local women’s rights movements in places like Afghanistan, Iran and Egypt have experienced profound setbacks, as men in power are increasingly able to argue that feminism is a colonialist import and a tool of destruction. So I can’t blame Obama for not hammering the gender equality point, and I’m a big believer in providing quiet support for local women’s movements instead of “offering” equality at the barrel of a gun.
But all that said, Peter is right to point out that human rights (and women’s rights) shouldn’t be ignored just because the previous administration used them as weapons of war (and because the previous administration was remarkably hypocritical in their total disregard for human and women’s rights at home). Peter writes:
Take the issue of women’s rights, addressed in Obama’s Cairo speech with the most tepid language:
“The U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.”
“I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.”
“Now let me be clear: issues of women’s equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.”
“Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity – men and women – to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams.”
Is that a joke?
With women being stoned, raped, abused, battered, mutilated, and slaughtered on a daily basis across the globe, violence that is so often perpetrated in the name of religion, the most our president can speak about is protecting their right to wear the hijab? I would have been much more heartened if the preponderance of the speech had been about how in the 21st century, we CANNOT tolerate the pervasive abuse of our mothers and sisters and daughters.
I return to the example of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow:
“13-year old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was stoned to death in Somalia by insurgents because she was raped. Reports indicate that was raped by three men while traveling by foot to visit her grandmother in conflict capital, Mogadishu. When she went to the authorities to report the crime, they accused her of adultery and sentenced her to death. Aisha was forced into a hole in a stadium of 1,000 onlookers as 50 men buried her up to the neck and cast stones at her until she died. When some of the people at the stadium tried to save her, militia opened fire on the crowd, killing a boy who was a bystander.
A witness who spoke to the BBC’s Today programme said she had been crying and had to be forced into a hole before the stoning, reported to have taken place in a football stadium. … She said: ‘I’m not going, I’m not going. Don’t kill me, don’t kill me.’ “A few minutes later more than 50 men tried to stone her.” The witness said people crowding round to see the execution said it was “awful”.”
Enough with the perpetual campaign. True justice, true peace, these are earned through courageous decisions and bold actions. Real truth to power.
If we are to fix America’s image in the world and if we are to heal the planet’s myriad ills, it will not be done through contrite kumbaya speeches about how we are all one world and how we should all coexist peacefully, no matter whether the remarks are delivered in Cleveland or Cairo. It will be done by leading through example, by righting the many wrongs here at home, by seeking justice and fairness for all, by doing what is right, not saying what sounds pleasing to the media elite and the pliable punditocracy.
Exactly. It’s time for Obama to start setting an example on human rights issues.
The only sensible-ish reason I can think of for the omission is that Obama is aware that a lot of that happens in the U.S. every day? It might have been an even stronger speech had he acknowledged violence against women across the globe, including our own country.
“This is what a feminist looks like”?
Ha.
Is anyone really surprised by this? He’s no friend to women, never has been.
What is a good solution to the problem that will solve the problem, not perpetuate it or extend it or make the US into even more of a meddler?
Education will work, although it will take far too long. We can try to condemn these countries that stone women to death in the meantime, and maybe they’ll pretend to listen.
i actually really liked that he emphasized that women face issues of inequality all over the world, including within the US, which is often held up as the location of purely liberated women, in contrast with the ‘sadly oppressed’ women of other countries (particularly those countries that are predominantly muslim, or predominantly people of colour, or ‘developing’).
i think that that kind of rhetoric (as in the kind he avoids) has led to an erasure of the specificity and power of local women’s organizing that does not have the same context as north american feminist movements, and a sense that north american (and often white) feminists need to swoop in and ‘save’ people who never asked for saving.
I think this is an unfair criticism. He spent many word on the concept of equality, and addressed the matter with a some welcome nuance by pointing out that just because a Muslim woman choses to wear a hijab does not mean she is not equal. It’s obvious to me, anyway, that the “women’s equality” of which he speaks includes the right not to be assaulted on the basis of gender. This was NOT just a speech about wearing hijab.
It seems to me that this speech has been misread, significantly. Because you can’t boil it down to just being about women wearing hijabs without ignoring what Obama was talking about, with lines (quoted by Mr Daou, in fact!) about
in what they do, about the fact that
Mr Obama was explicit about women’s full equality and their rights, he was vocal about it, and didn’t talk about women’s rights in a nonexplicit way but mentioned specific areas and policies. Perhaps most important he talked clearly about the most significant longterm area for women’s right, education:
If that’s being ambivalent about women’s rights, one point in a speech that was only an hour long and covered a wide variety of subjects, what would you prefer?
example #bazillion why i consider obama to be center-right. and he seems to be drifting further right.
still better than mccain, but very frustrating.
I wrote a piece about this for DoubleX.
Jill panted for Obama over Hillary, so please, why exactly should women listen to you now?
I Doubt you will have the courage to post this (you refuse any comment critical of you), but perhaps you will put women first today, over your crushing on Obama ego.
Yup.
In addition to Daou’s point re the hijab language, some thoughts regarding the prosperity justification regarding women’s full education.
Mark, you were banned a while ago, but I let your comment through for entertainment value. Perhaps I will put women first over my crushing Obama ego? Uh… you do realize that I’ve posted many, many times criticizing Obama — including THIS VERY POST?
Yes, I supported Obama in the primaries. Yes, I voted for him in the general election. But I’ve hardly turned a blind eye to his more problematic moments. I certainly haven’t put him “before” women — if you look through our archives, I rarely write about him. Next.
I’m not very simpathetic to the thrust of this post. Others have already said much I’d have said. I have a really hard time saying anything particularly unique except that people aren’t really thinking through what he said. He is a really good writer, and he is saying more than some here are giving him credit for. I just don’t know how to push that notion, though.
Well, I just read Fatemeh‘s post…
yeah, that.
[...] Where were women in Obama’s Cairo speech? [...]
The speech bothered me for exactly this reason. Obama said that he “was just saying what everyone knows”– and then adopted a faux disingenuity when talking about women’s rights.
The issue of women wearing the hijab (a word Obama couldn’t even bother to pronounce correctly) does not exist in the middle east, that’s a problem in western europe and some parts of the US. Obama only affirmed a woman’s right to choose traditional choices– wearing a hijab and staying home. Everyone in the ME thinks women should have that right, conservatives, liberals, everyone. What is less clear is whether women have the opposite right.
It’s well and good for Obama to talk about women’s education, but what if a woman is prohibited from working? Why would she “choose” education then? Is that, then, really a choice to stay home?
It seemed to me that Obama was playing it extremely safe while using rhetoric to make it seem like he’s a reformer when he wasn’t acting like one.
“The issue of women wearing the hijab (a word Obama couldn’t even bother to pronounce correctly)”
That was actually pretty funny, but I think it was more him trying too hard to pronounce it correctly, not him being blissfully ignorant.
People started following his correct pronounciation of Pakistan but now my biggest fear in the world is that everyone will start calling the hijab the hijeeb.
Ugh, big demerits for that.
And Fatemah – I read your article a few days ago, it’s great.
Jill says :
Yes, I supported Obama in the primaries. Yes, I voted for him in the general election. But I’ve hardly turned a blind eye to his more problematic moments. I certainly haven’t put him “before” women — if you look through our archives, I rarely write about him. Next.
being wrong counts for a lot, Jill. hindsight is nothing. you were just another of the so boring starstuck sexist girls voting your daddy card. the 90s is So over!
Again letting Mark’s comment through for kicks. Mostly because I find it funny that he accuses me of voting the “daddy card,” and then comes in here all Big Daddy-style to lecture the little women on how we voted wrong.