Right on, and on point.

I really, REALLY want to bring attention to Michelle’s statement here:

A narrative that DOES exist, on both sides, and prevalently, is “Those women/those Arabs/those Arab women don’t know what’s good for them.” About which I am personally much more concerned.

This has been bothering me a great deal, and I get rather apoplectic with rage here. I can’t tell you how sick and tired I am of White Men(TM) making asinine statements about (for example) whether the veil should be banned for “the good of the subjugated women”. I’m no defender of anything except a person’s right to agency. When I hear a statement like, “A woman who wears the veil is mentally ill [and presumably unfit to decide for herself].” I get as close as I come to wanting to commit violence.

Nothing gets me tasting bile more than self-righteous privileged people saying they get to make the decisions for the benefit of the uncivilized.

But, again, I’m not trying to generalize to mean everyone against the war, because I’m against the war and I certainly don’t think it has anything to do with Afghan women.

The idea that anyone who is already anti-war is going to “blame the women” for its continuation is not credible, and not fair to anti-war sentiment; there are actually better and worse positions here, not equal and simply different ones.

It probably is the case that people who supported the war in Afghanistan as revenge, or in “instead-of-informing-myself-I’ll-just-supportthetroops” mode, will be perfectly willing to “blame Aghan women” if it drags on and on with no clear progress (ahem). This will be part of blaming Afghans generally — if only they would “step up to the plate”, stop being so barbaric, stop resenting civilian casualties, etc. We don’t have to worry about this kind of sentiment — it’s hypocritical, self-serving crap that puts “the troops” in harm’s way to no good purpose. We just need to name it for what it is.

Aren’t most people who are against the war against the war at least in part because they realize that the war is bad for women (and other human beings)? And that claims to the contrary are largely noncredible?

Again, sorry if my post was unclear, but that was my intention.

As for Michelle’s point, I am applying what often happens to women in the U.S. with what I see potentially happening in this scenario. When women are brought up in U.S. politics as the reason for passing a law or making reform in some area, people against that law or reform (Conservatives, for example) then lash out at the women themselves to blame them. This actually doesn’t work with women only, but many marginalized groups.

I believe that people who are already against the war will think we’re staying there only to help women. The reverse could be said as well — if we get out then people who support the war will blame women for us having left. But I didn’t use that as my example because 1) the U.S. is not withdrawing and 2) like I said in the post, I’ve heard the “we must stay to help women!” much more frequently than “we must leave to help women!”

I don’t know about you, but the loudest voice I often hear is the one saying that the U.S. has to stay in order to help these women. So what message is that sending? Think of the ammunition that is giving those who are against the war. Now they get to be against the war and resentful towards Afghan women since these women are being portrayed as a primary reason for the troops to stay.

We all know how this ends, though: Women lose either way.”

the entire end of the post seemed pretty critical to me. and I didn’t see much contrast made between RAWA and the previous news articles mentioned-which is I think why I’m so confused here. The argument that we need to talk to rather than about Afghan women is good, but RAWA is to me a solution to that, not part of the problem. and I there wasn’t much mention of that in the post. both this video and the news seemed lumped under the umbrella of-people talking about Afghan women.