by Phyllis Chesler

Excerpt:

What will they think of next? A be-headed doll?

That’s right. I am talking about the new Burqa Barbie doll which is now on display in Florence, Italy, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Barbie doll. As my colleague over at weaselzippers wonders: Will clean-cut Ken now come (pun intended, ’tis mine) with four burqa’ed Barbie doll wives?

Ah, I am such a Grinch. After all, the Burqa Barbie is being auctioned off for the Save the Children charity.

Save the Children? Surely, you must be jesting. I would like to save the children from this as well as from every other Barbie doll. (Yes, I know Barbie has diversified and now comes in every color and profession). But naked, even Doctor Barbie is still a pagan goddess or fertility figure but one with absolutely no relationship to female biology or reality.

Barbies are always anatomically impossible: their feet are pre-shaped for high heels, their breasts are high, firm, and perky—like Playboy dolls or surgically enhanced Hollywood stars. Bikini Barbie.

Read the complete original version of this item…

Contributed By: Lisa Thompson

Dear Friends:

Here’s yet another tragic article from the frontlines of the world’s most under-reported war: the relentless, never ending, “World War Against Women.” Thankfully there are incredibly courageous women (and some men) who resist, who provide shelter and protection, even while risking their own lives.

Abolition!

Lisa

IRAQ – BAGHDAD’S “UNDERGROUND” SHELTERS HELP IRAQI WOMEN ESCAPE VIOLENCE AND ABUSE
by Anna Badkhen, from Ms.
http://www.utne.com/Politics/Baghdads-Underground-Shelters-Help-Iraqi-Women-Escape-Violence-Abuse.aspx

On a bullet-scarred side street in Baghdad’s downtown, where the statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down in April of 2003, an inconspicuous entryway tucked between a steel-shuttered shop and a rickety candy stall leads to a flight of steep concrete stairs. Rusted water pipes run precariously over and across the poorly lit top step, tripping first-time visitors. The second-floor landing bottlenecks into a dark, empty hallway. Women in black abayas hurry across the buckled floor tiles in silence and quickly disappear through an unmarked plywood door on the right.

The decrepit two-bedroom apartment behind this unassuming portal is an essential junction of what activists in Iraq and their U.S. supporters call the Underground Railroad. This railroad is a small, clandestine network of several shelters, located mostly in Baghdad, for the countless but commonly overlooked victims of the war in Iraq: women who have been raped, battered, or forced into prostitution, and women who, accused of bringing dishonor to their families by having been abused, have been rejected or even threatened with death by their relatives.

These shelters serve women who have nowhere else to turn for help. Operated despite recurring death threats and lack of government support by a team of 35 Iraqi activists who call themselves the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), the shelters offer a glint of hope for civil society.

The Underground Railroad was founded in 2004 by Baghdad-born architect-turned-feminist-organizer Yanar Mohammed, head of OWFI, along with MADRE, an international women’s rights group based in New York. It provides the only sanctuaries for victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence outside the quasi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, where the local government and nongovernment organizations operate several shelters. In addition to providing temporary asylum, it helps women resettle in places where their abusers cannot find them easily. Since its inception, says MADRE policy and communications director Yifat Susskind, the railroad has helped thousands of women. Several have been transferred to Turkey and at least two now live in the United States, but most of the rescued women have remained in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein’s regime persecuted political dissidents but allowed women personal rights and freedoms; assaults on women were rare. But when violence engulfed the country, women became “the easiest targets,” says OWFI member Dalal Juma. Violence against women is now rampant and goes virtually unchecked by Iraq’s new legal system. Sexual violence is “severely under­reported,” Amnesty International wrote in March, and along with other crimes against women and girls, is usually committed with impunity.

At the downtown shelter,a teenage girl whose mother unsuccess­fully tried to sell her to a brothel in Syria, is slumped on a tattered couch watching TV. Next to her sits a widow who spent four years in jail on charges of killing her husband (who was in another country at the time); the case was eventually dismissed, but her relatives still accuse her of disgracing them and threaten to kill her. On the floor by a broken window patched with plywood, the woman’s 14-year-old daughter is painting her fingernails sparkly purple; she is hiding from her grandparents, who conspired to marry her off while her mother was in jail. Another girl, 16 years old, whose parents married her at 12 to an older man who soon abandoned her, plays with her cell phone. A couple of other women shuffle in and out of the room.

The cheap apartment is all the organization can afford; Mohammed tells me that it costs about $60,000 a year to operate a shelter this size. That includes rent, security, utilities, and food and clothes for the women staying there. With the squalor comes anonymity and the inherent promise that, at last, the women are safe. Shelter workers believe that the shelter’s inconspicuous nature protects them from religious militias, which, Amnesty International reports, routinely target women’s rights advocates. Mohammed has received e-mailed death threats; she carries a Glock pistol in her leather purse, although she admits she’s not a very good shot. The shelter locations are kept secret from angry husbands and male extended family members.

The secrecy is working: Salma Jabou, an adviser on women’s issues to Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, assured me that outside Kurdistan “there are no shelters for girls who are raped.” Although the railroad has been operating since 2004, photojournalist Mimi Chakarova and I were the first reporters to have been allowed inside one of its shelters. As a precaution, Juma took us there after dark; we wore abayas and head scarves, trying not to stand out. Our female Iraqi translator was not allowed to come along.

Women learn about the shelter through word of mouth and OWFI’s quarterly newsletter; the only people who know its location are the women who run it and a thoroughly vetted handful of male security guards armed with handguns. One of these guards lives at the shelter with his young wife, an OWFI employee. As far as the landlord is concerned, the couple is renting the apartment and the other women are their relatives, in town for a visit. Just to be on the safe side, the organization pays $350 a month for the place, which would normally cost about $150. “Money for silence,” Juma explains.

Surprisingly, OWFI makes no attempt to disguise its official headquarters in Baghdad. In March, the white metal gate of its razor wire–fortified compound was adorned with two brightly colored posters depicting a woman screaming through prison bars, emblazoned with the words “Speak out and struggle for women’s freedom and equality.”

Samira, who asked that her real name not be used because she fears for her life, sought shelter at the Underground Railroad after enduring three months of near-daily sexual abuse at the hands of her employer and his brother. At the OWFI office, Samira can talk to a psychiatric nurse, who accompanies the women on their visits to physicians and gynecologists, and she can learn how to use a computer—a skill that would, ideally, help her find a job that will allow her to survive on her own. The activists are realistic about a woman’s prospects in wartime Iraq.

“If someone wants to marry her,” Juma says, “that’s good.”

For now, Samira spends most of her evenings cleaning the shelter: her safe haven, and her chance for a future without abuse.

“If it weren’t for this shelter I would have become a prostitute,” Samira says. “Now I feel I have a family around me.”

This message is forwarded to you by:

IAST – info: anti_sextrafficking@usn.salvationarmy.org

by Phyllis Chesler

Brave Saudi women drove their cars in public in Riyadh, the capital city, to demand their right to drive. They were quickly detained, their passports were confiscated, and they were fired from their jobs. On the 19th anniversary of this event, Saudi women activists, led by prominent Saudi activist and journalist Wajeha al Huwaider, are launching the Black Ribbons Campaign. They want to move about in the world freely, without a male minder. Al Huwaider has called for the abolition of the mahram (“guardian”) law which requires women to obtain the approval of a male relative for nearly any move they make in their lives. She is also demanding that Saudi women be treated as a citizens, just like their male counterparts, and that they be allowed to travel, drive, gain custody of their children, work, study, etc., just like their male counterparts. The Saudi women will not “untie their ribbons until Saudi women enjoy their rights as adult citizens.”

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Contributed by: Lisa Thompson

Recent experiences in brothels and strip clubs: the connection between human trafficking and sexual ethics

My apologies for the somewhat raw, visceral and melodramatic nature of this reflection on my experience in week two of The ABOLITION PROJECT:

Last Tuesday workers from S.A.G.E. (Standing Against Global Exploitation) spoke at our ABOLITION Project meeting about their work supporting victims of human trafficking in San Francisco. I learned that 43% of trafficking victims in California are transported through the Bay Area. Cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas function as regional trade hubs for women seduced or coerced into prostitution. Mollie, trafficking project manager for S.A.G.E, explained that there are myths surrounding sex and prostitution that perpetuate the exploitation of women. One myth is that women voluntarily choose to go into prostitution because they enjoy having anonymous sexual encounters or because the work is financially lucrative. She said that most, if not all of the women who enter their program became involved in prostitution through force, manipulation, financial desperation or addiction. S.A.G.E. recognizes these women as human trafficking victims, whether they have been transported across international borders or were domestically coerced into prostitution by a family member or a boyfriend.

A second myth relates to men who feed the demand for sexual services. S.A.G.E. operates a recovery program for men incarcerated for soliciting sexual services. These men come from the entire spectrum of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. A male representative from S.A.G.E. suggested that many of the men have a mistaken notion of masculinity, believing that having sex with multiple partners makes them more virile or manly.  I was so stirred by what I heard that I quickly scrawled a facebook update:

“An important aspect to addressing sex trafficking is confronting our cultural myths about manhood and sexuality– woman want to be loved and cherished– not objectified. Real manhood is not about multiple sexual conquests– but honor and fidelity. This means, for instance, that pornography is not only an issue of personal morality but also of justice and human rights.”

After the talk Sarah Montoya retold the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. This Samaritan woman had been the victim of a male oriented society where women were easily divorced and made vulnerable. Left with no other options for protection and survival, she was living intimately with a man she wasn’t married to.  In her society she would have been scorned as unclean and was, most likely, at the well in the heat of the day because of her outcast status. Jesus did something radically counter-cultural by talking with her as an equal and affirming her dignity and worth.  Following this reflection we were invited to go out into the streets in search of the woman from the story (someone on the margins involved in the sex industry).
*      *      *
Adam and I leave the building and quickly walk toward the intersection of China Town and North Beach. In a few minutes we find ourselves standing in front of a Thai Massage parlor. I hesitantly push the doorbell on a locked metal gate.  Shortly the latch  “buzzes” and we make our descent down a set of stairs, around a blind corner and into a makeshift waiting room hidden from street view. We wait awkwardly for several minutes in the pink neon glow of a space containing chairs and a magazine table facing a small curtained window and heavily bolted door. We hear music and faint chattering. Eventually a Thai woman, about my mother’s age, opens the door and greets us in broken English, wearing a lingerie top, high heals and heavy make-up:

“You want massage? Fifty dollars for half an hour. Come on in. We take you both right now.”

I stammer for a moment, not knowing what to say, and surprised that we are so quickly invited into a transaction for sexual services. Another woman appears, of equal age and attire, and says, “You come for massage? We have many pretty girls for you.”

To deflect their solicitations, I ask, “How late are you open?,”

“Anytime. You come back anytime. We have many, many pretty girls for you.”

“O.K. Thank you.” Adam says, as we quickly ascend the staircase and rush out through the gate. After the gate clicks behind us and we reach the sidewalk, we breathe a collective sigh of relief. My heart is beating fast. Who would have known that it would be so easy to enter the domain of sexual slavery– to stand feet away from girls, likely trafficked, and kept hidden behind locked doors– a door that had been opened to us?

A few minutes later, two women from our project ring the door bell of the same massage parlor; except they are told, “We are busy and can’t help you” and are abruptly sent on their way (suggesting that the true nature of this massage business was sexual rather than therapeutic).

“My heart is breaking” I tell Adam as we make our way toward the strip of sex clubs at the intersection of Columbus and Broadway. When I’m in this part of town at night I usually walk briskly past the burley doormen aggressively inviting male passersby into the clubs. But tonight we are in search of the Samaritan woman, and believe she is behind one of these velvet curtained doorways. Adam and I approach when one of the doorman is giving a pitch to two other men. I notice a sign on the sidewalk that says, “LAP DANCES ONLY $10 EVERY NIGHT.”

“Good evening gentleman,” the other door man says, “would you like to come inside?”

“What’s the deal?” Adam asks.

He replies, “This is a fully nude, topless and bottomless club. Now it’s normally a ten dollar cover, but I can let you two gentlemen in for five dollars a piece tonight. And, you will receive a hand stamp for free entrance to a topless club that serves alcohol around the corner.”

“Is there a city regulation about nude clubs and alcohol?” I ask.

“Yes,” he replies, “For the whole state of California, bottomless clubs are not allowed to serve alcohol. If they were, all the topless clubs would go out of business! I suppose the state feels like it’s not a good idea to have men drinking around under aged naked women. You see many of our girls are only eighteen. So what guys do is pay the cover, get a drink at the club around the corner and go back and forth between the two all night. What do you say?”

“Um Thanks….but right now we’re just checking out the scene.” As I say this, two gangly Latin girls, who barely look eighteen, appear from behind the velvet curtain and stand by the doorman. I look into their eyes. Despite the high heels and mini dresses, they carry themselves like self-conscious high schoolers from Modesto, wearing heavy make-up to cover lingering teenage acne.

Along the sidewalk we watch other girls going back and forth between the strip clubs and the motor inn across the street. Two girls on break walk past carrying costume bags and duck into the Taqueria next door. Around the corner the doorman at the Condor calls out to us. This is a world famous strip club where Carol Doda first danced topless in 1964.  We hear the pitch and the doorman abruptly says, “Tell you what gentlemen, just come inside to see what you think.” He parts the velvet curtain and we follow him into a space where men and couples sit at tables nursing cocktails. And there we find the Samaritan woman, a girl scarcely older than my daughter, with ample thighs and a sad face, crawling seductively across the stage in a black t-shirt and g-string panties.

My heart is breaking. My heart is breaking because I live in a city where fifty dollars can fetch you thirty minutes of pleasure by the hands of a scared undocumented woman.  My heart is breaking because I live in a town where, for less than the price of a movie rental, you can watch a live eighteen year old girl strip away her dignity. My heart is breaking because I live in an age when you can vicariously participate in any of these activities for free, in the privacy of your own home, from any computer or phone with internet capability. My heart is breaking because I know that I am pulled between honoring, objectifying and despising the Samaritan woman. My heart is breaking because I realize that the root of human slavery is the human heart, wanting to possess what it has not earned by love, trust and fidelity.

We gather back as a group at Cameron house, where we began the evening. As we recount the tales of our encounters with the woman at the well the emotional pitch in the room becomes palpable. A few of us begin to cry and together we pray: safety, freedom, restored image of the beloved.  We weep for the Samaritan woman beyond the velvet curtain and behind the locked gate. Some of us weep because we are facing our own impulses to regard people as objects. Some of weep because we know what it is like to be that vulnerable boy or girl whose dignity was stolen by an act of greed.

The house where we meet in China town is named for Donaldina Cameron, a courageous young woman who began rescuing girls trafficked to San Francisco for prostitution in the 1870’s. At the close of our meeting we descend down three flights of steps toward an underground tunnel where the girls were kept hidden when their “owners” or pimps came looking for them. We take turns crawling up into the narrow passage way to see where liberators who came before us welcomed, protected and cared for the Samaritan woman.

This message is forwarded to you by: IAST
Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking
http://www.markscandrette.com/2009/10/01/the-connection-between-human-trafficking-and-sexuality/

Salon Revises Feminist History

by Phyllis Chesler  – Pajamas Media –September 5, 2009

Round Four in the Chesler-Wolf-Glazov-Salon Debate About the Islamic Veil

I AM AWAY FROM MY DESK AND HAVE LIMITED EMAIL ACCESS. BUT HERE IS A NOTE I JUST SENT TO SARAH HEPOLA, THE EDITOR OF SALON’S BROADSHEET WHICH HAS JUST WEIGHED IN ON THE SIDE OF WOLF’S POSITION

Dear Sarah:

Hello. I am out of the country right now, have limited email access and can only be brief. In the interests of fairness, I hope you will publish this note.

I am not surprised that Salon’s Broadsheet (which you edit) has chosen to publish a biased piece on the issue of the Islamic veil–and one which does not identify me as the cofounder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969), cofounder of The National Women’s Health Network (1975), and the author of thirteen books, including WOMEN AND MADNESS (1972) and WOMAN’S INHUMANITY TO WOMAN (2002/2005), but only as the author of THE DEATH OF FEMINISM–without even its subtitle: WHAT’S NEXT IN THE STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN’S FREEDOM?

Newcomers might think I am a Jane-Come-Lately to feminism.

Read the complete original version of this item…

by Phyllis Chesler– Pajamas Media -September 3, 2009

The outpouring of support for my position in favor of universal women’s rights both humbles and strengthens me. This struggle is not about me nor is it about Naomi Wolf who so unwisely went to war over one blog of mine which critiqued her written views about the Islamic veil and the oppression/repression of Muslim women.

But now, the issue is also about liberal-left double standards vis-a-vis Free Speech, their incredibly thin skins when they are challenged, not personally, but politically. A different opinion calls for “apologies” and “corrections,” perhaps even for a dressing down and a public recantation. I also think that some people have a very hard time when they are exposed as less than perfect.

Read the complete original version of this item…

by Phyllis Chesler - Pajamas Media -September 2, 2009

It seems that Naomi Wolf is quite upset by what I’ve written yesterday. She has posted a comment at my blog, written to me privately, (below), left a message in my office and written to at least one website that linked to my blog. I am answering her here.

Dear Naomi:

Hello and I hope you are well too. My piece is not a personal attack. Please don’t take it as such. It is a political and intellectual critique of what you wrote. There are no “terrible inaccuracies” in what I’ve written or in how I’ve conveyed the general tenor of your article. Your demand that I print a “correction” and issue an “apology” is uncalled for as is your offer to go over my mistakes with me, point by point, on the phone or in a debate. I dare say, this last bit is a wee bit arrogant and frightening.

One woman’s “mistake” is another woman’s “opinion.”

I now understand that you’ve left a phone message in my office, posted a letter at my blogsite at PajamasMedia, written to me privately, and also written to Frontpage Magazine which has linked to my piece today.

Read the complete original version of this item…

by Phyllis Chesler – Pajamas Media – August 31, 2009

Women in chadors are really feminist ninja warriors. Rather than allow themselves to be gawked at by male strangers, they choose to defeat the “male gaze” by hiding from it in plain view.

But don’t you worry: Beneath that chador, abaya, burqa, or veil, there is a sexy courtesan, wearing “Victoria Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care lotion” just waiting for her husband to come home for a night of wild and sensuous marital lovemaking.

Obviously, these are not my ideas. I am quoting from a piece by Naomi Wolf that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago. Yes, Wolfe is the bubbly, feminist author who once advised Vice President Al “The Climate” Gore on what colors he should wear while campaigning and who is or was friendly with Gore’s daughter. Full disclosure: I have casually known Wolf and her parents for more than a quarter-century.

Wolf recently traveled to Morocco, Jordan, and Eygpt where she found the women “as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.” Whew! What a relief. She writes:

Read the complete original version of this item… 

Add the date, eight, eight, eight (August 8, 2008) to those we observe  in the heritage of the advancement of women on the forced march to equal rights.  PUMAs registered, met, brain-stormed and agreed to be cause in the matter of our citizenship.  Not sure about the rest of those of you whom I met there, but I am certainly glad I was there with fellow patriots to hear John Edwards’ confession, Michelle Thomas’s rousing determination, Robin & River Daughter’s calm assertiveness and the many who responded to the call.  Thanks, Will, for yor initiative.  I hope we can all meet at an Inauguration of a woman very, very soon.

Inspired by: 8 TV Ads That Hate Women
By Cole Gamble February 11, 2009 333,642 views
http://www.cracked.com/article_17036_8-tv-ads-that-hate-women.html

Once women refuse to give in to this brainwashing - once we begin to refuse to use these products – when we turn off the TV- when we  refuse to wear the clothes or buy the magazines or don the make-up or dress the part  or play dumb we will begin to see a change. But not until WE put the brakes on.

The following  commercials will show you how we progressed  from our mothers tieing on their apron strings to us wearin G-stings just to keep a man happy without ever once being any more valuable or valued as more than slaves of one kind or another. The more things changed the more they stayed the same!

Liberated? Not hardly–  looks more to me like berated.

Used was bad enough — sexually abused  from birth to death is no step- up.

And today’s young ladies have no clue that they are disposable. They have been spoon fed this crap from birth as have their male counterparts. No wonder neither knows any boundries and thinks this is ok! IT’S NOT OK!

In this prize winner - Goodyear sells their tires to men by assuring them the tires are just what they need  to keep their idiot wife safe while she somehow gets around until he can take the wheel. 

In this romance promise her anything but be sure you give her a bauble- that always works! Nevermind the vows he is sure never to keep! 

Milk huh? I never new milk could help with Putting up w Men’s Shit – what do you do – drown the bastards in it?

Ahhhh – there it is the perfect little girl toys- keep them home save the jobs for the boys- after all jobs are getting scarce again so like after the war – send them home agin.

Now remember this? Suprisingly enough  we haven’t come that far have we?

Fly Maggie- We thought that was bad- Have you listened to the words of today’s rap- sung by the women themselves? I’m just not that innocent!

And these two – well they sound like they are not that innocent either- but what have we come to when we will say and do just about anything for a buck? How many little girls got that message  – we sure have come a long way baby from that original barbie commercial. We seem to have bent the tree completely to the breaking point and then we wonder how we got to where we are.

This was then -aaaaand now Barbie has a Tattoo, nose rings, navel and brow piercings. Yes we have come a long way baby and we haven’t learned a damned thing. 

And the best of them all. We have let our daughters down. We are so much smarter than this – we are the majority and yet here we sit. 50 years and what have we accomplished in advertising?  Free Speech extends to everyone else but us!  You would never see a minority used like this!

CRY

Free US Now  / The Majority United