BY DEXTER FILKINS
National Post
16 Apr 2009
KABUL , A F G H A N I S TA N â€� The young women stepped off the bus and moved toward the protest march just beginning on the other side of the street when they were spotted by a mob of men. “Get out of here, you whores!” the men shouted. “Get...read more...
What's most amazing is the amount of courage it took for these women to protest for their rights. And what is most pathetic is the lack of support these women have from the main national women's organization in the United States.
The largest women's organization which purports to care about women's rights is the National Organization of Women. The front page of their website says nothing about these women who are putting themselves in harms way. Nothing at all. In fact you have to go searching to find anything about the protest, and when you do find the Afghan women's protest - it is only a link to a newspaper - and not a word of commentary is found.
The law the Afghan women are protesting has three parts. According to the National Post article,
One provision makes it illegal for a woman to resist her husband's sexual advances. A second provision requires a husband's permission for a woman to work outside the home or go to school. And a third makes it illegal for a woman to refuse to "make herself up" or "dress up" if that is what her husband wants.
These are basic human rights we are talking about. The right not to raped within a marriage. The right to go to work - or go to school. Rights which we all in the Western world take for granted. It is disheartening - although not altogether surprising that NOW has lost their way. They've narrowed their mission. Rather than being
...the largest, most comprehensive feminist advocacy group in the United States. Our purpose is to take action to bring women into full participation in society — sharing equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities with men, while living free from discrimination.
NOW has gone on to limit their actions to being abortion and lesbian rights advocates.
What's the point here? The point being made is that NOW, a group whose primary concern is supposed to be women's rights is in reality an extreme organization focused on their own politically liberal agenda. This is an agenda which does not include the basic human rights of women in countries where it's not "politically correct" to say that they are being oppressed.
These Afghani women who put their lives and physical safety on the line for their basic human rights are more in line with the brave women of the 1920s of the suffrage movement than NOW, Gloria Steinham or any self-glorifying academic who can walk the streets without a male escort or covered from head to foot in fear of being stoned or murdered. The Afghani women have taken their future into their own hands and thankfully are not waiting for those "feminists" around the world to come to their rescue. Otherwise they'd have a long time to wait.
This article can also be found in the New York Times. Watch the short video clip of the protest halfway down the page - it's shocking what these women faced.
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