Barbara Ehrenreich - What Abu Ghraib Taught Me

"...a uterus is not a substitute for a conscience..."

Link:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18740

(snip)
Even those people we might have thought were impervious to shame, like the secretary of Defense, admit that the photos of abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison turned their stomachs. The photos did something else to me, as a feminist: They broke my heart. I had no illusions about the U.S. mission in Iraq – whatever exactly it is – but it turns out that I did have some illusions about women. Of the seven U.S. soldiers now charged with sickening forms of abuse in Abu Ghraib, three are women: Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Pfc. Lynndie England and Spc. Sabrina Harman.
(snip)
A certain kind of feminism, or perhaps I should say a certain kind of feminist naiveté, died in Abu Ghraib...
(snip)
(snip)
What we have learned from Abu Ghraib, once and for all, is that a uterus is not a substitute for a conscience. This doesn't mean gender equality isn't worth fighting for for its own sake. It is. If we believe in democracy, then we believe in a woman's right to do and achieve whatever men can do and achieve, even the bad things. It's just that gender equality cannot, all alone, bring about a just and peaceful world.
(snip)
In fact, we have to realize, in all humility, that the kind of feminism based on an assumption of female moral superiority is not only naive; it also is a lazy and self-indulgent form of feminism. Self-indulgent because it assumes that a victory for a woman – a promotion, a college degree, the right to serve alongside men in the military – is by its very nature a victory for all of humanity. And lazy because it assumes that we have only one struggle – the struggle for gender equality – when in fact we have many more.
(snip)


much more...


Very heavy lessons here, folks.


:smoke:

Social conservatives are already using this scandal as "evidence" that women don't belong in the military.

I find Ehrenreich's article odd in that respect. I'm glad she's pointed out that flaw and hope others who felt females were morally superior as she did will take the article to heart.

Along with her proposals I might say that the Corporate Board rooms and other places where women are finally having some influence could use some "Morality" these days. Because I support rights for women, doesn't mean that I should be tarred with others saying that I thought women are morally superior so it's sad that this vision is what the Limbaughites love to portray in their derisive "Feminazi" statements.

Women can be as cruel as men and as inhumane to each other as men can be.

Erenreich's pointing in a direction for all of us to work to make a more humane society rather than deciding that morality only belongs to one gender over another. Sad that it took prison torture for her to see that, though.

Disclaimer -- I don't know what's actually going on out there. But from the repeated stories about rapes and other forms of sexual harrassment, I get the feeling that being in the military is a fairly coercive environment for women.

It's exactly that sort of environment that could produce the behavior we see in the pictures -- women trying desperately to fit in, women trying to prove they're as tough as the guys, women who are grateful to be told they're important, even if that importance amounts to nothing more than a superior ability to humiliate Iraqis.

No, "gender equality cannot, all alone, bring about a just and peaceful world." But a little more gender equality in the military might possibly serve to make things juster.

I can't let Karpinski and Rice off when they are women who are equal to men in their positions. If their behavior makes them less than moral then that's their problem for not having principles. To say that it's "peer pressure" or lack of equal status is excusing bad behavior, imho.

If I were drafted I would have to leave the country if I was forced to serve. I don't have the nature to be in the military and I wouldn't go through training to learn to kill. Why should my rights be taken away because others want to serve? What is the difference there?

So many questions about forcing genders to be the same, but requiring them to be different. What if they "are" different. But, we all should hope to have a moral compass which guides us in what is appropriate behavior to other human beings.