[Peace-discuss] What Abu Ghraib Taught Me, by Barbara Ehrenreich

[Lisa Chason]

>
>
> What Abu Ghraib Taught Me
>
> By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet
> May 20, 2004
>
> 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.
>
> It was Harman we saw smiling an impish little smile
> and giving the thumbs-up sign from behind a pile of
> hooded, naked Iraqi men - as if to say, "Hi Mom, here
> I am in Abu Ghraib!" It was England we saw with a
> naked Iraqi man on a leash. If you were doing PR for
> Al Qaeda, you couldn't have staged a better picture to
> galvanize misogynist Islamic fundamentalists around
> the world.
>
> Here, in these photos from Abu Ghraib, you have
> everything that the Islamic fundamentalists believe
> characterizes Western culture, all nicely arranged in
> one hideous image - imperial arrogance, sexual
> depravity ... and gender equality.
>
> Maybe I shouldn't have been so shocked. We know that
> good people can do terrible things under the right
> circumstances. This is what psychologist Stanley
> Milgram found in his famous experiments in the 1960s.
> In all likelihood, Ambuhl, England and Harman are not
> congenitally evil people. They are working-class women
> who wanted an education and knew that the military
> could be a stepping-stone in that direction. Once they
> had joined, they wanted to fit in.
>
> And I also shouldn't be surprised because I never
> believed that women were innately gentler and less
> aggressive than men. Like most feminists, I have
> supported full opportunity for women within the
> military - 1) because I knew women could fight, and 2)
> because the military is one of the few options around
> for low-income young people.
>
> Although I opposed the 1991 Persian Gulf War, I was
> proud of our servicewomen and delighted that their
> presence irked their Saudi hosts. Secretly, I hoped
> that the presence of women would over time change the
> military, making it more respectful of other people
> and cultures, more capable of genuine peacekeeping.
> That's what I thought, but I don't think that anymore.
>
>
> A certain kind of feminism, or perhaps I should say a
> certain kind of feminist naiveté, died in Abu Ghraib.
> It was a feminism that saw men as the perpetual
> perpetrators, women as the perpetual victims and male
> sexual violence against women as the root of all
> injustice. Rape has repeatedly been an instrument of
> war and, to some feminists, it was beginning to look
> as if war was an extension of rape. There seemed to be
> at least some evidence that male sexual sadism was
> connected to our species' tragic propensity for
> violence. That was before we had seen female sexual
> sadism in action.
>
> But it's not just the theory of this naive feminism
> that was wrong. So was its strategy and vision for
> change. That strategy and vision rested on the
> assumption, implicit or stated outright, that women
> were morally superior to men. We had a lot of debates
> over whether it was biology or conditioning that gave
> women the moral edge - or simply the experience of
> being a woman in a sexist culture. But the assumption
> of superiority, or at least a lesser inclination
> toward cruelty and violence, was more or less beyond
> debate. After all, women do most of the caring work in
> our culture, and in polls are consistently less
> inclined toward war than men.
>
> I'm not the only one wrestling with that assumption
> today. Mary Jo Melone, a columnist for the St.
> Petersburg (Fla.) Times, wrote on May 7: "I can't get
> that picture of England [pointing at a hooded Iraqi
> man's genitals] out of my head because this is not how
> women are expected to behave. Feminism taught me 30
> years ago that not only had women gotten a raw deal
> from men, we were morally superior to them."
>
> If that assumption had been accurate, then all we
> would have had to do to make the world a better place
> - kinder, less violent, more just - would have been to
> assimilate into what had been, for so many centuries,
> the world of men. We would fight so that women could
> become the generals, CEOs, senators, professors and
> opinion-makers - and that was really the only fight we
> had to undertake. Because once they gained power and
> authority, once they had achieved a critical mass
> within the institutions of society, women would
> naturally work for change. That's what we thought,
> even if we thought it unconsciously - and it's just
> not true. Women can do the unthinkable.
>
> You can't even argue, in the case of Abu Ghraib, that
> the problem was that there just weren't enough women
> in the military hierarchy to stop the abuses. The
> prison was directed by a woman, Gen. Janis Karpinski.
> The top U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq, who also
> was responsible for reviewing the status of detainees
> before their release, was Major Gen. Barbara Fast. And
> the U.S. official ultimately responsible for managing
> the occupation of Iraq since October was Condoleezza
> Rice. Like Donald H. Rumsfeld, she ignored repeated
> reports of abuse and torture until the undeniable
> photographic evidence emerged.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> The struggles for peace and social justice and against
> imperialist and racist arrogance, cannot, I am truly
> sorry to say, be folded into the struggle for gender
> equality.
>
> What we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no
> illusions. Women do not change institutions simply by
> assimilating into them, only by consciously deciding
> to fight for change. We need a feminism that teaches a
> woman to say no - not just to the date rapist or
> overly insistent boyfriend but, when necessary, to the
> military or corporate hierarchy within which she finds
> herself.
>
> In short, we need a kind of feminism that aims not
> just to assimilate into the institutions that men have
> created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and
> subvert them.
>
> To cite an old, and far from naive, feminist saying:
> "If you think equality is the goal, your standards are
> too low." It is not enough to be equal to men, when
> the men are acting like beasts. It is not enough to
> assimilate. We need to create a world worth
> assimilating into.
>
> Barbara Ehrenreich is the author, most recently, of
> "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America."
> This article was first published in the Sunday Opinion
> section of the Los Angeles Times.
>
> http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18740
>
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