Anti-war *IS* feminist
11 Comments Published by Quin July 22nd, 2008 in Feminism, Imperialism for Dummies, Lick My Jackboots of Love, Obamarama, War HUH! What is it good for?, What Patriarchy?Would people stop insinuating that I don’t care about women just because war is what I get the most worked up about right now? (I’m not just talking about on this blog. For some reason it seems to have become a common refrain lately.)
Being anti-war and being feminist are not mutually exclusive. After all, it’s impossible to support gender equality for women who you’re killing, or even for whom you’re just creating a constantly life-threatening environment. War zones, even once they’re ex-war zones, are where rights for women go to die.
(All pictures from here.)
Though I have argued that Obama appears to share McCain’s bloodthirsty imperialist core, it’s absolutely true that war is not the only issue that our choice of president could affect in meaningful ways. So, despite the fact that Obama has always been pretty lukewarm toward feminism, it’s also true that McCain has been downright hostile to it. Obama as president would surely be better for American women in general.
Women in Iraq, on the other hand — or in any other countries we’re raping to serve the business interests of the Great and Powerful Patriarchy — I’m pretty sure they won’t give a shit. Living in a war zone means the very fight for survival comes first. The things that feminists (quite rightly) fight for in America must seem like impossible dreams to Iraqi women who are forced to sell their bodies in order to keep their children from starving to death. Why is this our problem? Because we’re the ones who put them in this situation.
Since America invaded Iraq, an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed as a direct result. Surely everyone realizes that this means we’ve killed over half a million women in the bargain? I know it’s hard, but please take a moment and try to imagine what it would be like if some new threat (misogynistic terrorists, militant MRAs, whatever) had arrived on the scene five years ago and begun violently killing over half a million American women, with more killing still to come. Or if that seems like I’m rigging the argument too much, just make it over a million people of both sexes. Or, to make it even more analogous to Iraq, we can just say 3% of our population (9 million people, give or take).
Any which way you cut it, there would be absolutely no other topics of discussion in America. It would be priority number one to deal with. There would be no compromises that allowed the killing to continue at a slower place, no half-solutions which involved convincing the killers to target Canadians instead of Americans or somesuch.
But it’s hard for Americans to imagine that this is really happening to people just as human and important to themselves as we are to ourselves. Our compliant propagandistic press doesn’t show us life on the ground in Iraq. True critics of this war– those who say it’s wrong on every level, not just the way it’s been “poorly managed”– are marginalized and derided in our national discourse.
Let’s face it, the reality of war is just not pleasant to think about. Let’s watch HBO instead.
UPDATE: Ampersand points out that my assumption of 50% female casualties is off by quite a bit. Now I’m certainly no statistician, but if I’m analyzing the Lancet study (pdf) correctly, provided that the male/female death ratio has stayed more or less the same since 2006, we’re looking at 20% female mortality. Which means “only” about 240,000 female deaths directly caused by US involvement so far. (As opposed to 960,000 males. A particularly sick case of “The Patriarchy hurts men, too”.)
Oh, word. In addition, the invasion of Iraq has greatly affected women’s equality relative to men. Between the two, well, I refuse to believe that Hillary Clinton is a feminist because she’s still defending that vote, you know?
There is that argument I’ve heard a few times now, that both Obama and Clinton were actually white men. Not literally, of course, but in the way that everything they say and do supports the power of the ruling class– aka our good friend the Patriarchy.
I don’t think there’s anything more important in this election right now, then stopping the war. I personally believe Obama will be better at this than John McCain. He recently gave a speech in Jordan, where he lays the blame for the Israel-Palestinian conflict at both their feet. Thats a huge change from most other politicians, and a positive step forward in dealing with the middle east. He’s open to negotiation with Iran, and, more opposed to war than McCain. Unfortunately, theres too many arm-chair warriors in this country who love to watch a war via CNN to be completely pacifist, but, I think Obama comes a lot closer than McCain. I understand why you don’t want to vote for him (trust me, I feel the same way) but I think its more important we stop this war, and McCain will never do that and will probably drag us into war with Iran.
Wow, I was totally unaware that you were only allowed to be a feminist OR against the war. Apparently outrage is a zero-sum emotion, and every time I feel angry about some Iraqi woman forced to prostitute herself to feed ker kids, another purity ball takes place or fake pregnancy “crisis center” opens?
I don’t know what form said insinuations you refer to took (I wasn’t making ‘em, of course) but I find it difficult to believe that anyone really thinks that in order to care about feminism, you have to care less about everything else, including the war in Iraq. However, I can sympathize with the irritation that someone might feel to whom feminism is important, who is constantly being told “oh well sure it’s important BUT it’s gotta take a backseat to (fill in the blank) and oh we promise once (fill in the blank) is taken care of of course THEN we will focus on feminism!” Feminism unfortunately has this history of getting short-listed like that in groups of folks who come together to work on liberal-type issues.
That said, I don’t (can’t, who could?) disagree with any of your material points above.
I’m a teeny bit confused. I’m aware that it’s fashionable to suggest that American feminists don’t care about women in countries ours invades, but that’s usually a criticism wielded by right wingers looking to justify invading said countries. Not only are American feminists predominantly anti-war, we were pointing out how the thwarted entitlement of men in the U.S. helped get the ball rolling on Iraq, because it was not-so-obliquely argued by right wingers that your penis gets 3 inches bigger if our army kills some foreigners. So not only is fighting sexism at home not mutually exclusive from resisting war, it’s actually a major part of preventing it.
I wrote this post really because my response to Anon in this thread just kept on growing. I guess I was feeling an extra-special need to respond to this particular critique of my current anti-Obama stance, due to the fact that not too long ago I had a conversation with an acquaintance that was remarkably similar in content. (Though very different in tone, probably because we’re actual fleshy people who know each other instead of faceless virtual entities pinging off of each other in the blogosphere.)
It may be that most feminists are anti-war, and furthermore understand that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. But is it fair to say that not all anti-war feminists would agree that opposing war is a way of serving feminism? If so, it’s to those people that my post was directed. If not, then I was being stupid and patronizing, and if persuaded of this, will be happy to apologize.
I guess I probably am veering dangerously close here to being the kind of privileged white male asshole liberal Lisa mentions, who keeps telling feminists to keep putting off their causes while the “important” stuff gets taken care of. After all, to be honest, there’s not much else I would rank as high in importance to our world right now as getting the US to stop fucking around where it isn’t wanted. Just environmental and energy issues, really. Global warming, peak energy, and America’s continuing quest for worldwide hegemony on behalf of multinational corporations everywhere: these are the three interacting points of the deadly triangle that I fear could well spell the end of civilization as we’ve gotten to know it. It’s not that any other issues aren’t important; it’s just that they don’t seem as much such existential crises for our species.
If it turns out that I, in fact, am, just being a privileged white asshole here, I have at least one saving grace, and that’s that I really have no idea what can be done to solve any of my self-deemed “most important problems”. (Of the three, I guess environmental advocacy seems to me to hold the most hope for concrete changes, but even with that I feel like just throwing up my hands most of the time.) So I can’t very well get on my megaphone and say, “OKAY, ALL YOU PETTY LITTLE ACTIVISTS OF ALL KINDS AND STRIPES! I AM ONLY AGREEING TO EVEN TALK TO YOU BECAUSE I THINK YOU MIGHT BE OF SOME TEMPORARY USE TO ME! NOW JUST LEAVE ASIDE YOUR PETTY LITTLE PET ISSUES FOR A WHILE AND DO WHAT *I* TELL YOU TO DO!!” I can’t say this, since I don’t actually know what I would tell them to do.
Meanwhile, they tend to have a pretty good idea of how to go about things, so I think I should just stay out of their way.
Amanda, I don’t quite see the evidence that American feminist opposition to war (or anybody else’s opposition, for that matter) has had any measurable difference in preventing the US from oppressing and killing whoever it wants to. Given our history of foreign aggression since WWII, not to mention the current wars we’re embroiled in.
Then again, maybe it’s like advertising. The results could be there, they’re just hard to prove.
I think it’s important to make this argument in the wake of so many Hillary Clinton supporters who vowed out of spite to vote for John McCain because they are (rightly) outraged by the misogynist way the press treated Clinton. And this argument is not “zero sum” at all – in fact, to fight sexism at home and to fight it abroad are two important parts of a feminist strategy toward overcoming patriarchy, which historically has used war as a means of getting what it wants, glorifying slaughter and putting it into symbolically misogynist terms — and, as Quin notes, with concrete misogynist effects.
For just one (and by no means minor) example: Rape is a frequent weapon of war. Against both the oppressed and even among the instruments of oppression, the soldiers themselves. As has been reported elsewhere, female U.S. soldiers and contractors in Iraq have also been victims of rape by the men they serve with. The culture of war is inherently anti-woman – and I would argue, anti-man, because it requires men to shut down their individuality, their humanity, their rationality in order to submit oneself as one part of a giant killing machine.
There’s a lot I agree with in your post, but I wanted to disagree with one factual claim you made:
As far as I know, the large majority of Iraqi casualties are male. See the chart on page 4 of the Lancet study (pdf link).
A very good point, thank you. After I’d posted, I’d actually realized this assumption was probably a little flawed, but I didn’t realize just how far off I was. I’ve updated the post accordingly.
Kevin, what you’re saying cannot be overstated. War hurts everybody it touches, including its perpetrators.