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Ear to the Ground

New Afghan Law Castrates Women’s Rights

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Posted on Aug 14, 2009
Afghan Women
blogspot.com

International outrage over an earlier version of the legislation apparently wasn’t enough to derail this new assault on the rights of Afghan women.

Remember all that malarkey about how the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan would result in a remarkable push for women’s rights? Well, the Afghan government has passed a law that allows Shiite men to deny food to their wives if they refuse their husbands’ sexual demands. Oh, and a rapist can effectively avoid prosecution by paying “blood money” to his victim.

The Guardian:

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

“It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying ‘blood money’ to a girl who was injured when he raped her,” the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

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By caia, August 18 at 11:55 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

This is an elaboration on my previous comment.  I thought I’d explain further my issues with your word choices.

Starting with the more innocuous-seeming phrases in “Hillary Aims for the Global Glass Ceiling.”

What could be wrong with calling women “the finer sex”?  It’s a compliment.  Except, empty praise such as this has long been used by men who had all the power, and had no intention of giving any of it (even the vote) to women, but liked to pay lip service to the romantic notion that women were better.  It places women on pedestals on which it is very hard to move or do anything except look decorative.  It’s patronizing.

“She’s really something, that Hillary. Hey, if you like it, then you shoulda put some votes on it.”

This is trivializing.  It associates the Secretary of State doing serious diplomatic and international work with a song where a woman refers to herself/her body as “it” and instructs a former boyfriend that he should have married her if he wanted to keep “it”.  It is an extremely gendered reference, and not one that is in any way empowering or respectful.  Can you imagine ever saying about Bill Richardson, or Joe Biden, or any other male former candidate, “He’s really something, that Bill. Hey, if you like it, then you shoulda put some votes on it”? 

Finally the most egregious language choice, from this article’s headline: “New Afghan Law Castrates Women’s Rights.”  Yes, castrate has figurative meanings “to drive of power, vitality, or vigor”, but its primary meaning is “to remove the testicles (of a male animal or man.”

Do you see the problem there?  In this formulation, women’s rights are a male body, and to severely curtail them is to cut off their balls.  Violence against women, including marital rape, is recast as violence towards men, and specifically male genitalia.  A woman’s right to sovereignty over her own body is equated to a man’s ability to produce an erection.  Even while you’re decrying a law that strips women of their rights, you’re using a phallocentric framework which denies even the femaleness of women’s rights.

Your hearts may be in the right place with these articles, but you need some consciousness-raising about the impact of language.  You cannot effectively advocate women’s equality while using language that trivializes, marginalizes, and demeans us.

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By caia, August 18 at 2:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Castrate.  Castrate women’s rights.  You really went with that phrasing.

Really.

Along with “the finer sex” and “if you liked it then you shoulda put some votes on it” phrases on the article about Secretary of State Clinton, and I can only conclude that you really, really, really want to find someone else to write the copy for your links to women’s rights articles.  Because right now, you’ve managed to be offensive, patronizing, and trivializing in a grand total of three paragraphs.

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By Leefeller, August 14 at 11:36 pm #

Yes, we are spreading democracy around the world, boy,  it feels so good, even if we do not even have equity here in most of the USA so this makes senseless of nonsense.  We just had the opportunity to she how a women was treated by our great congress during the supreme court selection hearings.

As the self proclaimed greatest nation in the world.  What a bunch of hoot- in- anne -ass- holes.  I could be upset by this, butt thanks to George Carlin we know, they are a bunch of ass holes,  who do what they want, so it does not matter what we want or desire.  They got theirs, so be it.

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By Rodger Lemonde, August 14 at 7:00 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

What exactly is the message here? This story came up with an two ads from ArabMatchmaking.com featuring Afghan Girls, Meet Afghan girls for dating and marriage.
Oh, I see we buy a bride and save her from being a bride in Afghanistan. Or is it snap them up before they learn about human/women’s rights.
Is it just me or does this seem wrong on many levels?
I will admit to being a bit of a smart mouth but this is just plain annoying. This may not appear with each viewing of this article. I did take a screen capture to prove that this happened. I will follow the comments to see if this is repeats.

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By David, August 14 at 5:25 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

You’re welcome for the freeeeedom!

Love,
The United States of America.

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