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05/22/2004 "A Feminist Perspective on Abu Ghraib"

This is a good article below on a feminist perspective on Abu Gahaid but Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of the article below, is primarily a socialist. Socialist often make their income by criticizing other people's movements as not progressive enough (presumably as the socialist movement where ever that is). For instance she states below that equality of opportunity is a shortsighted goal. But her primary criticism is that women have not lived up to the feminist claim (as alleged by Ehrenreich), that they are superior to men.

I have been a feminist for 30 years and I never believed women were superior to men and never was taught that by other organizers I knew.

Many lesbians and their organizations promoted that theory and some branches of the women's spirituality movement (read just another religion) did so but feminists activists never accepted it as a credible theory. It is true that some feminist women who were not very active in the feminist activities believed it. But women who actually organized with and for women, were generally astounded at the savage infighting and trashing between women.

Flo Kennedy who later killed herself said: All those years lying under shit and you do not smell good when you are uncovered" I myself was always grateful women were not murdered at the NOW conventions.

I am unaware of any organizing that Barbara Ehrenreich performed in feminist organizations so perhaps her views of women as "superior beings" that she claims were stressed by females photographed[ as torturers came from her activities as a socialist. But my goodness, hasn't she heard of slavery? Here is news for you Barb, white women were OK with it and made the refreshments for the lynching parties. Morally superior sex my ass.

My kind of feminist theory teaches that women are oppressed by male dominated and perpetuated institutions which need to be changed to include all of the governed. The ideas and institutionalizing of diversity and inclusiveness it is believed will lead to deeper reforms. Also, that the effects of oppression are crippling and long-lasting. The hope is that after women are assimilated for several generations we will get a more accurate picture of actual gender differences. It is impossible to define actual gender differences as long as discrimination and sex role stereotypes affect the opportunities for human development

OK after about an hour of thought the anger has started - what is feminist about an article ignoring the male central command who gave orders to remove control from Karpinski in order to trash feminists?

The Taguba report states there was rebellion by Karpinski and confusion when military intelligence took away her control of Abu Gahaid. But the last panel investigated at Warner's hearings Sanchez, Miller, Roberts, etc., DENIED that it even happened - said Karpinski NEVER complained so you know they are a lying bunch of torture approvers.

No mention in E's article that these are the first full generation of women in quasi combat service, they are in an explicitly woman hating female slave status country - scared shi---ss about being captured with good reason and eager to please the boys NONE OF WHICH EXCUSES ENGLUND and the other two females.

Why doesn't the article explain the dynamics and the conflict of being in that position and under orders from the people who use torture and then blame those they order to actually do it?

Like: Tenet at the CIA, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, Commander of Coalition Forces Sanchez who approved specific tortures (whom they are relieving of duty while praising his "outstanding service" - Sanchez tried to blame it all on Karpinski by limiting Taguba's investigation to her performance and that of the MP - eliminating any investigation of military intelligence personnel but Taguba wrote a memo saying they also should be investigated and the shit hit the fan for Sanchez);

Also Major General Geoffrey Miller, formerly the commandant at Guantanamo, Cuba, Military Intelligence Brigade Commander, Colonel Thomas M Pappas and Commander of Joint Interrogation and Debriefing, Lt Col. Steve Jordan. They should all be court marshaled as the ones who were responsible but who wants to bet on that possibility.

That is why while there is no excuse for the women who participated in the torture, it is disgusting to watch those men who instigated it and approved it and gave the orders being allowed to blame the lowest in rank while the big boys aforementioned get the golden stars of glory.

What about those males whispering, good job-keep softening them up - you are saving lives?

Feminist analysis in the anti-violence movement spent a lot of time explaining the mentality of those victims who were in fear and terror because they did not act "rationally" by conventional standards. They acted in ways designed not to offend those who had the power to rape and beat them. These are not excuses. The analysis is helpful for the provision of solutions that do not scapegoat the victims.

Where is the call for a look at the use of torture and how the male dominated intelligence industry has used torture and violence and rape as a normal method of interrogation since this country is founded?

There is an excellent article on the use of torture and the questions that this country should be dealing with in, The New York Times Magazine, may 2, 2004. I think the questions raised on page 86 are actually more of a feminist analysis then those in E's article.

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 naivetι, 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.

Other articles by Ehrenreich

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