A Middle-Eastern head of state won a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) prize in 1982 for improving girls’ education. That man was Saddam Hussein.
Although the images of Saddam emblazoned on the American mind come in the form of a fallen statue and a dusty rabbit hole, the former leader of Iraq actually did much in the way of encouraging women’s rights in the 1980s. Under Saddam, “women were allowed to own property, join the police force, drive cars, and have bank accounts” (pp. 9-10).
Now I’m not saying we should bestow a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize on the guy. In fact, these luxuries, aka women’s rights, disappeared by the 1990s. And it only got worse from there.
Christina Asquith’s Sisters in War: A Story of Love, Family, and Survival in the New Iraq (Random House, 2009) is a compelling account of the struggle for women’s rights in Iraq after the invasion in 2003. The story is told through the eyes of both American and Iraqi women: two well-educated Iraqi sisters, an American reservist who served as a translator, and an American-born Muslim aid worker. Through each of their stories we are reminded that war, because it threatens “security and stability,” is always bad for women (p.22).
At the center of the struggle in these women’s stories is the Islamic headscarf, or hijab.
Manal, the Muslim aid worker, had donned the Islamic headscarf at age 16, much to the consternation of her secular Muslim parents. Manal was looking to make a typical teenager statement when she decided to wear the hijab: She was Arab, Muslim, and a feminist. She did not need to attract men with her body, as she saw so many American girls doing. She attended only all-girl parties that forbade alcohol. She proudly wore the hijab and pants under her high school basketball uniform. When Manal arrives in Iraq in 2003 wearing the hijab, she is ready to help Iraqi women by empowering them and challenging interpretations of Islamic customs and teachings that apply to women.
Lieutenant Heather Coyne, working for the Coalition Provisional Authority (the temporary lawful government of Iraq), was charged with building a series of women’s centers in Baghdad. Lt. Coyne enlisted Manal to help her determine what the women of Baghdad needed and wanted. In the ensuing weekly meetings with these women, the line of demarcation between conservatives and progressives was evinced by the symbolic headscarf: veiled in one corner, unveiled in another. Picture Sarah Palin and Gloria Steinem trying to agree on the issue of abortion. Then, drop them into a war zone.
The Iraqi sisters, Zia and Nunu, grew up in what Westerners would consider a relatively progressive household: they wore jeans but expected their marriages to be arranged. They did not wear headscarves, and as the book progresses, you begin to understand that there’s a certain amount of security in wearing the hajib.
As each of these four women’s story unfolds in Asquith’s Sisters of War, you begin to realize that although Saddam’s regime was dictatorial and murderous, women could at least leave the house. The threat of Westernization and a loosening of clothing or morals sent many men into a panic that drove them to kidnapping, murder, and rape. Asquith tells one story of a cab driver who killed a couple of Iraqi women simply because they were acting as translators for the Americans.
As a result, Iraqi women remained confined to their homes. American women dared not leave the Green Zone. Not exactly a formula for collaboration on the important issue of women’s rights.
Yet another tragedy of war.
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Deb Goodrich said:
Tracey, this reminds us of how “not simple” history is, how there are no clean lines, no absolutes. I’m going to get the book.
December 13th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Chris Heatherly said:
Tracey,
Sounds like a good read! Thank you for the review.
December 15th, 2009 at 11:30 pm