Democracy vs Women?

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There's a new salvo from the critics of the U.S. role in Iraq: Middle East democracy is bad for women.

The excuse for the man-bites-dog headlines is a new study from Amnesty International, detailing the challenges facing Iraqi women. They are subject to violent crime. They are subject to the retrograde attitudes of certain men, whether sanctioned by Islam or not. Rape is on the rise without Saddam to maintain order. And women who take an active role in politics are targeted by Islamic radicals.

The Amnesty report is complex, and addresses some critical issues for human rights — but that wasn't what the scribes got out of it. "RIGHTS REDUCED, SECURITY WORSE SINCE OCCUPATION," tsked the Toronto Star.

"IRAQI WOMEN NO BETTER OFF POST-SADDAM," offered Al Jazeera. "IRAQI WOMEN STILL SUBJECT TO ABUSE," lectured Reuters.

In each case, the subtext was clear: Things have gotten worse for Iraqi women, and America is to blame.

Under Saddam Hussein, Amnesty concedes, individual women may have been raped, tortured and murdered for their political activism, ethnic group or for no reason at all. But as a group — human-rights groups have become fond of noting — women were respected. Ideologically, Saddam was a great feminist.

The source for this is the 1970 Iraq Constitution, which established a secular regime and at least theoretically granted women equal rights. Saddam allowed, unlike the Taliban, that women be educated. His regime was happy to employ them in large numbers, as doctors, university professors — even as a chief biological-weapons expert, in one notorious case.

True, the literacy rate among women dropped from 75 percent in the late 70s to 25 percent in 2000, one of the lowest in the region. Saddam's fault? No, according to the chorus, the fault of the U.S. for imposing economic sanctions on Saddam's regime after the first Gulf War.

Yet they rose to the occasion. Women will hold 86 of 275 seats in the National Assembly, a number higher than the suggested quota and unparalleled among Iraq's Arab neighbors. That they did so despite the threats and reality of violence is only greater testament to what they can do when the situation cools.

The security situation in Iraq is bad, for women as for others. Like all Iraqis — at least those who favor a modernizing country — Iraqi women worry about whether democracy will just empower religious reactionaries. In fact, part of the trouble here is that the report singles out women. What about Jews, Christians, Sunni Muslims, secularists, those who enjoy a nip of adult beverage once in a while?

All Iraqis have fears and hopes for their country as Iraqi society fumbles its way toward a new order. But the headlines bespeak a journalistic mindset that really has little to do with Iraq. The editors who gave the Amnesty claim prominent play no doubt see the report as an extension of the Larry Summers controversy at Harvard. Women are deemed a special victim group; any critique of the U.S. occupation has instant credibility if it simply affirms our own society's guilt toward women.

That's not to say that the place of women in Iraq won't be just one more subject for Iraqis to argue and fight about — one hopes in democratic way. Fighting for equality wasn't a walk in the park even for American women, who didn't get the vote until 1920. During their struggle, suffragettes were assaulted, arrested and forced to campaign using aliases to hide from police and avoid embarrassment to their families.

Iraqi women will have their struggles, too. But they are in many ways well-prepared for the fight — already well organized and well buttressed with support from international groups. Women for Women International surveyed Iraqi women last year: 93.7 percent believe in legal rights for women and 87 percent wanted the right to vote on the constitution. Those ladies make up 60 percent of Iraqi society, otherwise so divided ethnically and religiously.

Democracy? You do the math. Not only can we expect democracy to be good for women in Iraq, but we can expect women to be good for democracy — precisely because they represent a principle and a cause that crosses tribal and religious boundaries.

JWR contributor Collin Levey is a weekly op-ed columnist at the Seattle Times. Before joining the Times in September 2003, she was an editorial writer and editor for The Wall Street Journal. Comment by clicking here.

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