Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) Defends Wikileaks

Rep. Ron Paul gives the House a dose of common sense:

Women's Rights in Iraq: Before and After Saddam

As a follow-up to a previous post concerning the status of women in Iraq, in particular the issue of the prevalence of sex trafficking of refugees and rape victims, I would like to write a bit concerning the context of women's rights in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion, the deterioration of their rights under the current Iraqi government, and increased discrimination and even targeted killings women in Iraq face today. One can tie the changing rights of women not simply to changes in political ideology and government, but also to the stricter interpretation of Islam more conservative elements of different sects in Iraq who are trying to push their agenda to limit womens' freedom of expression, education, civic participation, employment, and enforce conservative dress codes.

A certain myth has been circulating that women's rights under Saddam Hussein were greater than what's currently happening in Iraq today and this generalisation is often taken for granted. In reality, women's rights under Saddam had a mixed track record and was based primarily on political and economic expediency. According to a report by Codepink Women for Peace:

Although a great deal of policy and law continued to women’s advantage when Saddam Hussein became president, his voracious appetite for dictatorial power over the entire population could not but undermine women’s gains. Women, like men, were jailed, tortured, raped, and murdered. To extract information from dissidents, suspected dissidents, and opposition members abroad, Hussein was fond of sending them video tapes showing their female relatives raped by members of the secret police. The war with Iran subjected Iraqis not only to the deprivations of war but also to gross human rights violations inflicted by their own government. Women were targets for rape and sex trafficking because of their relationship to male oppositionist activists; thousands of women, children and men were expelled because of their actual or alleged Iranian descent; tens of thousands of Kurds disappeared, and the Iraqi government used chemical weapons against thousands of Kurds.

In 1959, Iraq passed a Personal Status Law whereby Sha'ria courts were replaced by government-run 'personal status' courts that passed judgment based on then-new codified state law.  These laws restricted child marriage, banned forced marriages, restricted polygamy, curtailed men's prerogatives in divorce, expanded women’s rights in divorce, extended child custody to mothers, and improved inheritance rights for women (Heinrich Böll Foundation). The Heinrich Böll Foundation notes: "It remains one of the most liberal laws in the Arab world with respect to women’s rights. Moreover, by eliminating the differential treatment of Sunnis and Shiites under the law, it does not differentiate between the various religious communities and thus sustains social and communal coexistence."

The Iraqi Provisional Constitution of 1970 guaranteed equal rights to women and, according to Human Rights Watch, other laws specifically ensured women's rights to vote, attend school, run for political office, and own property. The new post-Saddam constitution ratified in 2005 guarantees the same equal rights to women, however, a significant problem exists in Article 2 where "First: Islam is the official religion and foundation for legislation. (a) No law may be enacted that contradicts the established provisions of Islam. (b) No law may be enacted that contradicts the principals of democracy. (c) No law may be enacted that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms as stipulated in this Constitution" (Global Justice Project: Iraq).

The problem with this specific article is that interpretations of Islam run the gamut from liberal to conservative, from metaphorical to literal. Additionally, who speaks for Islam? Unlike, for example Catholicism, where a hierarchical religious body exists to hand down judgments on interpretations for moral codes of behavior and religious issues no such unified hierarchy exists in Islam given the division of views by various sects. It would be like attempting to unite various sects of Christianity that originally broke off from the papacy and having them agree to moral regulations concerning, say, marriage for the priesthood or the issue of making women priests. To make Islam the "foundation for legislation" was a huge constitutional mishap, especially in regards to the norms (and potentially laws) regulating the behavior of women in society. Sections B and C of the Constitution appear to have been remedial points to the Article, however, since the ratification of the 2005 constitution the original 1959 Personal Status laws which granted women a lot more legal guarantees than they would have normally had in an Islamic society are now in jeopardy.

As an aside, I am not critiquing Islam as a backwards religion. When Muhammad first recited the Quran in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century AD what the Quran provided was considered revolutionary, radical, and far ahead of its time. Consider that Muhammad provided rights to women that never existed before, made female infanticide a sin, provided divorced women with maintenance, widows and children with protections, and declared that men and women are equal before God. What I am critiquing is making any religion the foundation for state legislation for the reason that what religious texts provide as moral and social guidance are in danger of skewed or politically-interested interpretation depending on who is making and interpreting the law. I am not in contention with the following point: Muhammad was a feminist. The feminism of the 7th century AD, however, is not the feminism of 21st century. Moreover, depending on how enlightened or literalist Sha'ria judges will be, what sect, region, or the varying levels of conservatism in different communities in Iraq, matters for women could take a downturn since judgments and interpretations of religious law are unlikely to be consistent across the country. Faced with more conservative judges women could meet obstacles going to the courts to get judgments in their favour.

Today, women in Iraq currently are constantly under threat of being targeted for killings, rape, or kidnappings to be sold into sex trafficking rings. An article by CNN published in 2007 states:

According to a United Nations report, the kidnapping, rape and murder of women is on the rise. Honor killings, or the killing of a woman who brought perceived dishonor to her family, is up also. Women -- Muslims and non-Muslims alike -- are warned to adhere to the strict dress code, the United Nations said.

"You go to the Baghdad morgue, and you find a big number of women who are headless; they have been beheaded, they have been tortured and killed, and this is usually the case in honor killing," [Iraqi feminist Yanar] Mohammed said. "Nobody can speak about democracy if women are being killed for honor." She added that the current laws in Iraq do not punish the men who carry out honor killings.

More conservative and ignorant elements in Iraqi society are also lending to violence against women to enforce 'morality.' CNN published another article in 2008 highlighting that in Basra 79 women were targeted for killings due to violations of Islamic teachings.

One glance through the police file is enough to understand the consequences. Basra's police chief, Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, flips through the file, pointing to one unsolved case after another.

"I think so far, we have been unable to tackle this problem properly," he says. "There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads."

"When I came to Basra a year ago," he says, "two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant."

The killers enforcing their own version of Islamic justice are rarely caught, while women live in fear.

Boldly splattered in red paint just outside the main downtown market, a chilling sign reads: "We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you."

The attacks on the women of Basra have intensified since British forces withdrew to their base at the airport back in September, police say. Iraqi security forces took over after British troops pulled back, but are heavily infiltrated by militias.

And tracking the perpetrators of these crimes is nearly impossible, Khalaf says, adding that he doesn't have control of the thousands of policemen and officers.

BBC News went on to label the situation for women in Iraq as a 'National Crisis.' More recently, Al-Jazeera reported that women's rights in Iraq are 'in danger', and detailed the daily struggle women faced to protect themselves from violence, especially the most vulnerable being those whose husbands were arrested by occupation forces: "...many women also fled their homes because their husbands were arbitrarily arrested by occupation forces or government security personnel. A household without a male figure became far more vulnerable since 2003. Women sought refuge with relatives and failing to do so fled to Syria or Jordan." In Syria and Jordan, these women having no alternative work become the victims of local pimps and faced with the shame of their reality are unable to return home lest they may become victims of honor killings due to cultural pressures if their families are conservative.

Of course, time will tell how women's rights in Iraq will unfold. High levels of insecurity and instability throughout the country is currently making it difficult for women to even organize or consider these issues. However, some women, such as Iraqi feminist Yanar Mohammed, are outspoken in regards to the status of women in Iraq post-US invasion. Mohammed founded the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq. As mentioned in a previous blog post, Mohammed's organisation and international women's rights NGO, MADRE, are operating underground safehouses to protect women from sex trafficking and violence in Iraq.

If the status of women is the indicator of a country's political and economic stability, Iraq is doing poorly.   Hopefully, in the future, more women like Mohammed will have the courage to express their views openly, fight for their rights, keep the Personal Status laws in place, and pressure the government into providing women greater protections. The future of Iraq will depend on its women.

The Girl Effect

Having finished reading Half the Sky earlier this year, I've become a great supporter and advocate for the Girl Effect. Half the Sky covers the the concept of the "girl effect" in its introduction. In essence, empowering women and children through the provision of education and healthcare transforms economies, saves lives, and reforms political institutions, cultures, and entire societies. The fight on behalf of women if not just a 'feminist' issue, it is a fight to reduce poverty, fight domestic and political abuses, increase the availability of healthcare to men, women, and children, and prevent disease pandemics through knowledge which is passed down generation to generation. Empowering women and children, girls in particular, is a solution that will impact the world on a grand scale. It will not be easy, it will not be 100 per cent effective all of the time, but over time it will have an impact.

I challenge everyone to support the campaign, either through advocacy, spreading the word, donations or involvement in campaigns that strive to empower women and children. Read Half the Sky for more details about what you can do to contribute to the 'girl effect.'

The Case of the Missing Prince

On January 19, 2010 , The London Review of Books (LRB) Blog published a post concerning the disappearance of Prince Bandar bin Sultan from the public eye. To the foreign policy jocks out there, Prince Bandar, former Saudi Ambassador to Washington from 1983 to 2005, was known to be the infamous wheeler and dealer in the beltway having hopped into his career through the arms trade back in the 1970s. A shrewd and influential diplomat, respected by some and reviled by others, his career came into the spotlight with the BAE Al-Yamamah Scandal.

Bandar resigned from his ambassadorship in June of 2005 for "personal reasons." He returned to Saudi Arabia weeks prior to the death of King Fahd. Foreign affairs commentators speculate that the prince sought to position himself in the new government where his father, Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, became the new crown prince.

LRB notes that the last official sighting of Bandar in public was in December 2008. LRB listed the following speculations following Prince Bandar's vanishing act:

• "Iranian media reported that Bandar had been put under house arrest, allegedly for plotting a coup to try and ensure the Kingdom would continue under the rule of the Sudairi branch of the Al Saud family. But Iran isn’t the most reliable source."
• "Others say that Bandar is depressed or has been ordered by King Abdullah to keep a low profile because he meddled in Syrian affairs, trying to stir up the tribes against the Assad regime, without the king’s approval."
• "According to Saudi opposition sources, Bandar is now in Dhaban Prison, in north west Jeddah, a high security jail where terrorist suspects and political opposition figures are held. Bandar is said to be in a special wing where the other prisoners are four senior generals: one from the army, one from the royal guard, one from the national guard and one from internal security. Bandar’s lawyer in the US denies he is in prison and says he has been seen out and about recently, although he wouldn’t divulge when, where or even in which country."

LRB added that in September 2009, when Prince Bandar's "position as head of the Kingdom’s National Security Council was renewed for another four years, he didn’t appear in public to profess his allegiance to the king, as is customary. No official explanation was forthcoming." Moreover, LRB notes that the former Saudi ambassador has not made any of his usual appearances since 2008.

A recent blog post by Le Figaro's journalist, Georges Malbrunot, claims that the prince's disappearance was in lieu of health problems. According to Malbrunot's post published on June 18, 2010, Prince Bandar was treated in Paris for a spine problem and is recovering in Morocco. Malbrunot cynically added: "One thing is for sure: his star has faded in the circles of power in Riyadh."

The Rally to Restore Sanity

For anyone who hasn't yet heard, Jon Stewart is hosting The Rally to Restore Sanity on the Washington Mall on Saturday, October 30, 2010.

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Additionally, Stephen Colbert is hosting his own mock rally on the mall, The March to Keep Fear Alive, on the same day:

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The rallies, meant to be satirical, have gotten an overwhelming amount of response. Where the organizers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report expected only a show of 25,000 people when applying for permits if the rallies' facebook pages are any reflection of what the real turnout will be over 100,000 plan to attend.

For two comedians to have inspired so much turnout says a lot about general American public opinion, both sarcastic and cynical, for our own societies. mainstream media and political processes.

The Arab-Jewish dating divide: thoughts on relationships, ethnic identity, and pluralism

Earlier this year, a story came out of Israel of a Palestinian man accused of "rape by deception" after having consensual sex with a woman who believed him to be a Jew. According to different news reports the man denied misrepresenting himself. Nonetheless, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison in a plea bargain.

The story appears to have come down to a classic case of he-said/she-said:

According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where [Saber] Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left. When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault. Although Kashur was initially charged with rape and indecent assault, this was changed to a charge of rape by deception as part of a plea bargain arrangement. Handing down the verdict, Tzvi Segal, one of three judges on the case, acknowledged that sex had been consensual but said that although not "a classical rape by force," the woman would not have consented if she had not believed Kashur was Jewish. The sex therefore was obtained under false pretences, the judges said. "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated," they added.

Remember, the Palestinian man denied misrepresenting himself as a Jew; he is currently appealing the sentence. One of the judges on the case, Tzvi Segal, asserted somewhat ridiculously: "The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls. When the very basis of trust between human beings drops, especially when the matters at hand are so intimate, sensitive and fateful, the court is required to stand firmly at the side of the victims – actual and potential – to protect their wellbeing. Otherwise, they will be used, manipulated and misled, while paying only a tolerable and symbolic price."


I would contend with Segal: In that case if a man lies to a woman about loving her and she sleeps with him and he leaves her after is that rape by deception? If a man lies about his profession or misrepresents his income to get women to sleep with him is that also rape by deception? If the man promises the moon and the stars to bed a woman and doesn't deliver can a woman bring that to court as rape by deception?

I don't know the exact details of the case, what evidence was offered or if there was any evidence presented. My opinion is this entire case is moot and should have been dismissed. The politics of the case, the bias through which the judges were ruling on it was the fact that the man in question was Arab and the woman Jewish and therefore a "victim." If these judges lived up to the standard of justice that the philosophy of law required of them they should have been blind to the ethnic identities of both parties and ruled according to the facts of the case which to any outside viewer is clearly absurd. The ruling concerned itself more with symbolic politics than with any ounce of common sense.

Dating across cultural, racial and religious divides is still a touchy subject even in the most modern countries. I don't mean to pick on Israel specifically, but given the political nature of Jewish identity, that of individual and state, it makes it an interesting case on the interracial dating divide. In that the character of the state identifies itself as Jewish; that the apparent "demographic threat" of low Israeli birthrates places pressure on the government to give Jewish women incentives to start families; that in essence woman is constructed as being symbolic of the nation and its future: relationships between Arab men and Jewish women are taboo not simply for political and religious reasons but on symbolically national-cultural grounds.

In a community in Nazareth, a special team has been established by the local authority to prevent Arab-Jewish dating relationships and "rescue" women from Arab men. Other privately-funded groups have also sprung up for the same purpose. This is a radical intervention of local government and very conservative communities in the private lives of individuals. A 2007 poll claimed that nearly half of Israeli-Jews believed that interracial relationships amounted to "national treason." As of today, there is no such thing as civil marriage in Israel, the status quo being that marriage is relegated to the individual religious communities. There are no provisions for gay marriage or interfaith marriages.

As an aside, I don't think early political philosophers foresaw democracies based on the cultural character of the nation, that culture would define the state or that public policy, or even justice, would be meted out and informed through a cultural lens and the problems it would engender. Where individual identity, taken collectively, defines these governments often any claims to minority protections are marginalized or even ignored in the face of bias or even blatant racism. There's a wide gap between what's in the law books and what happens in practice due to social and cultural norms.

I question anyone's interference in the private lives of individuals, especially in matters of love and marriage. The desperate necessity to preserve identity at the expense of humanness or greater interaction between different groups is willful ignorance at worse and paranoia at best. Anyone who claims that ethnic identity is eradicated due to intermarriage or "miscegenation" also fails to appreciate the complexity of individual identity and the fact that identities can be transformed and multiple identities acknowledged and that's not necessarily a negative thing. Perhaps global conflicts would be readily resolved through the establishment of more pluralist institutions so that petty conflicts which arise over something as absurd as dating or intermarriage don't have to be the reflection of the general absurdity of greater political conflicts.

Christians are losing their religion

Reverend Terry Jones should be ashamed to call himself a Christian.  Recent news is that the lunatic reverend is planning to commemorate September 11th by organizing a public Quran burning. That the Florida religious leader even labels his organization the Dove World Outreach Center speaks to a massive ounce of irony. Clearly, to the deluded reverend the virtues of "faith, hope, and love" or the maxims "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "love thy neighbour as you would love thyself" don't quite strike a chord with him. The reverend seems to believe that one should answer hatred with more hatred. If this is his way to commemorate a day Americans lost their lives in an act of hateful senseless violence, I find it to be a selfish display on the lowest wrung of disrespect not only for those who died in that tragedy but those who are in the process of becoming casualties in acts of hateful and senseless violence. The reverend clearly doesn't care to engender peace or understanding. And this, dear friends, is what I despise about blind fundamentalism.

Sure, some will argue that this is a First Amendment issue. I am a great fan of the First Amendment, but I'm not particularly tolerant of any action that espouses hatred and blatant racism against anyone else. The freedom of speech and assembly, however, supercedes my opinion in this matter as David Hudson Jr. writes concerning First Amendment issues:

The First Amendment protects peaceful, not violent, assembly. However, there must a "clear and present danger" or an "imminent incitement of lawlessness" before government officials may restrict free-assembly rights. Otherwise, the First Amendment's high purpose can too easily be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. [...] The KKK's right to assemble peaceably was secured by the famous 1977 case of National Socialist Party v. Skokie, in which the American Civil Liberties Union successfully argued that the First Amendment prohibited officials of Skokie, Ill., from banning a march by the National Socialist Party. Skokie is a Chicago suburb that is home to many Holocaust survivors. One federal judge reasoned that "it is better to allow those who preach racial hatred to expend their venom in rhetoric rather than to be panicked into embarking on the dangerous course of permitting the government to decide what its citizens may say and hear."

Having that said, however, doesn't mean it's a good idea for a bunch of lunatics to burn a holy book if for nothing else than to be provocative. A few weeks ago, an act of arson was committed against a Tennessee mosque. If Christians of any denomination believe that inciting hatred by publicly disrespecting another group because of the actions of an extreme few is a "Christian thing to do" then they really ought to reexamine the values of their own religion. Jesus would not have burned the Quran. Jesus would not have espoused such acts of hatred. And if any Christians claim he would, then I'll snap back that in that case Jesus could not have really been the son of God. Hypocrisy is a disgusting habit.

I am not particularly sympathetic to dogmatic religion in general. I am sympathetic that entire cultures, ideas, and histories were borne of religion (whether good or bad) and that the fundamental precepts of religion teach love, respect, and charity for all as the highest virtues a human can amount to in order to build a sense of community and foster peace. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity lay claim to that bedrock teaching of love and compassion. That to identify with others in empathy and understanding is the most godly of traits. What many of the leaders of these religions have done, however, is highjacked a spiritual reading of holy books to justify wholly unspiritual actions. Be they terrorists who kill civilians or lunatic reverends, like our choice subject, who burn the holy books of others.

Moreover, I dislike people who burn books. Knowledge and the human imagination are to be respected even if we deem it forbidden or antithesis to our own views. In which case, if our lunatic reverend feels obliged to carry out his senseless act of hatred with the First Amendment to back him up, I feel obliged to fight back and point out that his actions are not only un-Christian but terribly un-American.

I hope one day he'll see the light.

The Daily Show wins its eighth Emmy award

I adore The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It's won its eighth consecutive Emmy award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy series. I think the cast and crew of the show have put together one of the most intelligent critical satirical series on TV. The Daily Show is better than your daily news as the intelligent criticism included in the show makes it brilliantly effective.

Congrats to the show! I hope they keep up the series for years to come!

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Addressing a black hole in history: where are the women philosophers?

In the words of Friedrich Nietzche, aphorisms and quips concerning women:

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.

If you go to see the woman, don't forget the whip.

In the words of Arthur Schopenhauer, from his essay "On Women":

One needs only to see the way she is built to realize that woman is not intended for great mental or for great physical labor. She expiates the guilt of life not through activity but through suffering, through the pains of childbirth, caring for the child and subjection to the man, to whom she should be a patient and cheering companion... Women are suited to being the nurses and teachers of our earliest childhood precisely because they themselves are childish, silly and short-sighted, in a word big children, their whole lives long: a kind of intermediate stage between the child and the man, who is the actual human being, ‘man.’ One has only to watch a girl playing with a child, dancing and singing with it the whole day, and then ask oneself what, with the best will in the world, a man could do in her place.

G.W.F. Hegel on women from The Philosophy of Right:

Women can, of course, be educated, but their minds are not adapted to the higher sciences, philosophy, or certain of the arts. Women may have happy inspirations, taste, elegance, but they have not the ideal. The difference between man and woman is the same as between animal and plant. The animal corresponds more closely to the character of the man, the plant to that of the woman. In woman there is a more peaceful unfolding of nature, a process, whose principle is the less clearly determined unity of feeling. If woman were to control the government, the state would be in danger, for they do not act according to the dictates of universality, but are in influenced by accidental inclinations and opinions. The education of woman goes on one only knows how, in the atmosphere of picture thinking, as it were, more through life than through the acquisition of knowledge. Man attains his position only through stress of thought and much specialized effort.

Now, let us add to the above that Immanuel Kant believed a woman is complicit in her own rape; Hobbes barely touched upon the status of women in his Leviathan although he seemed to suggest that in the state of nature mothers have dominion over families, but with the establishment of the commonwealth, which in consequence of its being founded by men, places women under the dominion of men; and Aristotle believed a woman is "an inferior being" and that the courage of a man lies in commanding and woman in obeying. When one reviews the history of Western philosophy one quickly sees that all the great names and contributors are men and, interestingly, their disparaging views on women is rooted in Judeo-Christian values or in the cultures of societies that are generally patriarchal.

Of course, one could also argue that many of these lionized philosophical figureheads just couldn't get laid and their bitterness reflected over onto their writings. Such was the case of Nietszche and Lou Andrea Salomé, a writer and intellectual in her own right, who refused to marry him and thwarted his advances. Schopenhauer also appears to have had "mommy issues" and spent most of his adult life alone with the exception of refusing marriage at 19 and having been rejected by another woman he pursued at age 43. Kant, for whatever reason, never married. Certainly, we can't discount that many a male philosophers' experience of women may well have been bitter.

But where are women in the great discourses of philosophy? They certainly existed but they are only footnotes in history. One of the reasons for this may have been the widespread denial of literacy and education to women historically. Only with literacy and education did women become interested in joining men in philosophizing and engaging in political debate and moral arguments. Albeit, over time they were often overshadowed by men who wrote the history and created a narrative devoid of women in intellectual discourse.

15th-century writer Christine De Pizan, one of those rare exceptions to the rule, wrote a staunch defense against contemporary theories of female inferiority with her publication of The Book of City Ladies in 1405. Francois Poullain de la Barre, a 17th century French writer, rejected the notion that women's intellects were inferior to that of men and championed the existence of an equality of reason in both men and women. Juana Inez de la Cruz, a Mexican nun and contemporary of de la Barre, also challenged the right of a woman to pursue education, albeit, she was later silenced.

Among writers and thinkers of centuries past were often the financially independent courtesans and salon hostesses in France. Ninon de Lenclos, a 17th-century epicurean and a writer, defended the possibility of living a good life sans religion, a scandalous proposition in her day. She also wrote prolifically concerning the relations between men and women and nobility sent their sons to her for advice on courtship. Madame de Staël, an 18th century salon hostess, also published her own opinions on political transformations of her age and involved herself in revolutionary activities during Napoleon's reign.

Women's later involvement in philosophical treatises and arguments concerned overturning notions of their own inferiority as well as existing assumptions on the value of their political existence. These writers included Mary Wollstonecraft, considered by many the first modern feminist; and with the suffragist movement Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Soujourner Truth, Harriet Taylor Mill, and Susan B. Anthony; then among the existentialists Simone de Beauvoir, and among political theorists, Hanah Arendt. With education and political participation women have become members of philosophical and political discourses in academia, albeit, feminism stands out as the thread that takes into account both philosophy and politics.

It will be interesting to see, in the future, women rise in prominence as philosophers, theorists, and scientists that their names should become as cliche as Nietszche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel. A pity that male philosophers in the past, despite all their brilliance, lacked the foresight to understand the causes and consequences of a woman's condition in their time or, perhaps, pity the bitterness these men probably never had the love of a woman or love for a woman.

All progress depends on unreasonable people: "think different"

A brilliant little snippet. The perfect argument for those who choose to lead life a bit mad, radical, and probably leading one to be disliked, criticized and socially ostracized. I'm reminded of the following quip by playwright George Bernard Shaw:

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

Remember, when faced with the choice between being reasonable or unreasonable, take the risk of being unreasonable even if it's the harder path. You can be reasonable your entire life but the returns of being unreasonable are priceless to you and to others who will eventually look up to you. As Robert Greene notes in his book, co-authored with rapper 50 Cent, The 50th Law, there is nothing that disturbs, unsettles, or arouses jealousy and extreme dislike in people more than an individual who fearlessly does whatever he or she wants and go wherever their whims take them. There is something to be said for being unreasonable. All progress depends on the unreasonable person.

The value of work: credentials, economics, and self-actualization

I just read a brilliant article published in 2009 in the The New York Times Magazine concerning the case for working with your hands. The author of the article, Matthew B. Crawford, holds a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from the University of Chicago and was previously employed in a prestigious position at a Washington think tank. Five months into the job he left to start up his own motorcycle repair shop. Many would view that decision as ludicrous, as a "regression" from all the things he had invested himself to achieve. Crawford, however, viewed the step as one toward real intellectual challenge, purpose, and authenticity.

"A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this," Crawford writes. "Nor can big business or big government — those idols of the right and the left — reliably secure such work for us. Everyone is rightly concerned about economic growth on the one hand or unemployment and wages on the other, but the character of work doesn’t figure much in political debate. Labor unions address important concerns like workplace safety and family leave, and management looks for greater efficiency, but on the nature of the job itself, the dominant political and economic paradigms are mute. Yet work forms us, and deforms us, with broad public consequences."

Crawford recalls one of his first office jobs post-Master's degree where he was inducted to a shiny cubicle to write summaries of academic journal articles. One of his colleagues was doing heroin on the job which Crawford believed "actually made sense." He describes indulging in his lunchbreaks with his colleagues as follows:

Come 12:30, the three of us would hike to the food court in the mall. This movement was always thrilling. It involved traversing several “campuses,” with ponds frequented by oddly real seagulls, then the lunch itself, which I always savored. (Marx writes that under conditions of estranged labor, man “no longer feels himself to be freely active in any but his animal functions.”)

For anyone intrigued enough, Karl Marx's case on estranged labor, published in 1844 yet wonderfully relevant to the American capitalist labor force, can be found here. To wit, Marx begins with the following assertion:

On the basis of political economy itself, in its own words, we have shown that the worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities; that the wretchedness of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and magnitude of his production; that the necessary result of competition is the accumulation of capital in a few hands, and thus the restoration of monopoly in a more terrible form; and that finally the distinction between capitalist and land rentier, like that between the tiller of the soil and the factory worker, disappears and that the whole of society must fall apart into the two classes – property owners and propertyless workers. [...] The devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of things. Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity – and this at the same rate at which it produces commodities in general.

Marx later continues to discuss the consequences of the alienation of a worker from his work:

[T]he fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. [...] As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions – eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.

This may actually explain why depression is one of the leading workplace problems for employees, after family crisis and stress. I wouldn't doubt for a moment that unsatisfying work, work in which an individual does not see the results of his labor, and an unhappy workplace environment is actually a cause for depression. There's plenty of advertisements for anti-depressants in America. Doctors are quick to recommend a pill to cure our unhappiness instead of coming to the root cause of our emotional dissatisfactions.

How do we define the value of work? We can look at it from an economic standpoint and see it in terms of a labor market controlled by the forces of supply and demand and, superficially, individual incomes determining individual worth (i.e. the pecking order). We can also look at the value of work in terms of social prestige and the acquisition of credentials that raises one's economic value and social standing. Beyond this, however, there is the value of one's individual happiness in one's work namely personal satisfaction of purpose. What psychology researcher Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls flow.

To feel like a soulless cog in a machine can't possibly lend to employee satisfaction. We have policies and procedures and quality control and labor laws, but as Crawford points out, no one really discusses the character of work, of vocation, or of calling. There is an inauthenticity to following a career track, earning credentials, and taking up a prestigious position that may ultimately lend to nothing. If there is a human need beyond the economic necessity of sheer survival then it is the need for self-actualization - to be useful, to serve a purpose, whether in serving others or through the creation of something, to contribute to the greater whole of human history. Humanist psychologist, Abraham Maslow placed this need at the top of his conceptualization the "hierarchy of human needs."

While driving back from Boston last weekend my mother and I saw a pithy bumper sticker on the car in front of us: "I would tell you to go to hell," it said, "but I work there." It cracked a laugh but it was a sad reflection to a greater social reality that often goes unacknowledged. The majority of people hate their jobs. Often they won't leave out of a sense of economic responsibility to their families, because of financial obligations they have to take care of, and out of the fear that they may not be able to find another job, that they will be stigmatized for doing whatever they want. Many of us feel dependent on work that has no real meaning to us and live in fear of the consequences if we chose to autonomy in what we do over social stigma that we may be regressing in picking a career that is not traditional or expected.

Author, Po Bronson, tackled this issue in his book What Should I Do With My Life? where he saw that one of the biggest obstacles people faced in pursuing their own whims and careers they might enjoy was precisely the fear of other people's opinions and of society's judgment at large. Yet the individuals in his book went on to brilliant, fulfilling, and successful careers pursuing what they always desired and what reflected their individuality best giving up socially respectable jobs as investment bankers, brokers, and lawyers. Crawford, similarly, has adapted this NYT essay into a book, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, a really excellent exploration concerning the individual's search for vocation in a society that seemingly rewards and values all the wrong qualities.

When measuring the value of work one should consider Marx's argument. Value is in essence a human assumption and determined insofar as we give it credence. To place so much weight on money and social prestige undermines the value of purpose, usefulness, and contribution where one can own one's labor and see its results rather than be an extension of someone else's ownership.

The heaviest burden of war and extreme poverty falls on women: sex trafficking and other brutal consequences

This issue is at the top of my hit list: sex trafficking.

I write the following on behalf of Iraqi girls and women who have suffered terribly at the hands of sex-traffickers. They have been kidnapped, raped or gang-raped, ransomed against their families, forced into prostitution even as refugees, and due to social and cultural pressures have become the victims of honor killings for sexual crimes they could not protect themselves against.

Every time I read stories of rape, kidnappings and sexual slavery of Iraqi women by criminal gangs my blood boils and then cools to a sad and unsettling sense of sadness. I am unsettled and disturbed. Whether man or woman, you should be too. The stories are heartbreaking. Not only women, but girls as young as 11 years old have become victims of sex trafficking as a consequence of the insecurity in Iraq. Probably young boys too. Add that in addition to the suffering of thousands upon thousands of Iraqi women who have fled into Syria and other neighboring countries and have been forced into prostitution because they have no other means to feed their children. Or worse, women and girls that have been sold off as prostitutes by their own families. These women are socially stigmatized, ignored, and abandoned with the exception of humanitarian organizations, such as Women for Women International, and underground shelters, run by Iraqi feminist groups in cooperation with MADRE, who are making great efforts to help them though underfunded and underhanded. Even so, many of the victims remain silent over their ordeals weighed by a great sense of shame and trauma.

The war in Iraq should have never happened and under the Bush administration it was terribly mismanaged. The greatest toll has been on women and children. As per usual, they remain the invisible victims of the war.

In 2007, international women's rights group, MADRE, lashed out at the Bush administration for allowing for the erosion of women's rights in Iraq. According to a story published by We News, a women's e-news network:

After banning Iraq's secular Baath regime in June, 2003, the U.S. government set a tight deadline to establish a new Iraqi democracy to justify its military action in the country. To meet that self-imposed deadline, the U.S. government compromised its stated commitment to gender equality and negotiated with Islamic religious fundamentalists, who see women's subordination as a precondition to a traditional social order, according to the report. Since gaining power, those Islamist officials have cracked down on women's rights, leading to a wave of kidnappings, abductions, public beatings, death threats, sexual assaults, domestic abuse and so-called honor killings, again according to the report.

In regards to the recent developments little has changed since 2007 concerning the security of women in the country even as some political pressures against them are easing. As of 2010, NPR has gone as far as to label Iraq's women as 'forgotten.' According to NPR:

Girls have a high rate of illiteracy and often drop out of schools due to economic and security reasons. Domestic violence is increasing, as is trafficking in women, and the Iraqi government estimates there are up to 3 million widows in Iraq today.

Sex trafficking, in particular, has been a heavy consequence of war and insecurity in Iraq. Videos on Youtube and reports from 2006 onwards detailed the fate of many jobless Iraqi refugees to Syria and Jordan. Foreign Policy magazine stated in an article this past March: "Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the Iraqi exiles in Syria had turned to the sex trade for survival. In Damascus, refugees were not permitted to hold jobs. As resources dwindled, many were led into the underground economy. Female-headed households accounted for almost a quarter of the refugees registered with the U.N. refugee agency. Widowed, divorced, or separated from husbands by the war, many women had children or elderly parents to support. Sex was often their only marketable asset."

Even as recently as August 19th, Sebastian Swett and Cameron Webster wrote a scathing criticism in The New Republic of the US government for not having taken steps to secure and help women who have become victims of sex trafficking in Iraq and the State Department lagging in its efforts to protect women. The US government isn't the only accomplice in the problem according to Swett and Webster. Syria and Jordan have done little in terms or policy-making to protect Iraqi women and children who are refugees within their borders. "In fact, rather than finding shelter in Syria or Jordan, some Iraqi prostitutes find themselves arrested and deported to Iraq as criminals, where they are killed to preserve their family's honor." And let's not forget the other accomplices in the sex-trafficking issue: the men who exploit these women. The consumers. The men who pay to go to brothels and clubs and fund the pimps who run the business. They should be publicly shamed, arrested, and tried for participating in modern-day slavery.

The crisis facing Iraqi women in lieu of the Iraq war is a reflection of the greater crisis facing women and children around the world. Sex-trafficking and sex-tourism is big business. It is, in fact, slavery. Men who consume it are funding slavery and encouraging it. Globally, extreme poverty, corrupt government, and poor rule of law in addition to conflict fuel the illicit trade of human beings. This is a massive issue. So massive it should not go ignored and we should not be silent about it.

In Iraq, MADRE along with the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), have set up underground safe houses for women who have been victims of sexual crimes or are fleeing violence. "The Safe Houses project and the Underground Railroad for Iraqi Women provide emergency shelter for women in danger of 'honor killings', and other forms of domestic violence and sex trafficking," writes Dr. Judith Rich in The Huffington Post.

A new book by advocates against the sex trade, Half The Sky: How to Change the World, details ways in which individuals can get involved in the anti-slavery campaign and help rehabilitate the victims. One amazing woman, Sunitha Krishnan, a former victim of the sex trade herself, by the force of her own personality and sense of justice founded Prajwala and has succeeded in rescuing and rehabilitating more than five thousand women back into society in India.

The following is an impassioned appeal by Krishnan to people globally to stop sex trafficking and to stop the slavery of women and children as featured on TED. I urge you all to watch this clip of Krishnan's talk. Doing nothing is unacceptable.