Dressing the part

"Do you want to look like a boy and dress like a boy, and do more fun things like boys do, like bicycling, soccer and cricket?"

Interesting proposition, right? Even as an American woman, able to dress as I please, act as I please, and do fun things like ride a bicycle and play soccer, I can see the appeal in becoming a boy. There are so many more privileges and opportunities as a male in the United States. Nevertheless, I enjoy being a woman and wouldn't change a thing about myself. But I wonder, if I were a child asked this question would I still feel the same way?

Growing up, I was afforded the same privileges and opportunities as my older brother. In fact, I feel bad for him. He was always outnumbered by my two sisters, my mother, my grandmother, and I. Although my dad could side with him, majority ruled and for the most part he lost every battle there was to be fought, including what we watched on television, what we listened to during car rides, and where we went for family vacations. So, maybe my answer would still be no.

While this question may seem a little ridiculous, believe it out not, it is a serious question often asked to young Afghan girls. In a recent NY Times article, Jenny Nordberg shed some light on the "phenomenon" of Afghan girls masquerading as boys. Families, even those with sons, take their youngest daughters, cut their hair, and dress them as typical Afghan boys. As boys these girls are afforded easier access to education, the ability to work outside the home, and the freedom to roam about the city.

It may seem obvious why families would want their daughters to "cross-dress." In a country where sons are more highly valued, especially since only sons can pass down the family name, families have offered various reasons for pretending their daughters are sons, including social pressure to have a boy, economic necessity, and the superstition that doing so can lead to the birth of a real boy. However, what is less obvious and what may seem shocking to a Western, like myself, is that pretending to be a boy may be a means of working to improve women's rights and the rule of law.

Women seeking change have learned "to play the game." Since even made-up sons can increase the family's standing, alleviate pressure from in-laws, appease husbands, and satisfy constituents, female politicians have resorted to dressing their daughters to look like sons. As Mrs. Rafaat, one of the 68 women in Afghanistan's 249-member Parliament, described:

In an effort to preserve her job and placate her husband, as well as fend off the threat of [her husband] getting a third wife, she proposed to her husband that they make their youngest daughter look like a son.

Overall this plan doesn't seem too bad. Everyone, even the young girls themselves, recognize that pretending to be a boy offers more benefits than acknowledging that they are girls.

Still, I can't help but feel sad for these girls. I recognize that sometimes we have to take what we can get, in this case, freedom until the age of 15. I also recognize that we have to pick and choose our battles, in this case, to improve women's rights women must first mitigate social pressures. But what happens to the young girl who has to become a woman again? Not only socially, but physically, emotionally, and psychologically?

These woman have to re-learn life and their experiences. They have to recognize a new social order and a new body, one which is only necessary to recognize after it has become fully developed and ready for procreation purposes. They must come to terms with the fact there is nothing inherently different in them that would even come close to suggesting that because they are female they are inferior.

Nevertheless, is it better to have lived and lost than to have never lived at all? Mrs. Rafaat claims her experience as a boy made her stronger and lead her to pursue a position in Parliament. However, the harsh return to womanhood has left others more regretful. Even women who can claim it was the best time of their lives, wish it didn't happen. As Mrs. Siddiqui, a women who claims to be lucky in finding a good husband, describes, "It would have been better to grow up as a girl, since I had to become a woman in the end."

Culture and violence against women

Doug Chen murders his unfaithful wife. In his legal defense, he claims that Chinese culture drove him to murder her. Kong Moua kidnaps and rapes Seng Xiong. In his defense, he argues that the Hmong custom of marriage by capture teaches men to ignore women’s refusals.

Should these defenses work? Is it more disrespectful to minorities to refuse these defenses or more disrespectful to women to accept them? How can the law reconcile feminism and multiculturalism?

Or at least that’s what we tend to ask. It’s what we don’t ask that’s more revealing.

For example, we don’t ask if Western culture permits men to murder their unfaithful wives. (Yes.) We don’t ask if Western culture teaches men to ignore women’s refusal to have sex. ( Again, yes.) We don’t ask if we can reconcile feminism and Western culture.

Why not?

This double standard reflects a broader tendency to attribute Westerner’s actions to individual factors, while attributing non-Westerner’s actions to non-Western cultures. (Leti Volpp, Feminism versus Multiculturalism, 101 Colum. L. Rev. 1181, 1189 (2001) [hereinafter Volpp, Feminism]). Volpp gives the example of Andrea Yates and Khoua Her, two women who murdered their children. The media blamed Yate’s acts primarily on individual psychological factors but blamed Her’s acts primarily on Hmong failure to assimilate to American society. (Leti Volpp, On Culture, Difference, and Domestic Violence, 11 Am. U. J. Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 393, 395-96 (2003)).

The reality, however, is that all of us are affected by both individual and cultural factors. Yates certainly had serious mental health problems, but they might have played out differently in a culture that did not place the full responsibility of raising children on women or stigmatize and fail to provide adequate support for the mentally ill. Likewise, culture clash might have exacerbated Her’s problems but given that the vast majority of Hmong-Americans do not murder their children, there were clearly significant individual factors at play.

Thus, Chen and Moua successfully pin the blame for their crimes on Chinese and Hmong cultures, while it doesn't even occur to white criminals to pin the blame for their crimes on Western culture. (Of course, plenty of white men get off with similar slaps on the wrist- they just don't have to demonize their culture to do so.) This tendency ignores both the fact that most non-Western men do not hurt women (meaning that non-Western men’s violence against women involves individual factors) and that Western culture often justifies or excuses men who hurt women (meaning that Western men’s violence against women involves cultural factors)

Note that it is not simply that non-Westerners’ actions are attributed to culture; it is that they are attributed to non-Western culture. Chen, Moua , and Her are all Asian-Americans but American culture is not blamed for their acts any more than it is blamed for Yates’. The Asian portions of their identities are blamed; the American portions of their identities are absolved.

Again, this represents a broader trend in which non-Western cultures’ sexism is emphasized and Western culture’s sexism is erased. Sexism in non-Western countries is treated as the fault of the non-Western cultures, not the Western colonizers who left a legacy of misogynistic legal codes, Western missionaries who spread sexist interpretations of Christianity, and Western politicians who threw their support behind fundamentalist leaders. (Volpp, Feminism, at 1206-07).

My point is not that non-Western cultures would be feminist paradises without Western culture’s influence. Rather, my point is that both Western and non-Western cultures have serious problems with sexism, but Western culture is nevertheless often curiously absent from the debate on feminism and multiculturalism.

We are quick to make the leap from an individual non-Westerner’s sexism to the sexism of non-Western cultures as a whole, but slow to make the leap from a non-Western culture’s sexism to similar forms of sexism in Western culture.

Thus, Chen’s murder of his wife is put in the context of Chinese attitudes toward adultery, but Chinese attitudes towards adultery are not put in the context of the Western provocation defense, which frequently excuses men who murder their wives. Moua’s rape is put in the context of Hmong marriage by capture, but Hmong marriage by capture is not put in the context of Western rape culture. Mathew Varughese’s murder of his wife is put in the context of Indian dowry deaths, but Indian dowry deaths are not put in the context of Western domestic violence. (Volpp, Feminism, at 1188).

By leaving Western culture out of the debate over feminism and multiculturalism, the millions of non-Westerners who oppose violence against women are put on the hook for it anyway, and the millions of Westerners who excuse violence against women are let off the hook for doing so.

Musings of an almost professional female

A powerful female lawyer versus a powerful male lawyer. What exactly is the issue here? Because, apparently, there is one. After skimming an ever-so-eloquently titled entry, “Does this law degree make my ass look fat?” on Above the Law, I began to reflect on my own personal experiences with the general reactions and responses I’d gotten since making the decision to pursue a J.D. (despite the poorly written entry and hateful comments on the entry itself).

I started law school last fall with a boyfriend. While 1L did obviously come hand-in-hand with a demanding schedule and vigorous workload, our eventual break-up in the winter was not due to my choice of career path, at all. Despite that, I found it notable that, in consoling me, most of my friends went down the “you’re too good for him” (true) and “he couldn’t handle your ambitiousness,” route. While the latter is also probably true (I’m being quite humble today, I realize), it was not remotely the cause of our mutual split. Yet, almost everybody instantly turned to that form of solace, despite knowing the full-fledged details of our actual break-up.

Interesting.

Is it a natural assumption to make that males generally are uncomfortable with females who are more powerful and ambitious than they are? The chauvinistic male complex nods vehemently yes in the direction of this question, but what about every other type of male out there? I’ve found, interestingly enough, that while males will say one thing and deny it, it still comes out to play when push comes to shove and when they are with or around a woman who is more goal-oriented or in a more powerful professional position than they are.

Whether a female is more or just as ambitious as a male, has the same skill set as a male, or has the same hobby as a male, it apparently raises a red flag at times that an uncomfortable situation has arisen and that there’s seemingly something “off” about it all. The almost age old double standard of a man in a high paying power position being seen as attractive or sexy, whereas a woman in the exact same position is merely intimidating or too masculine is tired, but still very much exists in this day and age, especially with the increase of women in professional fields. I understand the reasoning of it being male dominance and male privilege and the stereotypical excuse of the male “ego,” but I also can’t get over the fact that what it really boils down to is the fact that both the man and the woman merely just share a same interest, all connotations and implications stripped aside, and that seems to be a social problem still in this day and age.

So, while clearly a positive connotation of women in professional fields and ambitious women are on the rise, many males still remain repelled and uncomfortable. In turn, meeting these types of males these days while I’m still in my dating years, in turn, makes me repelled and uncomfortable.

One step forward for Canadian sex workers, two steps back for their US peers

Two important legal transitions have occurred lately in the realm of sex worker rights in the US and Canada. In Ontario this week, a judge issued a ruling that essentially decriminalized the acts that made prostitution illegal. This same month, court battles in the United States over Craigslist's Erotic Services internet site lead the site provider to remove the controversial sex worker utilized section and replace it with the word "censored". While Canada seemed to move forward in line with other progressing Western attitudes regarding the attitudes towards criminalizing sex work, it appears the United States digresses to again attempting to control individual's rights of the use of their bodies.

The issue of sex work is a deeply moral issue. Sex is complicated and eternally wrapped up in morality and personal value systems. The power of sex has translated into intense morality debates around the profession of sex work. The judge in Canada clearly began to distinguish morality from legal responsibility while considering this case, as she was quoted in the National Post as saying,

It is important to state at the outset what this case
is not about: The court has not been called upon to decide whether or not there
is a constitutional right to sell sex or to decide which policy model regarding
prostitution is better,” Judge Himel said. “Rather, it is the court’s task to
decide the merits of this particular legal challenge, which is whether certain
provisions of the Criminal Code are in violation of the Charter.

She did find that the Charter violated rights of citizen sex workers, specifically the section of the Criminal Code that she found

force[d] prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to
security of the person

Judge Himel considered other nation's laws regarding the criminalization of sex work, and in line with the trend of legal progression in industrialized nations like the Netherlands and New Zealand, chose to force the hand of change for sex work politics in Canada.

Sex workers in the United States were not so lucky as to experience the validation of social progress this month. In the midst of a continuing legal battle over a section of adult ads on Craigslist, the internet site provider pulled the section off the web. This section of ads was frequented by adult service providers, many of whom now must find new and possibly riskier ways of advertising their services.

Losing access to the private and generally safe(for the sex work profession) venue of Craigslist is a strong blow to the dignity and safety of sex professionals. Melissa Petro, who briefly used Craigslist for sexual business transactions, wrote about her experience in the Huffington Post and offers that the closing of this site harms sex workers more than it protects them.

The simple fact is that people do have sex for money--many different kinds of people for many different reasons, people as varied as those looking to buy concert tickets, sell a collectible or adopt a pet--and these people will continue to. Whether the choice to do so is being dignified and protected with its own forum..

remains up to Craigslist to decide amidst deep legal and moral controversy.

In general, most countries that have decriminalized the sex trade have seen an increase in safety in the profession despite certain morality argument of the contrary that decriminalized prostitution will lead to rampant disease and moral disintegration. I hope Craigslist has the strength to be the new standard setter in the United States. If Craigslist will uncensor the adult ad section, it will be taking a progressive step in legal evolution mirroring other growing and legally improving ideologies. Maybe the court system in the United States won't turn out to be ready for such change and growth as the Canadian court system was but Craigslist certainly is in a position to encourage the leap of change.

There's A Place...

"There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't help other women." - Madeleine Albright

Last night, I was able to see Madeleine Albright at the Mondavi Center. One of the questions asked at the end of the discussion section was how Albright felt about this quote and thoughts she had upon it. Her answer: Well it's true.

She found that in the context of diplomacy, women are under-represented but not limited in their position. The most interesting aspect of this experience she stated as the first woman Secretary of State in the United States was that she never felt any less respected because of her status as a woman by other nations - specifically conservative nations like Iraq or Saudi Arabia. Rather she said, it was the men she worked with in the United States that actually placed her in such a position, because they felt they rightly deserved the job over her because she used to be their subordinate.

As a woman, Madeleine Albright not only became the first woman Secretary of State but more importantly a role model for all of us. She stated that when she was hired by Georgetown University as a professor, they hired her because they wanted her to be a role model for the women at their campus. I have to say that even though I never got to take a class with her, seeing her around campus was enough for me to feel empowered all the same. Last night's talk proved that women can not only talk "shop" but can also support each other in the national and international context.

Change

When it comes to human rights, how much have we really changed? Women are still compensated much lower than men, racism still exists in all facets of our society, and the LGBT community is still the victim of many acts of prejudice.

Just a few days ago, Just Cookies, a bakery in Indianapolis, refused to bake cupcakes for the gay community at Purdue University, who were going to use the cupcakes for their celebration of next month's National Coming Out Day. Although the bakery is located in the City Market, which is an equal accommodations establishment, owner David Stockton stated the following to justify his prejudice:

"We're a family-run business, we have two young, impressionable daughters and we thought maybe it was best not to do that."

What does that even mean? “Best not to do that”? Really? I mean what could possibly happen from baking some cupcakes? Is David worried that his daughters will turn gay from doing business with the local gay community? Or is he worried that his daughter might actually learn to be accepting of the gay community? Whatever the reason, his actions are very inappropriate.




This situation really grinds my gears. I really can’t seem to get past it. Growing up, I was afforded a very accepting childhood, so dealing with ignorant and close-minded people is very painful (please excuse my frustration).

America, can we please get it together. We pride ourselves in this country as the land of the free, but when it comes to providing equal rights and doing away with discrimination, we like to turn the other cheek. Honestly I was under the impression that we had made some major strides in the past 50 years, but it seems that it was nothing more than just small step in the right direction. Small steps are not enough. We need to take incidents like this one more seriously; we should boycott such institutions, making a public statement that we as a nation do not accept this behavior.

In the words of the Dali Lama,

"All human beings, whatever their cultural or historical background, suffer when they are intimidated, imprisoned or tortured . . . We must, therefore, insist on a global consensus, not only on the need to respect human rights worldwide, but also on the definition of these rights . . . for it is the inherent nature of all human beings to yearn for freedom, equality and dignity, and they have an equal right to achieve that."