lbo-talk-digest-after-swallowing

[Angelita Manzano]

--- brettk at unicacorp.com wrote:
> I don't want to speak for anyone else.  So here is
> my take: the mainstream
> media in the US has focused on the plight of Afghan
> women under the
> Taliban, but has been relatively silent on the
> treatment of women by the
> Northern Alliance.  The fact that the Taliban forces
> women to wear the
> burqua is usually highlighted, and receives more
> attention than, say, the
> lack of educational opportunities for women,
> although those problems do get
> mentioned.  No doubt they have picked up this
> political football from the
> Bush Administration, which is using the Taliban's
> treatment of women as one
> more example of how evil they are in order to
> maintain public support for
> the bombing campaign.  

absolutely. that's why it sucks that the FMF, who has
access to the govt & media, didn't protests the
bombing & so forth.  As far as know, they haven't
responded to this kind of criticism.  I've tried, but 
but they won't talk to me. 


>  Since you bring it up, I would like to know what
> some of the perspectives
> of feminists are when it comes to the Taliban.  I
> have a passing
> familiarity with RAWA, but that's about it.

I'm not an expert at this at all.  If you want you can
contact me off this list and I've give you some people
to contact.  I see RAWA as part of this larger
movement of women against fundamentalism:

http://www.wluml.org/index.htm

And women against Islamic law: 

http://www.gn.apc.org/waf

I'm trying to get my hell-bound, heathen Chicana
sisters together & start some movement like, "Mexican
sell-out hos against the Virin Mary."  I'm just so
sick of people saying that women of color are so
spiritual, that feminism is a Western thing, that we
just looove machismo because it's "part of our
heritage"--can't they see that, when they do that,
they're allying themselves with the people in our
culture who call us sell-outs, whores, etc, when we
try to get them to stop controlling us, live our own
lives?  

Okay, no more talking, I gotta get back to work.

Bye!

=====
Angie Manzano
off our backs magazine
2337B 18th St NW
Washington, DC 20009
ph: 202-234-8072/202-682-4000
fax: 202-234-8092
http://www.igc.org/oob

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