Iraqi Women Are NOT Free

Check out Katha Politt's latest, 'Democracy' Is Hell, that takes on the laughable idea that women are now "free" in Iraq.

And read "The Talibanization of Iraq," by Bay Fang. Cause remember, Laura Bush assured us we were bringing freedom to the women of Iraq! Right.

• Furthermore, extremists in both Sunni and Shiite areas have taken over pockets of the country and imposed their own Taliban-like laws on the population, requiring women to wear full-length veils, segregating the sexes in public and forbidding such activities as singing and dancing. Hair salons are bombed, and many have gone under-ground. Women college students are stopped and harassed on campuses, so going to school is a risk. “I don’t have one woman friend who has not been harassed, or worse, on the street,” says Mohammed. Women who work for OWFI (Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq) are routinely threatened with beatings or rape if they aren’t completely veiled. Islamist “misery gangs” regularly patrol the streets in many areas, beating and harassing women who are not “properly” dressed or behaved.

And haven't we heard this before: Garance Franke-Ruta has a piece at TAPPED refuting Christina Hoff-Summers’ claim that American feminists, like, totally ignore women in Islamic countries.

Oh, I so love this claim. Just Google “Mavis Leno” or “Ms. Foundation” and “Afghanistan,” hm? Both were working for Afghan women years and years before any of the wingnuts discovered the value of using Afghan women to shame American feminists by pretending they had discovered Afghan women first.

I remember reading about the Ms. Foundation’s work in Afghanistan against the Taliban when I was in school, over 10 years ago! What is this shit??? Mavis Leno was working with Afghan women LONG before it became "trendy" to care. Give me something new, asshats.