Miss Kelly

Naomi Wolfe Calls Palin "FrankenBarbie"

The Bush Derangement Syndrome has been well and fully replaced by the Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS), this from feminista Naomi Wolfe:

"McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer....doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election."

There's so much more too:

"My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughter's many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived."

The Police State is here already, intercepting letters from camp!  It's amusing to see feministas so hysterical.  From Wikipedia, the origins of that word.

As LGF points out, Ms. Wolfe was recently extolling the virtues of hijab:   

"I experienced it myself. I put on a shalwar kameez and a headscarf in Morocco for a trip to the bazaar. Yes, some of the warmth I encountered was probably from the novelty of seeing a Westerner so clothed; but, as I moved about the market - the curve of my breasts covered, the shape of my legs obscured, my long hair not flying about me - I felt a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free."

Apparently, Naomi Wolfe has never heard of "Eve Teasing."   The hijab is no guarantee you'll be left alone and feeling so "free."

I'm all for modest dressing, I think it's empowering, more flattering, a sign of self-respect and is more respectful to the people around you.  But Ms. Wolfe's PR photos have her wearing tight sweaters and showing off her cleavage.  And she's wondering if Western clothing is an example of how Western society objectifies women??  Who's forcing her to wear revealing clothes? Evil Western male marketers?  The military/industrial complex?  Bush/Rove/Cheney/Palin? 

What You Won't Learn in Any "Gender Studies" Course

Yoy'll probably never learn this in a Gender Differences course in the Women's Studies Department of any college, but men and women's brains handle spatial and emotional memories differently, and scientists have located two genes that affect that. Also more there about the different effects of Alzheimer's on men and women. 

Camille Paglia made this point at her talk at Harvard a few months back, that so-called Gender Studies never go near the science of gender differences, preferring to believe that everything is just a "social construct."  BTW, Paglia's lecture at Harvard can be read here (hat tip to Jill of Estate Vaults).   Relevant excerpt:

"In the 1970s, women’s studies courses and programs were created in profusion....Women’s studies was assembled haphazardly and piecemeal, without due consideration of what the scholarly study of gender ought to entail. The victim-centered agenda of the current women’s movement was adopted wholesale, an ideological bias that neither women’s studies nor its successor, gender studies, has been able to shed. Furthermore because so many of the first women’s studies professors came from literature departments, science was completely excluded. But without a grounding in basic biology, neither students nor teachers can negotiate the tangle of nature and culture that produces human sex differences."

Alice Walker's Daughter Critical of Feminist Mom

Rebecca Walker, daughter of famous feminist writer Alice Walker, is really angry about how her mom raised her and what Moms told her daughter about children, motherhood, sex, abortion and divorce.  Rebecca wants to expose the lies of feminism, and her critique is scathing.  The original article about Rebecca Walker is here. Discussion about this over at Modesty Zone here.

Feminist Heresy at the Globe, Heads Will Roll!

I was pleasantly surprised by this article in Sundays' Boston Globe, about why there are fewer women than men in the computer field and in physical sciences:

"When it comes to the huge and persistent gender gap in science and technology jobs, the finger of blame has pointed in many directions: sexist companies, boy-friendly science and math classes, differences in aptitude."

"Women make up almost half of today's workforce, yet hold just a fraction of the jobs in certain high-earning, high-qualification fields. They constitute 20 percent of the nation's engineers, fewer than one-third of chemists, and only about a quarter of computer and math professionals."

"....Now two new studies by economists and social scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else."

Like working fewer hours, working with other people, and with living, organic things.  Ahhh, but what about countries with higher numbers of women engineers?   

"In her (Susan Pinker's) controversial new book, The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women, and the Real Gender Gap, Pinker gathers data from the journal Science and a variety of sources that show that in countries where women have the most freedom to choose their careers, the gender divide is the most pronounced."

I can almost smell the acrid smoke coming out of feminists' ears as they read this.

"The United States, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom, which offer women the most financial stability and legal protections in job choice, have the greatest gender split in careers. In countries with less economic opportunity, like the Philippines, Thailand, and Russia, she writes, the number of women in physics is as high as 30 to 35 percent, versus 5 percent in Canada, Japan, and Germany."

" 'It's the opposite of what we'd expect,' says Pinker. 'You'd think the more family-friendly policies, and richer the economy, the more women should behave like men, but it's the opposite. I think with economic opportunity comes choices, comes freedom.' "

As a commenter asked at Dr. Helen, can Larry Summers get his job back?

Camille Paglia at Harvard's Feminism Forum

What a funny, lively, and scholarly talk Camille Paglia gave at Harvard Thursday night!  She was the keynote speaker at the Legacy and Future of Feminism, and she was a hoot!  If you ever get a chance to see her live, you've gotta go!  It was a wide-ranging talk about the history of feminism, the shortcomings of the Second Wave feminists and the "omissions of the standard narrative of the feminist movement", and Paglia's proposals for reform.  I'll try to get the audio up ASAP. Some excerpts:

"Feminism is always linked to democracy.  It is no coincidence that feminism was born in America and became the early model for British feminism."

"In general, feminist theory has failed to acknowledge how much it owes to Western tradition and civil liberties grounded in Ancient Greece. Second, feminist theory has failed to acknowledge how much the emergence of modern feminism owes to capitalism and the industrial revolution, which transformed the economy, expanded the professions and gave women - for the first time in history - the opportunity to earn their own living and to escape dependency on father or husband.  Third, feminist has insufficiently acknowledged the degree to which the founders of the Suffrage movement were formed and influenced by religion.  It is no coincidence that many early American feminists were Quakers."

Yeah, all that stuff is usually left out of the "standard feminist narrative," which generally so often criticizes Western culture, the capitalist system and religion. 

The predominance of male-bashing among feminists:

"Too many Second Wave feminists extrapolated their discontent to condemn all men everywhere and throughout history."

Snap shot of Gloria Steinem (very funny, listen to the whole thing):

"She was a tireless, peripatetic activist, but virtually from the start, she played the role of strict guardian of a victim-centered ideology that did not permit alternative viewpoints."

Paglia fits an awful lot into one sentence. 

Paglia even gives kudos to the abstinence movement and to Wendy Shalit, author of Return to Modesty:

"As a veteran of pro-sex feminism, who still endorses pornography and prostitution, I say more power to all those chaste young women who are defending their individuality and defying group-think and social convention. That is true feminism!"

Paglia had three proposals for reform of the feminist movement:

1. Science! Science must be made a fundamental component of women's or gender studies.  Right now, it is verboten in feminist circles to suggest that there are real biological differences between the sexes (as ridiculous as that seems).
2. There must be real ideological diversity at colleges, there needs to be conservatives and dissidents teaching at colleges.  Otherwise, students are getting indoctrination, not education.
3. Massive rollback of the paternalistic system of "grievance committees" at college campuses. Paglia says these grievance committees have "turned American campuses into womb-like customer service resorts." 

Paglia says that women of her generation fought against intrusive "in loco parentis" rules at their colleges.  She notes that college administrators "have no competence whatever to investigate crimes, including sexual assualt." If an offense has been committed,  it should be reported to the police, to guarantee the civil liberties of the accuser and the accused can be protected.

Her concluding remark:

"We must stop seeing everything in life through the narrow lens of gender.  If women expect equal treatment in society, they must stop asking for infantilizing special protections.  With freedom, comes individual responsibility."

Lots of clapping, laughter and support from the crowd.

Harvard Hosts Different Kind of Forum on Feminism....

....with a varied panel of speakers indeed, including Camille Paglia (keynote speaker), Wendy Shalit, Jennifer Roeback Morse, Zainab Al-Suwaij, Christina Hoff Sommers, and many others - what gives?  At Harvard?!?!?T The official title is A Genuine Debate with a DIVERSITY of views on the Legacy and Future of Feminism.

The opening lecture is Thursday, April 10 at 8 PM, and there are several panel discussion on Friday, April 11, from 9 to 5. Looks great, and it's open to the public and free.  Check out the program here.

Panel discussions on Friday are held at the GCIS South Building, 173 Cambridge Street, Rooms S-020 and S-030, concourse level.

What Skeaziness Feminism Hath Wrought

Our culture continues to devolve.  Yesterday's Boston Sunday Globe featured an article about "cougars," the over-40 women who date younger men. In some cases, much younger.  Apparently, cougars have become ubiquitous figures in movies and TV shows.  The article notes that there's actually a "Take Back the Cougar" movement, which proclaims that these women are strong and sexy, an aspiration actually.  An example? 

"...on NBC's "30 Rock," Tina Fey snagged a 20-year old hottie, so Jane Krakowski, to compete, corralled a teen with heelyes."

Ewwww.  Is "corralled" another word for "seduced"?

Imagine a 40-year old man going after a teenaged  girl in heelys.  If he slept with the teenager, he'd be guilty of statutory rape.  People would call the cops.  But when "sexy, sophisticated" older women do that, we're supposed to applaud.  Ewwww.

Suck it Up, Sophie

I had some sympthies for this woman when I first heard about this case. Now, not so much.

"A Harvard medical student and new mother will not be permitted to take extra break time to pump breast milk during her licensing exam to become a doctor, a judge ruled yesterday."

Turns out that Sophie Currier already has TWO days to take the exam that everyone else is completing in ONE day: 

"Currier will be allowed to take the test over two days, instead of the normal one, because she has dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and the board has agreed to give her 45 minutes of break time each day, the daily amount granted all test-takers. Currier wants an additional hour of break time each day."

Priorities, Sophie, priorities.  And most nursing mothers think you have plenty of time to express your milk.

I hope she's not planning to go into any medical field that requires the ability to make split-second life-and-death decisions.  The feedback at Sophie's blog is not exactly in her favor.

Hat tip to Phoenix Media blog.

Pink Ladies-Only Taxis in Dubai

In Dubai, pink taxis for ladies only:

"Pink-Coloured, women-only taxis began plying on the roads of the city today to ferry women to and from various parts of the emirate. The launch of the new service was aimed at providing a safe and comfortable means of transport to women to ensure their free movement, Mohammed Obeid Al Mulla, Executive Manager for Public Transport of the Roads and Transport Authority, said here yesterday."

Free movement? Huh?

"It is also part of a plan to develop an integrated transport network, contributing to bolstering Dubai’s mark on the world map, he said, adding that in the first phase, 50 taxis, with pink roofs, pink seats and interiors, and other features to give the vehicles a feminine look, would be deployed at places frequently visited by women."

"He said that 100 female drivers had undergone extensive training to learn skills of driving, etiquette, customer service, handling emergency cases, locations of key government entities and tourist and leisure destinations."

Oddly enough, this idea isn't even new. England , Australia and Japan have pink taxi service for women and children only too. As one commenter noted at a Cabbie's blog, "I find it interesting how easily anti-discrimination laws can be waved away when it suits."

 

More on Honor Killings

Read Kathryn Jean Lopez' column today on honor killings at National Review Online.  One of the murders she writes about was of Samaira Nazir, pictured below, who was murdered last month by her father and his cousin in Southall, England.  The 25-year old business woman made the mistake of rejecting the suitors chosen for her in Pakistan, and instead got engaged to a man outside of her caste. 

One correction to Lopez' column: she states that "Hundreds of women and girls are believed to be killed this way in Pakistan annually." Actually, as we wrote earlier, over 1,000 people were murdered in honor killings in Pakistan in 2005, according to the Karachi-based NGO, Madadgaar Help Line.  And that NGO estimates that only 10% of all murders are ever reported.  Lopez notes that most honor killings are not reported, they're disguised as suicides or accidents.

An increase in honor killings of Palestinian women was reported last year in the Guardian.  One case was a Christian woman who wanted to marry a Muslim man, another was a Muslim woman who was rpaed by her two brothers and became pregnant.  Mum did the murdering in the second case, and she went to jail for two years for the murder.  The brothers who raped her got ten years each. 

We're pretty well aware of honor killings in the Middle East, England, Sweden and Germany.   Are parents, brothers, aunts and uncles murdering their daughters to "save their honor" here in the U.S. too?  Probably, most likely in immigrant enclaves from countries where honor killings are common, such as Pakistan, India and Turkey.  We just don't know about it yet.

Feminization of the Church

Domenico at Bettnet.com writes about something that's bothered me for a while now.  He discusses a recent Washington Post article that asks Where are All the Men? 

"The common theme is that in most churches there is an imbalance in the ratio of men to women in the pews, and the more liberal the denomination, the more tilted toward women it becomes. One of the theories is that much mainline religion, especially mainline Christianity, has become feminized and stripped of its masculine components."

Since I started attending mass again (almost every Sunday) about two years ago, I've been bothered by the feminization of the Catholic Church.  The songs we sing now are mostly syrupy love songs writtten in the 80's.  They're songs about love and friends, not worship and praise.  There's a whole lot more singing at Mass too, in between the gospel readings, many of the prayers, my church even sings the Apostle's Creed (well, something that resembles the Apostle's Creed).  Some days, the sing-song stuff seems endless. The cantors are mostly women, the choir is mostly women, the Eucharistic ministers are mostly women. Lots of hand-holding during the Lords Prayer (stop that!).  People do this twirly thing with their hands while singing one of the prayers.  Many of the male pronouns in the songs and the liturgy have been replaced (badly) with feminine or neutral pronouns. Sigh.

Gone are the ushers.  Gone are the warriors such as Joan of Arc and St. Michael the Archangel. Gone are the songs like "A Might Fortress is Our Lord" or "Onward Christian Soldiers."  Gone is the sense that being a Catholic is demanding, requires sacrifice, and we need to fight evil. No wonder there are fewer priests.  It's a wonder there are men coming to Church at all, it's so girly these days.  Like the feminization of the larger society, there's no balance of masculinity and femininity.  The feminine is exalted, the masculine is denigrated.  We've done it again, we've thrown out the baby (boy) with the bath water.

Donald Sensing has more here, and Leon Podles (author of The Church Impotent: the Feminization of Christianity) has more here.

Danish Police Arrest Entire Family for Honor Killing

Dymphna at the Gates of Vienna provides a translation of Danish newspaper article about a new approach to honor killing in Denmark.  Last September, Ghazal Khan (18) married a man that her family didn't approve of.  Two days later, she and her husband were gunned down by her brother in front of a train station in the middle of the day. Ghazal died, her husband is still alive. 

"As the investigation turned out it appears that Ghazala’s father orchestrated the killing in cooperation with eight members of the family, including chasing Ghazala down, providing the handgun and the getaway car.  The usual procedure in these “honor killings” is as follows: the family appoints one member to perform the actual slaughter (preferably a teenager in order to get a milder sentence) and the courts will prosecute that man only. But not so this time: The Danish Courts want to set an example and eventually hold the entire family responsible. "

Interesting change of thinking in dealing with honor killings, a barbaric practice that's been brought to Europe and the U.S. by immigrants from countries such as Pakistan, Morroco, Algeria and Turkey.  I blogged about this earlier here.  England, France, Germany, Holland, Denmark - all are seeing honor killings in their immigrant communities, especially of women who try to escape forced marriages, marry non-Muslims, or who simply leave the community. 

Catholicism and Women

Spot-On blog by Steve Sailer about women and Catholicism and Goddess worship as portrayed in The DaVinci Code.  Some of his key points:

"...Brown, with all his talk of "the sacred feminine," is being intentionally hazy about what pagans have tended to mean by it: i.e., fertility goddesses. Now, you can see a bit of a problem for modern feminists in praising ancient conceptions of women as most sacred when barefoot and pregnant...." 

"....doesn't anybody remember basic Roman Empire sociology? Early Christianity particularly appealed to women, especially widows." 

Sailer quotes Rodney Starck here:

"Abortion was a huge killer of women in this period, but Christian women were spared that. And infanticide—pagans killed little girls left and right. We’ve unearthed sewers clogged with the bones of newborn girls. But Christians prohibited this. Consequently, the sex ratio changed and Christians didn’t have the enormous shortage of women that plagued the rest of the empire."

Back to Sailer, who takes the words right out of my mouth:

"...the idea that the Catholic Church kept women down is pretty odd: What other monotheistic religion honored hundreds of women as saints? Made the Virgin Mary the second most revered person of all? What other religion made women writers like St. Theresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena part of the canon of religious literature? What other religion encouraged women to found and run giant hospitals? Protestantism? Judaism? Islam?"

What he said. Hat tip to Relapsed Catholic. 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Leaving Netherlands, Coming to US

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (AHA) (whom I had the good fortune to see last week) is reportedly relocating to the US in September 2006.  The Liberty and Justice blog has details. 

AHA to Washington per September 1.
VVD MP AHA will start working for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. She’ll announce this tomorrow in The Hague. Last week AHA reached an agreement with the State Dept. about her security.
Originally she planned to leave for the US on May 1, next year. But since she has to leave her house in The Hague per Aug 27, she requested AEI to be able to start on Sep 1.

Their loss, our gain. Good to see that the State Department is doing something right. More about the American Enterprise Institute here.  (H/T Jihad Watch) 

UPDATE: Things are happening too fast today.  Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk is investigating Hirsi Ali's citizenship application, and threatening to revoke it.  Peaktalk has an explanation of the political maneuvering here.  What a travesty. 

UPDATE: But then again, maybe she is a self-serving fraud......will check Auster's blog to see if allegations are verified.  This is a toughie.  I still admire her forth-rightness and bravery.  Hard to find perfect heroes. 

UPDATE: In her own words, AHA's statement as she resigns from the Dutch Parliament. God speed to you.

More Reports from Harvard on Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Nuclear Tinkerbell was also at the Profiles in Leadership event yesterday at Harvard (apparently sitting behind me!).  Her excellent report is here, including the first half of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's talk, where she describes her life in a refugee camp and coming to Holland.  Nuclear Tinkerbell also kept a good eye on the audience. 

PetiteDov was at the Harvard Coop book reading.  Augean Stables gives an in-depth report on the evening forum that Hirsi Ali and others (Ahmed Mansour, Swanee Hunt) spoke at.

Harrvard's student newspaper The Crimson had a brief report on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's visit.  (I think we all did a way better job of reporting!)

Na-na from the Boston Globe or Herald. 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "I Really Wonder What You Are Doing Here at Harvard"

After listening to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's talk at Harvard JFK's School of Government this afternoon, I went up to shake her hand and let her know much I admired her.  She is physically a slight woman.  How can it be that such a small woman is so feared? How can it be that men would kill her for her ideas?

The event was the JFK School's "Profiles in Public Leadership," moderated by Professor Barbara Kellerman.  Ayaan spoke for about an hour (I missed the first half hour, dratted day job!), and fielded questions for another half hour.  You needed prior permission to attend the event and a picture ID to get in.  There were four strong-looking guys in suits in the room, posted up front and at the doors to (a familiar site at local lectures by critics of Islam).  About 125 people were there, mostly grad students and professors.

Ayaan spoke of her evolution in thinking about Islam and becoming a politician and activist.  She was raised Muslim, but at some point decided that there was no God.  Once she was free of the fear of God, hell and damnation, she was able to critically look at Islam and ask questions.  After 9/11, she asked, is terrorism linked to Islam or not? Can Islam be refomed? Her answer to the second question: Yes, but it must be reformed by Muslims. And it cannot be reformed without negating (not just ignoring) certain parts of the Koran.  "We must leave in the past that which belongs in the past."

From her experiences as a social worker in Holland, she saw that many immigrant woman and girls were victims of violence, including being beaten, enduring FGM and forced marriages.  Holland, caught up in multiculturalism, didn't protect these women but deferred to the immigrant men.  The females were at the mercy of the religious and cultural practices of their immigrant "collective."  Holland, like other liberal European states, was sacrificing the individual rights of women and children for the collective rights of the religious minorities. 

She also spoke about making the movie "Submission" with Theo van Gogh.  She wanted to have a dialogue with Allah, instead of just submit to Allah, she was asking Allah if it was right, just and moral to inflict violence upon women as many do.  There is clear justification in the Koran and hadiths for men ruling over women and even beating them, and she had the texts printed on womens bodies in the film. She spoke movingly of the murder of her friend Theo, and the guilt that she bears some responsibility for that.  His death made her more radical and more committed to her work.

The Q&A afterwards demonstrated the forces that Ayaan is working against.   Most questions to her were fairly hostile: How can an atheist reform Islam? What is your agenda?  Why are you speaking about Islam when you are not a theologian?  Isn't what you're doing extreme and dangerous and how is it serving the cause?  Why should a Muslim listen to you?  Aren't you setting up a straw man argument, saying that Muslims are either good Muslims or they're Osama bin Laden? Why are you only harping about Islam?  What about the Hindu texts?

Ayaan was unflappable and graceful in her responses."I speak about Islamic texts because that is what I know.  Religion is public, ideas are public.  It is necessary and urgent to review, revise, and discuss Islam as a body of ideas.  It is time to examine the links between religion and values."   

One business school student (Muslim male) asked "If Islam is so oppressive to women, how can you explain that Muslim countries like Pakistan and Indonesia have had women prime ministers?"  Her response to that was deadly: "In some Muslim countries such as Iran and Afghanistan, under sharia, women are forced to wear hijab, adulters are stoned (mostly women, not the men), daughters get half the inheritance that sons do, and a man can easily get a divorce, while it's very difficult for women to get divorced.  In secular Muslim countries like Turkey and Indonesia, fundamentalist Islam is on the rise.  Twenty years ago, Indonesian women did not go around in hijab, now it is commonplace. There is an attitude of denial in the face of a great deal of empirical evidence about the oppression of women.  Anyone who denies this evidence is personally contributing to the subjugation of women."  (That means YOU, Dude).

The last questioner (Bangladeshi woman) asked "Do you identify yourself as a woman?  If so, why aren't you concerned with domestic abuse?  Why are you only harping about Islam?"  Ayaan was amused.  "Yes, I identify myself as a woman, I think that's self-evident."    She replied that much of her work is against violence and oppression of girls and women around the world, which is easily confimed by reading her books and lectures.  At this point, given the overt hostility of the questioner, Ayaan noted that debate and criticism of Islam is not the same as attacking Islam.  "I'm not attacking Islam, I want to reform Islam."   Here Ayaan asked "I really wonder what you (referring to all the grad students) are doing here"   It was along the lines of "What are they teaching you anyway? Do you not know how to debate or discuss an issue?" 

In closing she said "We need to find a balance between faith and reason."  Phenomenal and remarkable woman, I feel blessed to have seen her in person.  Afterwards, I hopped over to the Coop and bought an autographed copy of her book The Caged Virgin - An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam.  A very good day.

Forced Marriages in Germany - Die Fremden Bräute

Related to the story above on the murder ("honor" killing) of a young British woman, the WSJ carried an article on young foreign brides imported from Turkey into Germany (H/T Dhimmi Watch). 

"This year, thousands of teenage girls, very few past the age of consent, will arrive in Germany from Turkey for arranged marriages and lives of domestic servitude enforced by tradition, isolation and fear."

"Today, every second Turkish woman who has a child in a German school is herself a foreign bride. Two-thirds of these children arrive in school not speaking a word of German. The German educational system bends over backward for them, providing religious instruction in Turkish or Arabic and excluding girls from physical education, sex ed and other subjects where Islamic mores might be offended."

The "bending over backwards" is not working out for Germany, which is seeing an increasing divide between natives and immigrants.  It's definitely not working out for Muslim women either, 55 of whom were murdered in "honor killings" there in the past six years. 

While the U.S. is doing a better job than most European countries in assimilating Muslim immigrants, I'm thinking that there's probably a certain amount of forced marriages, child brides and honor killing going on in our country too.  Who's keeping an eye out for such things? 

Ending FGM - Gentle Persuasion Best?

The Boston Sunday Globe magazine featured Dr. Nawal Nour in "Bostonians Changing the World."   Dr. Nour's mission is to convince immigrant women (African and Middle Eastern) not to "circumcise" their daughters.  She's an obstetrician-gynecologist (born in Sudan) who works at Brigham and Women's Hospital and is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.  From the article:

"The majority of my patients have undergone the most severe form of female genital cutting, the complete removal of the external genitalia and subsequent sewing together of the remaining tissue, leaving a small hole for urination and menstruation...... My patients cringe from the label "mutilation." They consider themselves circumcised, so that is the term I use with them."

"I founded the African Women's Health Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in 1999. We take care of women with complications from genital cutting, and we perform reconstructive surgery to improve their lives. Being Sudanese-American enables me to traverse two cultures, to understand the needs of my African patients easily, without judgment or discrimination. Being an obstetrician-gynecologist grants me their respect and the freedom to delve into sensitive subjects like circumcision and sexuality. Africans who practice female genital cutting believe they are upholding a noble tradition."

Where are these women bringing their daughters to have their labia and clitoris removed and sewn up?  Is it done on trips back to their home country?  Please don't tell me it's being done here in the U.S. 

"I have heard all of the arguments for continuing this practice, and I have challenged them all. Some days I win, some days I lose. Changing a woman's lifelong belief isn't easy, especially with a daily reminder of the tradition literally cut into her body. I have developed counter arguments instead: No, it is not more hygienic to be circumcised. No, Islam does not condone it. No, it does not improve fertility. No, the clitoris is not toxic. Yes, the practice used to ensure marriage ability, but studies show that men now prefer uncircumcised women. Yes, virginity is important, but studies show that even circumcised girls do what they wish. And yes, I understand that circumcision can be considered a means of beautification, but the health hazards outweigh the concerns of vanity."

It is likely (though not proven) that Dr. Nour's low-key persuasion yields better results than outlawing this abominable practice.  Yet if there was ever a time to be judgemental about a cultural/religous practice, this is it.  The British successfully stamped out the practice of sati, where an Indian widow had to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre.  Why can't we stamp out FGM in short order too?  Where is the resolve of the West to end such atrocities?

I applaud Dr. Nour's work and her dedication. There's not much public awareness of FGM.  When Alice Walker's book Possessing the Secret of Joy came out in 1992, it caused quite a stir.  We need more stirring on this. 

Camille Speaks About Harvard

Camille Paglia speaks out about the (apparently) forced resignation of Larry Summers from Harvard in the NY Times.  As expected, she lambastes the feminists:

"While many issues are rumored to have played a role in Mr. Summers's resignation (including charges of favoritism in a messy legal case involving foreign investments), the controversy that will inevitably symbolize his presidency was the manufactured outcry early last year over his glancing reference at a conference to possible innate differences between the sexes in aptitude for science and math. The feminist pressure groups rose en masse from their lavishly feathered nests and set up a furious cackle that led to a 218-to-185 vote of no confidence by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences last March. "

"Harvard's reputation for disinterested scholarship has been severely gored by the shadowy manipulations of the self-serving cabal who forced Mr. Summers's premature resignation. That so few of the ostensibly aggrieved faculty members deigned to speak on the record to The Crimson, the student newspaper, illustrates the cagey hypocrisy that permeates fashionable campus leftism, which worships diversity in all things except diversity of thought."

Good to see Camille Paglia back in the public sphere. She's been laying low for a few years, I've missed the skewering of feminist ideology and leftist group-think.