DECEMBER 2002

We are all deeply saddened by the violent acts perpetrated on September 11, 2001, both here in NYC and in the hundreds of thousands of homes around the world where terrorism is part of everyday life.  Our hearts and work at insite go out to all who are suffering from these uncivilized acts.

It is said that the level of civilization in a society can be judged by how it treats its least powerful. Well, in every society on this earth, including, and especially in Afghanistan, the group called "women" are the least powerful. In fact, more women and girls die each year as a result of gender-based violence than as a result of any other human rights abuse.

[For some insight into the daily violence women and girls suffer at the hands of men and boys, check out the Amnesty International Women's Human Rights Campaign For some statistics on the war against women in the United States, please scroll down to the end of this column.]

According to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, Amartya Sen, noted historian James McElvaine and many other feminist women and men, if we are to stop the wars that have been terrorizing and de-civilizing our world since the beginning of time, we must liberate all women, respect them equally and give them an equal voice in every government (including in the US). 

The first step in this novel experiment is to picture women as deserving of such treatment...which insite hopes to help you do in the future.

To get a little background on the abuse against women in Afghanistan - which continues to this day, you can click here to read the US State Department's 2001 Report on the Taliban's War on Women.  According to this radical feminist organization:

 "Prior to the rise of the Taliban, women in Afghanistan were protected under law and increasingly afforded rights in Afghan society.   There was a mood of tolerance and openness as the country began moving toward democracy.  Women were making important contributions to national development.   In 1977, they comprised over 15% of Afghanistan's highest legislative body.   It is estimated that by the early 1990s, 70% of schoolteachers, 50% of government workers, and 40% of doctors in Kabul were women.  These professional women provide a pool of talent and expertise that will be needed in the reconstruction of post-Taliban Afghanistan.
"

Below is a bit of a timeline of events - in reverse chronological order - in the course of setting up a new government in Afghanistan that is ostensibly committed to equal rights and opportunity for all. You can help by getting up to speed on the issues and by e-mailing or writing your government representatives and urging them to support the humane treatment of Afghani women.  Oh, and while some people continue to say that congresspeople don't listen to e-mails... they do. We've gotten written (snail mail and e-mail) responses from our reps.  It matters that you write them! (And this from one of us who lobbied in the US Congress for the Civil Rights Act of 1991).

                                       ~~

December 17, 2002 - Human Rights Watch report released today shows that the oppression of women and girls continues in Afghanistan.

May 10, 2002 - Human Rights Watch sends letter to First Woman Laura Bush urging her to increase support for Afghan women's security concerns. Ms. Bush is on a ten-day official tour of Europe during which she will highlight U.S. efforts to rebuild Afghanistan. Acting as President Bush's official representative, she willl meet with  European ambassadors and organizations that support reconstruction aid and development for Afghanistan.

May 9 - Human Rights Watch issues report revealing that
Afghan women continue to fear physical violence and insecurity even after the end of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.  Personal safety is also the reason many women continue to wear the body bag called the "Burqa."

May 4 - Annual White House Dinner/Lovefest for US press and Hollywood Celebs (we stretched the facts here... but, hey, we're only joking!)

(The facts:) United States President George Bush Jr. holds up a picture of an Afghan woman in a burqa entering the White House for a meeting on the oppression of women in Afghanistan and jokes that is was really... Senator Hillary Clinton!   Har Har!!!  (Our joking:) He warns all those feminists/Afghani women who don't laugh that he'll call them frigid in his next radio address (assuming Karen Hughes is still available for language  instruction from Texas).  Also makes joke about Vice President Cheney peeing (does not need Karen for that).

Industry buzz is that Bush and Cheney are being heavily courted by both MTV and Miramax to pen their next movies.  Failing that, both men are said to be eager to guest star on The Osbournes, the new hit show with the pee and burka crowd.  The pair have turned down repeated requests to appear on Oprah, explaining that "she asks difficult questions on issues outside our area of concern." Stay Tuned.

February through April 2002 - Boys posture pose fight shoot bomb rape kill maim in their attempt to set up a civil society.... But then, you know how difficult it is for a bunch of men to work together....

George Bush has refused to support the expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which both UN and Afghan officials believe is the only real way to keep peace through its efforts to encourage disarmament, mediate conflicts among warlords, restore women’s rights and human rights, and deliver humanitarian services.

Women are still afraid of rape and beatings and wear full-length body coverings for protection.  They have no real say in how the society or government is structured.   Uncivility rules.

Anti-women pamphlets are being spread by Afghani men which warn “Stop sending your women to offices and daughters to schools. It spreads indecency and vulgarity Stand ready for the consequences if you do not heed the advice.”

Recommended Actions (from Equality Now)

Please write to the President of the Security Council asking him to circulate your letter to the other Security Council members. Call on the Security Council to authorize the immediate expansion of UN-authorized security forces in Afghanistan and to post these forces throughout the country with a mandate to disarm warring factions.

Please also write to the President of the United States, urging him to reverse United States opposition to the expansion of the security forces and noting the special responsibility of the United States Government to help rebuild Afghanistan following the destruction caused by US bombing in the war. Urge him also to ensure that the funding commitments made by the United States and other donor countries in Tokyo are honored and delivered without further delay.

Letters should be addressed to:

Security Council President for May
H.E. Mr. Kishore Mahbubani
Permanent Mission of Singapore
231 East 51st Street
New York, NY 10022, USA
Fax: 1-212-826-2964
Email: sgpun@prodigy.net
Security Council President for June
H.E. Dr. Mikhail Wehbe
Permanent Mission of the Syrian Arab Republic
820 Second Avenue, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10017, USA
Fax: 1-212-983-4439
Email: syria@un.int
Security Council President for July
H.E. Sir Jeremy Quentin Greenstock, KCMG
Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom
One Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, 28th Floor
885 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017, USA
Fax: 1-212-745-9316
E-mail uk@un.int
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500, USA
Fax: 1-202-456-2461
Email: president@whitehouse.gov

insite suggests you read Prof. Robert S. McElvaine's Eve's Seed for insight into the history of male hostility towards women and each other.   We think it's one of the most amazing books ever written.

After reading Eve's Seed you'll never look at a farm, the bible, feminism, rock 'n' roll lyrics, mass consumption, or Bill Clinton in the same way.
- Paul R. Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies,

  Stanford University, and author of Human Natures: Genes,
  Cultures, and the Human Prospect
.


Jan. 25, 2002
- Over one month into the six-month term of the interim government, the Afghan Women's Ministry, headed by one of only two women in the new Afghani leadership, Dr. Sima Samar, has been given neither an office nor funding to hire staff or to initiate programs. The Ministry for Women’s Affairs is the only ministry without pre-existing resources and without funding from donor nations, the Ministry will not be able to function, jeopardizing women’s rights initiatives in the country. Surely, if the Ministry is to succeed in helping the women and girls of Afghanistan to regain their rights and participate fully in the rebuilding of the country, it is imperative that the Women's Ministry receive immediate and significant funding.

Please e-mail your Congresspersons, UN Secretary General Representative to Afghanistan Brahimi  and President Bush and Secretary Powell and urge them to support and fund the Ministry for Women’s Affairs, so that women and girls have a chance of being protected from daily violence, getting back on their feet and into a healthy role in their society. 

Jan. 20-21 - Japan - President Bush decides that Afghan interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and his government will receive $278 million of US tax dollars in aid and a total of $4.5 billion from around the world.  This was decided at a meeting in Tokyo, where US women's rights groups were denied admission even though they have been championing the cause of Afghani women since 1995 (when no one else was listening) and their presence was requested by Afghani women.  It is important that US dollars (or any dollars!) not be used to perpetuate the horrible oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Jan. 18 - Physician's for Human Rights send Letter to President Bush Urging $1 Billion per Year for Reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Jan. 15 - Afghan interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai signs the Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women, which was written by Afghani women in June of 2000.  It affirms women’s right to personal safety, right to physical and mental health, right to institutional education, right not to wear the burqa, and right to equal protection under the law.  However, it's imperative that we make sure these rights are not hollow promises, enforced in the breach. In fact, most women still do not feel physically safe without the burqas. 

Jan. 10, 2002: Bush names James Dobbins US Amabassador to Afghanistan

2002 - Human Rights World Report on Women 2002 points up just how much U.S. and Europe really care about women's human rights as they use the Taliban's mistreatment of women for their own purposes:

"THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

The war in Afghanistan mobilized international attention to women's human rights in that country, with the U.S. government and its allies giving women's rights a prominent place in the propaganda war against the Taliban.

In 2001, however, there seemed to be a disconnect between the U.S. and the international community's rhetorical commitment to equality and a willingness to adopt and implement policies that fully integrated attention to women's human rights. In 2001, U.N.-sponsored meetings addressed critical issues such as the gender dimensions of racism, gender-based persecution as grounds for asylum, and an international protocol on the collection of forensic evidence in cases of sexual violence.

At the same time, the U.S. and the European Union took steps on trafficking, international treaty ratification, funding for women's health, and trade that marginalized or ignored women's human rights. Women's rights activists found that many of these steps were tentative and inconsistent, and hoped that the international community's concern for women's rights in Afghanistan would be long-lasting and would result in stepped-up efforts to recognize women's human rights violations and curtail them also in other parts of the world." (wrong...)

Dec. 22 - Germany - The Afghan interim government was sworn into office for 6 month term.

Dec. 19 - Please email President Bush and Sec. State Powell and ask that they name a woman to be US Ambassador to Afghanistan, as requested by the sole female Afghan Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Sima Samar, head of  "Women's Affairs." This will go a long way to ensure that Afghani women - who already have been treated as tokens in the post-Taliban government coalition - will be afforded humane treatment in the rebuilding of Afghanistan. Dr. Samar also asked that the U.S. send more humanitarian aid to the Afghani people.

Dec. 18 - Well, things are sealed as far as the Afghani government goes and "window-dressing" is what women got - they were given but token roles in the post-Taliban government as set up by the participants at the Bonn Conference. The new government includes only 2 women (although women constitute over 60% of the Afghani population): Dr. Sima Samar, one of five vice chairs under Pashtun Prime Minister Karzai, who will oversee women's affairs (of course); and Suhaila Seddiqi, a medical doctor and former general in the Afghan army under both the king - she is a relative - and the communists, who will head the Ministry of Public Health.

More horrific is that fact that Northern Alliance members - most of the Northern Alliance are Pashtun - and former members of the Taliban are going to be in charge of the country once again. As is noted by an Afghani woman below, women's plight under the Northern Alliance was not much better than under the Taliban. Unfortunately, one can expect many more years of violence against women and men. 

Let's not forget that it is not all men who are committing this violence against women, but rather, the aggro-elite, who also terrorize less aggressive men.  It's just that it is often the case that when the less powerful men are abused, they tend to then take it out on the women in their households. And, under a regime of patriarchy, this violence is seen as a male "right."  However, this gender violence is not only in direct contradiction of the Koran, it is in violation of the most basic human rights as defined by the United Nations.  This gender aparthed would not be tolerated by the rest of the world if it were perpetrated against a distinct ethnic group, rather than the gender group of women.

Read WorldWomen (UK) Article "Peacebuilding Minus Women in Afghanistan." (PDF file - need Adobe Acrobat reader)

Seeing that the rights and capabilities of women were largely ignored at the mostly-male conference, women from around the world - in including the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, met in Belgium (in an important meeting which got little press coverage) to discuss the needs of women and girls.  They created a Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women, of which Section IV reads:

"This Declaration developed by Afghan women is a statement, affirmation and emphasis of those essential rights that we Afghan women own for ourselves and for all other Afghan women. It is a document that the State of Afghanistan must respect and implement. This document, at this moment in time, is a draft that, in the course of time, will be amended and completed by Afghan women."

Please sign and send a Statement of Support of this Declaration to let your government representatives know that you support the equal rights and opportunities of women in Afghanistan.  After all, our governments are going to pump in billions of dollars of aid to the men in charge of that country, and we should have some say as taxpayers on the basic conditions tied to that money.   The recognition of basic human rights and the equality of women - as recognized in the Afghan Constitution before the Taliban takeover - should be a minimum requirement.  

It also is still imperative that you email the UN and President Bush and Sec. State Powell and ask that they continue to keep women's rights and safety at the top of their agenda in Afghanistan and condition U.S. aid on the respect for basic human rights in that country.

Dec. 13 - Six delegates from the Afghan Women’s Summit, held in Brussels December 4-5, meet with members of the U.S. House and Senate as well as the State Department to garner support for the Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women, the Summit’s plan for Afghan reconstruction.

The delegates, hosted by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), presented the Proclamation to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and attended a lunch meeting with other members of the Senate, hosted by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD). The women also briefed members of the House on the Declaration, which addresses education and culture, health, human rights, and refugees and internally displaced women.

Dec. 4-5 - Afghan women leaders meet in Brussels to conduct a roundtable meeting, sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Belgian government, on Building Women’s Leadership in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan. They issue the Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women, which calls for the full participation of women in all aspects of the reconstruction process and the successful implementation of services to meet women’s healthcare and educational needs. 

Participants also called for the creation of a Human Rights Commission in Afghanistan, to monitor potential human rights abuses within Afghanistan and in Afghan refugee camps in neighboring countries, and a judicial system capable of prosecuting perpetrators of human rights abuses, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

The Afghani women leaders also call for the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force into Afghanistan and highlight the need for voluntary repatriation of refugees, and the need to implement solutions for mass social problems caused by years of gender apartheid. Women are to be central in meeting these needs, as participants called for “integrating women into all aspects of nation building on a sustainable basis.” As a result of the roundtable, UNIFEM will establish a Fund for Afghan Women’s Leadership to benefit the capacity-building of Afghan women’s organizations.


Nov. 30 - Emma Bonino, a member of the European Union from Italy, calls for a  World Day of Fast & Nonviolence for Women in the Provisional Afghan Government  on December 1 to show support for the inclusion of women in all areas of the new Afghani government. More than 5000 people, including nearly 200 dignitaries, from over 100 countries will participate in the fast.

Now, if we really want sustainable peace in Afghanistan, we must ensure that the country is reconstructed in a way that values all citizens equally, not just men and boys.  If that doesn't happen and the civilizing elements of women are not embraced at the highest level of government, it's a good bet that the country will once again devolve into a country of violence and death.

Nov. 30. - Physicians for Human Rights urges Secretary of State Powell to appoint a high-level Special Envoy or Ambassador to deal specifically with Afghan women's rights, especially their right to health.  The recommend the following program:

"We recommend that your Special Envoy be the advocate and coordinator on the following issues: 1) protecting those most vulnerable to abuses, including rape and sexual violence; 2) reconstructing and developing the health sector, including proper obstetric and gynecological care; 3) developing humanitarian aid strategies to provide health services to women and children in all parts of Afghanistan; 4) initiating Afghan-run mental health services to address widespread trauma and depression among women of all ethnic groups and socioeconomic status; 5) reviving medical education for women, including training for doctors, nurses, traditional birth attendants, surgeons, paramedics and community health workers; 6) assuring the participation of women in any future government, and the respect for and protection of women's human rights by any future government. 7) collecting information on well-known perpetrators of abuses against women, including those in the Northern Alliance, so that such individuals may be excluded from positions of authority in any future government; and 8) monitoring, reporting, and accountability for gender violations and discrimination."

Nov. 28 - Things are not looking good on the government front - not only are the Northern Alliance not excluded from the new government, they are actually running the show at the Bonn talks. Indeed, they have rejected a UN peacekeeping force, which, of course, would help ensure the safety of women and non-aggressive men, and the building of a society respectful of human rights. The Northern Alliance representatives also have stated that select Taliban can rule in Afghanistan. (It is currently reported that the Taliban are now fleeing Kabul and kidnapping women and girls.)

Left to their own devices, the male ruling class of Afghanistan will deny women the basic UN-declared human right to participate in their own destiny through suffrage.   For example, in the November 28 election for mayor of Herat, a city in Western Afghanistan that our US taxpaying dollars helped free, NO woman was allowed to vote. The men promptly elected a former Taliban municipal officer!

So, this is a very dynamic situation and thus imperative to keep those emails flowing to the UN, to your reps, to President Bush and Sec. State Powell. And the process will be a long one.  We actually got a nice snail mail letter back from our US Representative, Carolyn B. Maloney, stating that she was doing everything she could to ensure women full representation. 

While the US media seems focused on the fact that Afghan women are now allowed to "makeup" their faces instead of covering them with cloth, the important rights and capabilities of these women are getting lost in the Revlon furor.  Of the 70 some delegates to the Bonn Conference, only 4 are women.  These women also are forced to cover their hair with a chador.

So, please email the UN and the President Bush and Sec. State Powell and ask that they prohibit the installation of the anti-democratic, misogynist, all-male groups, such as the Taliban and the Northern Alliance (who in some ways were more abusive to women), in the new Afghani government and that they guarantee women - who are the majority of the population in Afghanistan - proportional representation, not just window-dressing roles...     

Ask that they support the reinstatement of the 1964 Afghanistan Constitution, which guaranteed universal suffrage, equal rights for women, and separation of powers with an independent judiciary. Afghan women were members of the judiciary, parliament, and cabinet, and were 50% of Afghanistan's civil service government workers.  Women also were 70% of the country's teachers, 40% of the doctors and the majority of health care workers

Not only is equal participation in public life fair and democratic, it is the best way to ensure an end to the cycle of violence in Afghanistan and its evolution into a more civilized and productive nation.

Even General MacArthur recognized the civilizing power of women when he demanded they be accorded equal treatment in the post-WWII Japanese Constitution.

Heck, even Laura Bush recognizes that some women don't want to work in the home...

Nov. 19 - A RAWA spokeswoman talked to CNN about the horror of living under the Northern Alliance.

Nov. 14 - Afghani women afraid they will be left out of meaningful role in post-Taliban government.

Nov. 13, 2001 - The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) issued a statement decrying the Northern Alliance takeover of Kabul.

Oct. 30, 2001 - Citing its findings that more than 90% of Afghan women and men recently interviewed in Afghanistan support women's participation in government, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) called on the ongoing Conference for Peace and Unity in Afghanistan (CPUA) -as well as participants in the upcoming Loya Jirga, or grand council-to include women in the transition process and insure that members from each of Afghanistan's many ethnic groups are represented. The current composition of the CPUA does not include women or representatives from the numerous ethnic groups. Furthermore, as it works to design and implement a transition government for Afghanistan, the CPUA should formally affirm its support for the protection and promotion of women's human rights in Afghanistan.

The vast majority of women and men interviewed by PHR expressed the view that women's human rights are essential to the health and development of the Afghan people.

Oct. 29, 2001 - Human Rights Watch releases report showing that
Afghan women are likely to face further suffering at the hands of warring factions in Afghanistan and to endure some of the most serious humanitarian consequences of the U.S.-led military action, Human Rights Watch said today.

1999 - Physician's for Human Rights issues the first report on the War Against Women in Afghanistan.
 
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Now, we would be remiss of course - and not a bit ethnocentric - if we failed to mention that, in the United States of America, American men kill 3-4 American women every day and American men commit 4.9 million attacks against their  American wives and girlfriends each year - that's an American guy beating his "lover" every 13 seconds....very Talibanish, don't you think? - US Dept. of Justice

Additionally, based on reported violence, 55% of all U.S. women - that's over 100 MILLION women - have or will be raped or physically assaulted in their lifetime.  Keep in mind that less than 1 in 3 women in the U.S. even report their rape or sexual assault. -  US Dept. of Justice 

In 2000, in our nation's capital alone - right there with all the lawmakers - there were over 22,500 calls to the police reporting violence against women.  In fact, violence against women made up almost 50% of all reported violent crimes in D.C. Most of this violence is never investigated or prosecuted. See Colby I. King, Washington Post

As we are recommending the full participation of women in the post-Taliban government, we also recommend that the US Government contain more than 14% women (the US is ranked 49th in the percentage of women in its government, behind countries such as Senegal, Spain, Cuba, Mozambique, Germany, Vietnam, Rwanda and China).  



Patriarchal Justice

News Articles

Womb Envy & World Institutions

A Man's Country?

Living in a World Without Women

Northern Alliance - Modern Brutes

Afghan Women Absent from Post-War Talks

Afghan Women Angry at Exclusion

Afghan Peace Hinges on Human Rights

Lifting the Veil

Give Afghan  Women Economic Power

Afghanistan's Missing Women & Girls

Bye Bye Burka

Afghan Widows

Equal Society = Peaceful Society

Men Can Help Stop the Cycle

Organizations

RAWA - Revolutionary Association of the
Women of Afghanistan


RAWA Congressional Testimony

Help Afghan Women

Afghan Women's Mission

WAPHA - Women's Alliance for
Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan


Global Fund for Women

Physician's for Human Rights

European Women's Lobby

Soros Foundation Network


An Afghani woman and a Northern Alliance tank


Tahirih Justice Center

Doctors Without Borders

Visit a Refugee Camp - Virtual Tour

Beijing +5

DAW - UN Division for the Advancement of Women

UNIFEM - UN Development Fund for Women

INSTRAW- UN Research & Training Institute for the Advancement of Women

Women Action

Gender Reach

Equality Now

Jackson Katz

European ProFeminist Men's Network



Afghani university women pre-Taliban 1995
Photo by A. Raffaele Ciriello


"Afghan society is like a bird with two wings.  If one wing is cut off, then society will not function."
- an Afghani elder, interviewed by Sima Wali of

Refugee Women in Development, reprinted in the
US Dept. of State Report on the Taliban's War Against Women


"If we commit ourselves to creating a world free from violence against women and girls, our children will say we stopped the most universal and unpunished crime of all time against half the people of the earth."

.
       - Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the United
         Nations Development Fund for Women (
UNIFEM).

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For pictures of Soraya Parlika, the jailed leader of the Afghan feminists who have been fighting the Taliban for years (now the the head of the newly formed Union of Women in Afghanistan) and other women fighting for self-determination, see the Time Magazine Photo Essay. You'll also get to see the commodification of women in Kabul Western-style.

There has got to be a way to define women other than either by their sexiness or their lack of sex.  And women have got to have a voice in order to create that definition.

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NOVEMBER 25

INTERNATIONAL END VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN DAY

"Violence against women is the most pervasive form of human rights abuse in the world today. It includes assault, battery, rape, sexual slavery, mutilation, and murder. It is not a new phenomenon. It is not tied to poverty or economic upheaval. It is not related to the social displacement of peoples. Instead, it cuts across social and economic situations and is deeply embedded in cultures around the world- so much so that millions of women consider it a way of life."
.
       -
US Agency for International Development, 1997

"In no society are women secure or treated as equal to men.  Personal insecurity shadows them from cradle to grave. . . from childhood through adulthood, they are abused because of their gender."

.
.
         - 1995 UN Human Development Report, 1995

Gender violence causes more deaths and disability among women aged 15 to 44 
than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war.
.
        - World Bank Discussion Paper 255

Every third woman in the world has been beaten or sexually abused because of her gender.
        - The Johns Hopkins University, USA, 2000

"The abhorrence with which the whole world has rightly regarded [race] apartheid is an abhorrence born of the simple moral proposition that a peoples' rights and opportunities - where they can live, what education and health care they will receive, what job they can do, what income they can earn, what legal standing they will have - should not depend on whether they are born black or white.

"Yet it seems that the world is prepared to accept, with none of the depth and breadth of opposition that has been seen during the [race] apartheid years, that all of these things can depend upon the accident of being born male or female."
'
        - James Grant, Then-Executive Director of UNICEF

CURRENT READING

Here are some of the books/articles we are currently reading, have recently read or have on the desk ready to read. Good places to buy used books are AbeBooks.com, Half.com and Strandbooks.com.

Robert S. McElvaine - Eve's Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History

George Soros - On Globalization

Susan George - The Lugano Report

Amartya Sen - Development as Freedom

Amartya Sen - Inequalities Reexamined

Fernand Braudel - The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century. Vols. I to III

Jeremy Rifkin - The Age of Access:The New Cult of Hypercapitalism Where All of Life is a Well-Paid for Experience

Benjamin R. Barber - Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World

Thomas Friedman - The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization

Martha Nussbaum - Women's Capabilities and Social Justice

Diane Elson - Gender Justice, Human Rights and Neo-liberal Economic Policies

Alan Greig, et al. - Men, Masculinities & Development: Broadening our work towards gender equality

Anne Phillips - Multiculturalism, Universalism, and the Claims of Democracy

George Soros - Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism

William Leach - Land of Desire: Merchants, Power and the Rise of the New American Culture

Benjamin R. Barber - A Place for Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong

Mary Scott & Howard Rothman - Companies with a Conscience: Intimate Portraits of 12 Firms That Make a Difference

Anita Roddick - Business as Unusual

Noam Chomsky - Necessary Illusions

Judith M. Green - Deep Democracy: Community, Diversity and Transformation

Hamilton,  Madison, Jay - The Federalist Papers

Ross Terrill - 8,000,000: The Real China

Richard Branson - Losing My Virginity

Bill Shore - Revolution of the Heart: A New Strategy for Creating Wealth and Meaningul Change

Harvard Business Review - we subscribe (no kidding)


Lt. Col. Dave Grossman/Gloria DeGaetano - Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill

US Advisory Committee On Voluntary Foreign Aid - "Meeting the Challenge: Strategies for Gender Equality in International Development"