[Mb-civic] What are women fighting for? - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

What are women fighting for?

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  August 26, 2005

AT THE BEGINNING of the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, American 
soldier Maria Guajardo told the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger Enquirer that 
Iraqi women ''seem to pay more attention to us than the men. They seem 
so shy and scared. And they see us and give us the thumbs up and smile. 
The little girls especially. They wave and smile and will point us out 
to their mothers and grandmothers. I think their equality is going to 
come. It's just a matter of time."

In March of 2004, Fern Holland, a human rights attorney who helped draft 
the interim constitution for Iraq, was murdered along with two 
co-workers. Her work for women's rights in Iraq knew no bounds nor fear. 
In an e-mail to a friend, published in The New York Times, Holland 
talked about two weathered ''salt-of-the-earth" widows who sought her 
help to evict a thug of Saddam Hussein's who built a house and grew 
crops on their land. The widows had court orders for the eviction but 
people were too fearful of the man to help them.

Holland convinced the local judge to agree to a bulldozing of the house 
of the trespassing Saddam loyalist. She told the local judge, ''No one 
should jump over a woman's rights."

It is now the fall of 2005. A total of 45 American women have died in 
the service of President Bush's invasion and occupation, according to 
the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. Many of the female soldiers and 
civilians went abroad with the idea that liberation from Saddam 
Hussein's tyranny was for both men and women. The architects and chief 
defenders of the invasion have frequently seconded such notions.

Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy defense secretary, praised Holland for 
quitting her US law practice to ''help improve the lives of Iraqi 
women." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, ''We're going to stand 
for the principles that we're standing for around the world and most 
especially in Iraq, where America has sacrificed and -- sacrificed lives 
and treasure. And so, of course, we're going to stand and stand strongly 
for the rights of women."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/26/what_are_women_fighting_for/
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