Women's rights: Tunisian feminist Amina Tyler and the struggle for equality

We share this from the Huffington Post UK. An interview with Amina Tyler, the Tunisian woman who put a nude picture of herself on the internet.  The rising movements against poverty and oppression throughout the world have to a large extent been led by and certainly composed of many women. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, that is now in government initially played no role in the movement for reform that ousted Mubarak, Washington's friendly dictator.  Women as we know played a major role.

One can only imagine the courage it takes for a woman in this climate to fight for equality.  There are many Muslim women who oppose such actions as well, it is a controversial issue. The criticism that many Muslim women make that western women aren't so free either as they are portrayed in the media as sex objects is not without some validity but I'll let our sisters help me clarify my thoughts on that one.  You can read a number of comments on either side of the debate here as well.  And there is more on this particular case here

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Amina Tyler: Topless Tunisian Protester Tells Femen She Was Beaten, Kidnapped & Drugged By Her Family (VIDEO)

Huffington Post UK  |  By Sara C Nelson Posted: 15/04/2013 12:45 BST  |  Updated: 18/04/2013 08:24 BST

Tunisian activist Amina Tyler has revealed she was beaten, kidnapped and drugged by her family after posting pictures of herself baring her breasts online.

The 19-year-old was also forced to endure a humiliating “virginity test” in the aftermath of her protest, which inspired women’s movement Femen to organise a “topless jihad” in support of her.
Speaking to Femen leader Inna Shevchenko from an undisclosed location via Skype, she told her harrowing story, but was adamant she will continue her struggle for women's rights in the Muslim country.


One of the pictures of Amina posted on the Femen Tunisia siteAmina, who was threatened with stoning after posting the images with the words “Fuck your morals” written across her chest to the Femen-Tunisia page, told how she was beaten by her uncle and cousin and taken to a remote village where she was given powerful sedatives.
She spoke of being examined by her aunts in the family kitchen to see if she was still a virgin – describing it as a “horrible” experience, “against my freedom”.
She added: “Every day they were teaching me morals. They forced me to read the Koran. I am an atheist.
“They put their hands on my head and started to read the Koran over my head, that was horrible.


Topless jihad protests in Brazil on 4 April“They took me to the Imam every day, who said ‘Your daughter is doing this against her will.’”
Of her “incarceration” she said: “They gave me medicine in strong doses. I had to sleep and be calm every day”.
An escape attempt saw Amina get as far as a main road where she tried to flag down a car, but she caught by relatives who screamed at her “Why are you doing this to your family?”
And she addressed an earlier TV interview she gave French TV channel Itele, in which she said she did not want to be associated with Femen’s actions and accused the group of “insulting Muslims”.


Femen leader Inna Shevchenko She told Inna: “They pushed me to say that. I was not allowed to see the internet or contact people.”
Despite her ordeal and continuing threats to her safety, Amina has vowed to continue her fight for women's rights.
She said: "I will continue the struggle that started in Tunisia. I will do a topless protest and then I will leave."

In an earlier interview with Frederica Tourn, she said she feared being beaten or raped if she was found by the Tunisian police.
But she insisted she was not afraid: “No, nothing they could do would be worse than what already happens here to women, the way women are forced to live every day.
"Ever since we are small they tell us to be calm, to behave well, to dress a certain way, everything to find a husband. We must also study to be able to marry, because young guys today want a woman who works.”

Inna told the Huffington Post UK: "Amina has became a symbol of liberation of women in the Arab world. We will not stop, now together with Amina, who is in danger, but still free."

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The struggle for youth identity and self worth

We are posting this short piece which was submitted by a single mother and reader of the blog. We're sure many young people can relate to it.

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Do you love yourself?  Quite a hard question to answer, huh?  I had always thought that that was the one inquiry in which the answer would be incredibly obvious.  However, I learned through wrestling with my own self-image and esteem that I did not, in fact, know the response to this seemingly simple question.  And it is questionable whether anyone really knows.  However, I will leave that discussion to the experts.  I have realized that it is not such a simple question to answer, and that a person must truly know themselves in order to know the answer.  However, none of this information was ever given to me as I was growing up.

In kindergarten, as every other child, I was taught basic academic and social skills:  reading, writing, sharing, playing with others, and so on.  One basic, essential ability, however, was left out of the mix.  I did not realize until I was about fifteen years old that I did not truly love myself.  I did not even know how to treasure and respect my own self.  Love is one thing that we are never taught.  We are told to love our parents and friends, and that someday we would come to love that “special someone.”  However, no one ever bothered to mention that before you can love anyone else, you must love yourself first and foremost.  I had always believed that because I felt the love of my family members, I was automatically surrounded by love from the inside out.  However, I never even thought about the fact that loving and encouraging family members will not always be present.  I had not even imagined for a second that there would someday be people in my midst who were not there solely to heighten my self-esteem.

           
I came to the conclusion that not being able to find the good within my own self is a debilitating “disease,” because it did not allow me to see the truth.  Due to the lack of confidence and any sense of self-worth, I was left to depend on the value judgments of others to define who I was.  However, between junior and senior high school, I overwent a whirlwind of changes and experiences, all of which have shaped who I am today.

My elementary years predisposed me towards being preoccupied with the idea of personal value as defined by physical appearance and the possession of either a boyfriend of girlfriend.  And since I failed to fulfill those requirements, I truly believed I had nothing to offer.  I felt dejected and useless.  I continued to harbor these feelings of rejection until my mother realized that it was much more than just a phase that I was struggling through.  She began to post signs throughout the house, proclaiming such things as “You are special, April” and “I love you.”  However, the most important thing my mother taught me during that time was to say the phrase “I’m beautiful” everyday in the mirror to myself.  She shared a story of how this simple phrase helped her through one of the most difficult points of her life.  And so I began to repeat that phrase every morning before I trotted off to school; staring at my reflection in the mirror and repeating this phrase over and over again until I believed it.

It took a long time in order for me to even be comfortable saying “I’m beautiful,” after a few months, I really felt sure of myself and confident in the fact that I had much to offer and that physical appearance does NOT determine a person’s value.  I also learned through this ritual that being beautiful is not just a physical detail; being beautiful has everything to do with who I am inside and what I feel about my whole self.  And I carry that ideal now.

In a nut shell, my bouts with my personal self-confidence shaped me in numerous ways so that I now know my strengths and weaknesses, and I have the knowledge that no matter what, I have to believe in myself.  This belief will enable me to achieve the dreams that I have built, and no one can shatter these dreams.  I will succeed with the love I have within myself and the confidence that this love provides.  You are right, Mom, I am special!

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Women Shame and the Murder of Savita Halappanavar

by Wendy Forest

"For it is not her specific feminine virtue that gives women a place of honour in human society but the use of her useful work accomplished for society , the worth of her personality as a human being ,as creative worker , as citizen , thinker or fighter".

Alexandra Kollontai –March 31,1872-March 9,1952 - Bolshevik, leader of the Russian Revolution.

The act of writing, knowing that the words I say will be read by someone, perhaps by a few, frightens me. The fear of being judged gives rise to the probability of feeling shame, perhaps one of the most uncomfortable feelings anyone can feel. Anyone who has spent time with women talking to them about their individual and collective struggles as women knows that sooner or later the issue of shame will arise.

Shame causes women to keep secrets, to be silent. Many if not most women carry many of our secrets to our graves. Somehow it feels safer to endure our silence(ing) than to take the risk of feeling shame. Many women are not even aware that we have secrets – the feeling of shame is so powerful that it forces us to silence our whispers to ourselves. For some of us, if we run into an occasion to feel safe enough to let go of some words at the risk of feeling naked and raw and exposed in an excruciating way, we take the risk.

What happens next, once the words are out can determine whether or not we will ever take the risk again. It all depends on what happens next. I hardly remember a moment in my life when my body or my words did not feel judged. This is not because I had bad parents- exactly the opposite – or bad school teachers – nothing that specific or identifiable can be pointed at and blamed. It is simply because I was born female. It is like being born black in a white dominant society. It is like being poor or gay. It does not matter – numbers do not change anything. If the values of the society into which we are born are by design values that judge us, construct us , pigeon hole us collectively, exclude us, control us and tell us who what our social roles are – we may be millions strong and without power.

It doesn’t matter if over 50 percent of the population of the world is female, or not white. Numbers do not matter. It is the power to define and classify, the power to own and promulgate ideas, to create, define and construct a norm that will prevail and exclude and force shame onto and into those who do not know their place in this world constructed by those whose ideas dominate. It’s a tricky one- the bad feeling of shame. It oozes into us before we learn to speak. No sooner are the words of the shameful out of our mouths as babes – are we taught to shape and form our ideas in a way that will help us avoid the feeling of shame.

Soon we will internalize these ideas and words – and they become our own words and ideas and we more often than not become self enforcers- collectively our own censors and cops . We learn very early to police ourselves collectively. Very young women learn that we must pre-empt the inevitable and gender specific judgment on our bodies and words and ideas. We learn to avoid shame by shaming ourselves – in order to avoid the criticism and shame from outside our selves. Like women who harm ourselves, mutilate our bodies by cutting , starve ourselves and “offer up” our bodies to be carved by cosmetic surgeons –all in order to pre-empt the shame that rolls over us. Shame is perhaps one of the most powerful weapons there is. It is by its very nature political.

Even as I write this I feel the need to pre-empt criticism – by anticipating responses and explaining why I am writing this. I should not have to explain. I should not have to plead my case before I make my case. Millions of words and ideas that are pure garbage are promulgated in the media every moment – without shame. Thousands of acts are committed everyday against women and gays, against racialized communities, against children and the old and disabled-without shame. So I will resist my own impulses to cover all my bases knowing full well that as soon as I push the button POST to this blog I will once again struggle against the feeling of being judged – the struggle to avoid shame because of the way I have written or what I have written about.

I want to say something about the murder of Savita Halappanavar in Galway Ireland. This was not an ordinary killing. It was a painful tortured death –a woman whose cervix was deliberately left open to an infection that killed her. That is the physical side of the torture. It was a deliberate murder, committed by fellow health care workers condoned and I will venture so far as to say encouraged by the state and by the catholic church in Ireland. The same church and the same collaborating state that protects and hides priests from as far away as the US who sexually assault young children and destroy the lives young and vulnerable innocent children. The children who survive these acts , who do not later in life kill themselves or harm themselves or soothe their pain with drugs and alcohol will without a doubt struggle with shame and feelings of degradation throughout their entire lives because they were assaulted and degraded by priests and adults they were told they could trust. Because their entire being was reduced to simply a physical entity – bodies to be exploited and used and degraded for some perverted and twisted sexual pleasure.

The institution that believes fundamentally that sex is base and can only be redeemed through marriage, that only “spiritual unity” achieved through marriage between heterosexual men and women can sanctify sexual acts. The same corrupt institution that protects these monsters in priests clothing condones the murder of women and enslaves them to their role as nothing more than incubators. The same church and the same state that uses shame as one of their primary weapons to control women and children every moment of every day has once again tortured and murdered a woman.

Who was Savita Halapannavar ? She was a dentist, a partner and life companion , a provider of health care. Her work was socially productive. She was a creative worker. Obviously she had a mind and was intelligent. I do not know her but I will take the liberty to assume that she was a comfort to her family and friends –that she was loved. She was alive. But when the moment came when the state and the church pitted her body against the distressed and dying fetus in her uterus she became nothing more than flesh- her entire being was reduced to nothing more than a complex physical entity. She was violently thrust entirely out of her social context, turned into pure nature. The social context within which she existed, created, thought, cared for others, loved and was loved, was stolen from her and she was turned into an incubator-a complicated mechanical and chemical life support system.

She was murdered. Her body, her mind, her emotions were in these hours before her death were dominated, manipulated, appropriated, controlled and ultimately put to death by a patriarchal state and an institution promoted by the same state. She is one of millions of women historically who have been murdered simply because they are female. Her death is a tragedy-but not an accident. The powerful weapon, shame, used throughout history against women will not be felt by the Catholic church or by the state of Ireland. Yes pressure from below will hopefully make them change the laws that oppress and violate women’s rights to control over their bodies and reproductive capacities. And yes that is what we want as way forward for women. But it goes much deeper and will not end until women understand the power of shame and are determined collectively to refuse to succumb to its paralyzing power.

We cannot afford to base our actions on what happens next.

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ULA press release on Savita Halappanavar's death

The death of a pregnant woman who was refused an abortion has caused an uproar in Catholic Ireland.  The woman, Savita Halappanavar complained of pain and discomfort and that she was miscarriaging.  She asked for the pregnancy to be terminated but Abortion is not legal in Catholic Ireland.  "I'm sorry" a medical consultant told here, "unfortunately it's a Catholic country' and it's the law that they can't abort when the foetus is live.". A foetal heartbeat was detected according to reports.  The Catholic church has been weakened severely in Ireland the influence of this organization, run by a group of old misogynists, still felt. The case is being investigated and there were demonstrations in Ireland today with more to come.

We share below a joint press statement from Clare Daly member of the Irish parliament, and former member of the CWI,  and Joan Collins member of the Irish parliament and also a former member of the CWI. Both are leading members of the United Labor Alliance (ULA).  These two extremely courageous women Comrades have moved a bill to legislate for what is known as the X case. This would give women the right to have abortion in Southern Ireland.  They should be supported in every way and given full credit for what they are doing. It should also be pointed out that they are revolutionary socialists and not some "independents."

United Left Alliance

This is the press release we sent out this morning. No more excuses no more time wasting leading to tragic outcomes we must legislate for X and Savita now.

Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD

Statement – 14 November 2012

Labour and Fine Gael bear responsibility for death of woman who was denied abortion.

Legislate for X Case NOW.

Protest at Dáil, Weds November 14, 6pm.

The recent death of a woman who was denied a life-saving abortion is an outrage which demands immediate action, said ULA TD's Clare Daly and Joan Collins.

“Sadly,” said Clare Daly, “the very thing we feared last April when we put our X Case Bill before the Dáil, has happened. A woman has died because Galway University Hospital refused to perform an abortion needed to prevent serious risk to her life. This is a situation we were told would never arise. An unviable fetus – the woman was having a miscarriage – was given priority over the woman's life, who unfortunately and predictably developed septicemia and died.

First and foremost we wish to extend our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the woman's husband, family and friends for their terrible loss. This loss is all the worse because it need not have happened.

Make no mistake, had Labour and Fine Gael acted upon our Bill, medical guidelines could have been in place which would have ensured that there would have been no grounds for equivocation about performing an abortion when there was a risk to the life of the woman. Instead, the government took the cowardly step of hiding behind the fourth 'expert group' on abortion since 1992. This refusal to act has contributed to the circumstances which brought about this woman's death. Fianna Fáil and the Greens also bear responsibility, due to their failure to legislate for the X Case.”

Joan Collins said that the TD's demand immediate action by the government.

“We demand a full and public enquiry into the circumstances of this woman's death. We demand that Minister Reilly immediately publish the report of his 'expert group' – now four months overdue from its own promised publication date. We intend to re-submit our X Case Bill, which provides for legal abortion when there is a risk to the life of a woman, as soon as we can. We demand that the government immediately provide Dáil time to promptly bring our Bill into law.

A woman's life has been sacrificed due to the unwillingness of Labour, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens to legislate in line with the Supreme Court ruling on the X Case in 1992. We call on the women of Ireland to take to the streets to ensure that action is taken to stop this ever happening again. The first step is to protest at the Dáil at 6pm on Wednesday evening, November 14.”

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