gender and reconstruction in Iraq...

V is for victory — and for vagina
Ross Clark, from the Srectator, wonders whether Iraqis would prefer clean water and electricity or Britain’s taxpayer-funded ‘gender advisers’

Following the successful liberation of their country from the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein, ordinary Iraqis are once more beginning to experience some of those things which we in the West take for granted: electricity, telephones, fresh running water and the likes of Deirdre Spart from the Haringey Women’s Collective. If there is still a lot of work to be done in establishing security in the country, one thing which isn’t being ignored is the agenda of Western feminists. Never mind that many women’s pressure groups were vociferous in their opposition to war in Iraq, and by implication would presumably prefer it were Saddam still in power, it hasn’t stopped them flying in to demand a place in the new Iraq.

In October, when Saddam had yet to be captured and attacks on American troops were growing by the day, the Department for International Development (DFID) spent £152,000 on two ‘gender advisers’ to go to Iraq on a six-month contract ‘to promote gender equality and diversity’. The department has withheld the identity of one of them ‘for security reasons’. The other is Mandana Hendessi, an Iranian-born women’s rights campaigner who cut her feminist teeth as a member of the Southall Black Sisters in the early 1980s. One of her proudest achievements was in joining the organisation’s efforts to disrupt a beauty pageant, an event in which a smokebomb was thrown. ‘This is one of the most important ways women are oppressed,’ she later wrote. ‘It is like having a cattle show and it must be stopped now.’

the rest of the article from the Spectator

Response from the ... WOMEN’S NATIONAL COMMISSION

Department of Trade and Industry. 35 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BQ,
TELEPHONE: 020-7276- 2555 FAX: 020-7276 2563,
E-MAIL: WNC@dti.gsi.gov.uk WEBSITE: www.thewnc.org.uk

Mr Boris Johnson MP
Editor
The Spectator
56 Doughty Street
London WC1N 2LL
2 February 2004

Sir,

How disappointing that in your article of 17 January V is for Victory and for Vagina, Ross Clarke chose to criticise the work being done in Iraq to include the views and actions of Iraqi women in the reconstruction of their country.

The Spectator risks looking seriously old fashioned if it thinks democracy can be built without the involvement of women. The article accepts the legitimacy of Mandana Hendessi’s work in Baghdad on issues of domestic violence and honour killings, and then goes on to snigger and denigrate Iraqi women’s demands for a greater role in decision making structures.

It is not sensible to compare percentages of men and women in the UK Government. Here we are dealing with a structure long established and in which men have a very firm hold. Compare instead the current make up of the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament and you can see that a bit of positive action actually works. And why shouldn’t Iraqi women have these same aspirations.

Ross Clark sneers comfortably from his armchair while Mandana Hendessi risks her life in helping 56% of the Iraqi population have some say over their female futures.

Yours Sincerely,

Margaret Prosser
Chair
Women’s National Commission