Tuesday, May 25, 2004

equality, at last...?

I've been waiting for someone to address an aspect of the torture at Abu Ghraib which I, as an American woman, find particularly confusing and shameful—namely that three out of the seven torturers, pictured in the photographs, are American women. And that's just the beginning.

The director of the prison, Gen. Janis Karpinski, is an American woman. Major Gen. Barbara Fast, the top U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq, responsible for reviewing the status of detainees before their release, is an American woman. And Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. official in charge of managing the occupation of Iraq, is an American woman, as well—at least when she isn't a 136,000 ton Chevron oil tanker.

While I've become increasingly disillusioned with America, I did still have faith in the good sense of women. I see now that I have been naive.

Oddly, Susan Sontag made no mention of gender in her article for the NY Times on Sunday.

But Barbara Ehrenreich, in her op ed for the LA Times, went straight to the broken heart of the matter.

posted at 5/25/2004 12:07:00 PM [::]

 

 

As will be gathered
from these notes of mine,
I am the sort of person
who approves
of what others abhor
and detests
the things they like.

—Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book
circa 1000 AD

Clearly,
if Sei Shonagon had had access
to the Internet,
she would have had a weblog
instead of a Pillowbook.

—Ruth Ozeki, Weblog
circa 2000 AD

 

 

It starts with the earth. How can it not? Imagine the planet like a split peach, whose pit forms the core, whose flesh its mantle, and whose fuzzy skin its crust - no, that doesn't do justice to the crust, which is, after all, where all of life takes place.

—Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation

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