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NFPW
2002 Highlights
Women
are the Measure of All Things: Empowering Women
In an impoverished country like Yemen, something as mundane as
building a bathroom makes it possible for girls to attend their
village school. For others, the act of digging a well means they
may be excused from hauling water and allowed to attend classes
for the first time in their lives.
Simple acts such as these are empowering women in the Middle
East, said Ambassador Barbara K. Bodine.
"Advancement of women's issues around the world is not a
luxury," Bodine said. "It is integral to our security.
It is both morally right and selfishly smart. It reflects our
values and, as Secretary Powell has emphasized, is in our national
interest.
"Poverty, ignorance and oppression are all part of our national
security agenda. If we are going to address the underlying causes
of violence, instability, degradation of the environment and human
rights — and terrorism — then we must address women's
issues."
Bodine has lived and worked most of her adult life in the Middle
East, in places like Baghdad and Kuwait. She was among those held
hostage in the American Embassy for 137 days during the Iraqi
invasion and occupation that precipitated Desert Storm. From 1997
until 2001 she served as U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, one of the
world's poorest countries.
Currently on sabbatical, she serves as diplomat-in-residence
at her alma mater,the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Diplomats and journalists are alike, Bodine said.
"We observe human nature, study the dynamics and impact
of political forces, write to record events, and hope thereby
to shape them. Like diplomats, journalists are out there where
it is rarely boring, and sometimes dangerous."
A security and counter-terrorism officer, Bodine said, "The
past year has been like few others as we seek to come to terms
with the events of last September. Of the many lessons to be learned
from those events is our need to reach out to, understand, and
engage with the rest of the world."
Women's political and social status, health and well-being provide
a valuable litmus test for a society's political and economic
health, she said.
"Few if any states can deny basic rights and support to
women and hope to prosper as a nation. The U.S. policy goal to
enhance and encourage the status of women directly supports our
goals to increase broad-based, good governance and raise economic
prosperity," Bodine said.
President Bush has stated that support for women's rights is
an imperative of U.S. foreign policy. In his words, it is a goal
"grounded in the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity and
reflect universal human rights."
Bodine emphasized that these are universal values. "They
are not cultural, regional or economically specific, but universal."
While the denial by the Taliban of "every conceivable right
and need of women focused our attention on the plight of the women
in Afghanistan, it also distorted the picture and reinforced old
stereotypes," said Bodine. "The Islamic world was painted
with a broad brush of the Taliban's making, obscuring the realities
and
potential for advancement in much of the Islamic world."
Neighboring countries saw the Taliban and shuddered, fearing
it would spread to their own societies.
Afghan women are regaining their place in society, gradually
reintegrating into public life. Young girls are going back to
school. Women are back in the workforce and in positions within
the government. They can live without the fear that terrorized
them for too long.
Making the point that Islamic and Arabic are not synonymous,
not interchangeable, Bodine compared the varying lifestyles in
the countries where she has served: "The Islamic world has
a concept called 'hudud.' It means boundaries that define your
life. In Iraq, there was a hudud that was permissive within the
circle and brutal outside it. There were social freedoms to balance
the lack of political or civil freedom. Women have had access
to education, employment, and government positions there just
since 1990
In comparison, Kuwaitis have enjoyed education for all it citizens
since 1960. Today they have one of the highest literacy rates
and standards of living in the world, Bodine said. More than half
the students at Kuwait University are women. Women hold positions
in the government, business, the arts, and the professions. They
do not have the vote nor can they hold elected office, but they
are aggressive members of the society and of decision-making,
Bodine said.
"And then there is Yemen," she said. "Deprived
of virtually any natural resources, wracked by a turbulent history,
it has everything going against it. However, it has a functioning
constitutional democracy based on universal suffrage. Women vote
and hold elected office at all levels of government. They work
as journalists, doctors, lawyers, professors, government ministers,
diplomats."
"Yet Yemeni women are also overwhelmingly illiterate. They
suffer one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in
the world. Few children and fewer girls can afford school, even
primary levels. Yemen cannot afford basic health care."
If a country such as Yemen is going to escape becoming another
failed state that threatens its region, it must be well governed
and economically viable, Bodine said. It cannot accomplish this
if half its population is illiterate, malnourished, disenfranchised,
and oppressed.
"Programs to expand women's access to education, health,
employment, civil society, and governance cannot be defined by
outsiders," she said.
"Change can occur in a society only when it responds to
a perceived need and when it reflects the basic cultural, traditional,
and religious value of that society," Bodine said. "No
society need be shackled by its past, but it cannot move forward
irrespectively of it."
- Jeri Dobrowski
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