Unfortunately in the Middle-East we see women being blown up partly thanks to a ham-fisted attempt by the US Administration to impose a regime of its choice in Iraq. Dependence on Saudi and Kuwaiti oil plus their strategic advantage means we are unlikely to see any serious attempt by the Bush regime to help women's liberation there.

As for the US and other Western countries, women are overrepresented as victims of domestic violence, rape (outside prisons) and prostitution in proportion to their numbers.

The fight for women's equality has a huge way to go even in the most seemingly liberated of countries.

Romany, I think you’re being too kind to the author saying “Thinking of either of these women as feminist or as icons of democracy” is the essence of her argument, but even if it’s true, think what it implies – women are not to be judged for their actions, ideas or capabilities but for what they represent, i.e. reductionist identity politics

Furthermore, if you look at the language of the article, it’s doing far more than attacking to positions these women adopt, or claims that they demonstrate America’s commitment to equality and democracy. It’s attacking their right to hold their opinions, and at times even whether they are authentic women at all. This language suggests an authoritarian agenda which allows the label “woman” only to people who conform to the author’s idea of the “cultural construct” of womanhood. These are some examples:

- “Sexual decoys for democracy”
- “Gender here applies to the cultural construct of ‘woman’; as distinguished from biological sex – ‘female’. So Hillary and Condi are female …”
- “she de-sexes gender while re-gendering sex.”
- Condi is a “neo-mammy”
- “Sexual decoys are females in drag”

The use of gender in times of warfare is nothing new.

"A decoy is a misrepresentation - one thinks one sees something that is not really there."

This could almost be the script of "White Feather Feminism" where Pankhurst alligned herself with the concerns of aristocratic conservatism and the military.

Interestingly others such as Carey Roberts and David R Usher have a different spin on Hillary and Condi, which opposes this authors suppositions.

"I cannot abide the decoy politics that allows female bodies to be used to cover over the insanity."

The emotive association of female bodies has been used for centuries and it has been used extremely effectively by feminists in this gendered cold war.

It is all becoming a big YAWN.

Rhian - hmmmm. Been sitting here going over and over this piece in the light of your interpretation.

See, I agreed with the "sexual decoys for democracy" quote because, as I posted above, I agree that Condi and Hillary are being utilised simply because they happen to be two people who have the right "bits".

So, the next quote made perfect sense: although both are biologically female the cultural concept of 'woman'- rightly or wrongly - embraces certain expectations, modes of behaviour and concepts which these two people do not embrace.

Which was why I had no trouble with the next quote - especially as the author had explained that that she was utilising the word gender within the parameters of cultural concepts. So, yeah, Condi de-sexes the cultural concept of gender and by being complicit in this, re-genders sex.

The "neo-nanny" thing I didn't take as anything other than an exposition of her continued manipulation by the WASP ruling class.

Therefore sexual (and the author had explained that sexual here referred to biological determination) decoys being people presented to the world as representing the cultural construct of woman but not in fact doing so, I did not see as pejorative.

The trouble with extrapolating authorial voice from an extract I guess, is that one has no yard-stick to measure by with pieces out of context. I don't have a snowballs of being able to read further on this one as I don't live in an English-speaking country presently. Have you read it? Would be interested to to hear from you if so.

And JamesH? If its all such a big yawn, don't martyr yourself so tirelessly on every thread which pertains. You deserve a break, mate. Leave all this boring stuff to the people that find it interesting.

JamesH
‘Some swallow the Matriarchial feminists messages about having it all and delayed child rearing, only to discover the older you get the more difficult it is to fall pregnant ...’

Some more stuff for you to yawn about …

Myth # 1: It was the media of the 70s and 80s that initiated the ‘having it all’ mantra and falsely attributed it to feminism. (The bra-burning myth had almost identical origins.) Feminists have never said that women can ‘have it all’. Feminism DOES say that women are entitled to equal rights, outcomes and opportunities to those of men - who traditionally were able to have both a career and a family, while women mostly weren't. The ‘having it all’ message was capitalist, not feminist. It was about promoting a new consumer market among women who were no longer dependent on hubbie to bring home the pay packet.

Myth # 2: Feminists did NOT recommend that women delay child rearing. Women throughout the Western world began having children later for a number of socio-economic reasons that had little or nothing to do with feminism. These included: greater availability of birth control, advancing school and tertiary leaving ages, increased tertiary education debt, increased cost of housing, more opportunities for travel, increased competition in the workforce, and the absence or lack of maternity leave or benefits.

Myth # 3: It’s a fallacy that the older you get the more difficult it is to fall pregnant – as many an older mother will happily attest (myself included). Just because the average woman’s egg count diminishes with age does not mean that it becomes more difficult to get pregnant. It just means that the mathematical odds are lower. When all it takes is the fertilisation of one egg to get pregnant, it hardly matters whether you have 20,000 or 50,000 eggs in your body. Fertility only becomes a significant problem after about age 46 – and by then, it’s very rare for a woman to be still undecided about starting a family.

Romany,

I’m not convinced that gender is an entirely social construct, rather than being at least partly determined by biology and self-conception.

But if it is, it raises the question of who is qualified to adjudicate on whether a person is or is not a “woman”. I’m suspicious of anyone who claims the right to arbitrate on that distinction.

You say: “the cultural concept of 'woman' - rightly or wrongly - embraces certain expectations, modes of behaviour and concepts which these two people do not embrace.” To you, it may be self-evident that active support for the USA’s foreign policy is inconsistent with behaviour and concepts associated with “woman”. But t many would disagree - are they all victims of false consciousness, and do their opinions count in the “social construct” of gender identity?

What disturbs me most about this approach is that, rather than attacking these women’s views and activities directly, it attacks their identity. Their support for the Iraq war is not bad because the war’s a bloody fiasco, but because it’s not consistent with norms of feminine thought and behaviour. This is primarily an attack on their gender, although the “neo-mammy” (not “neo-nanny”) attack on Condi is a racial slur. The implication is that “real” women and “real” African-Americans do not think and act this way.

It also implies that these women owe their status to their gender not their ability, a charge we’re more used to hearing from sexists than supposed feminists.

To my mind, the great achievement of feminism is that it discredited the practice of forcing females’ opinions and activities to conform to narrowly perceived norms of womanly behaviour and attitudes. The result is that women now have much greater freedom to populate the spectrum of political opinion, and to engage in occupations and activities than they couldn’t in the past. This necessarily means that some will think and do things that others find wrong, offensive, or unfeminine.

It's sad to see self-described feminists imposing their own gender stereotypes in place of the ones we’ve so recently thrown off.