the vag.

Table of Contents // Issue 1 /// April 2010

Editorial Welcome
1. From the editor // John Cameron
The issue explained, the issues examined
Reproductive Rights
2. Speaking Out for Reproductive Rights // Feministing
Notable quotes from a recent conference on reproductive justice
“CLPP 2010: Closing Plenary: Undivided Rights: Building Power, Linking Movements.” Feministing. 11 April 2010.
<http://www.feministing.com/archives/020716.html> 11 April 2010.
Lesbians in a Cross-Cultural Context
3. The Ballad of Tila Tequila // Riese
Myspace celebrity’s lesbian relationship is a window into issues around gay marriage
Bernard, Marie “Riese” Lyn. “The Lawless Netherworlds of Gay Relationships in The Ballad of Tila Tequila.” Autostraddle. 9
January 2010. <http://www.autostraddle.com/marriage-wasnt-real-tila-tequila-casey-johnson-27721/> 3 February 2010.
Women’s Work
4. Wall Street Women Still Knocking on Men’s Rooms // Susan Antilla
Glass ceiling proves itself surprisingly thick
Antilla, Susan. “Wall Street Women Still Knocking on Men’s Rooms.” BusinessWeek. 6 April 2010. Online. <http://
www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-06/wall-street-women-still-knocking-on-men-s-rooms-susan-antilla.html> 11 April
2010.
Women and Development
5. A Feminist Critique of the Alleged Southern Debt // Allison M. Jaggar
International debt serves to subjugate women in developing nations
Jaggar, Alison M. “A Feminist Critique of the Alleged Southern Debt.” Hypatia. 17.Fall (2002): 119-142. Project Muse.
<http://muse.jhu.edu.libproxy.uregina.ca:2048/journals/hypatia/toc/hyp17.4.html> 21 March 2010.
Women and Globalization
6. To Serve and to Pimp // Youngbee Dale
Filipino province’s poilce not only complicit in sex trade, but active in it
Dale, Youngbee. “The Philippines: policemen pimping on human trafficking victims often are not punished.” Examiner. 2
April 2010. <http://shar.es/mswOM> 3 April 2010.
Women and Religion
7. Sexuality and Religion 2020 // Rev. Debra W. Haffner and Timothy Palmer
Notable quotes from a recent conference on reproductive justice
Haffner, Rev. Debra W. and Timothy Palmer. “Sexuality and Religion 2020: Goals for the Next Decade.” Religious Institute,
2010. <http://www.religiousinstitute.org/sites/default/files/study_guides/sexualityandreligion2020.pdf> 11 April 2010.
Women and Politics
8. where my girls at? // Kent Peterson
Saskatchewan blogger calls for fairer female representation in provincial politics
Peterson, Kent. “We Need Female Candidates.” Humble Opinion. April 2010.
<http://humbleopinionblogspot.blogspot.com/2010/04/we-need-female-candidates.html> 10 April 2010.
Gender Equality Movements
9. Haitian Women Demand Role in Reconstruction // IRIN
Hatian feminists struggle for place in rebuilding their nation
“HAITI: Women demand role in reconstruction.” IRIN. 1 April 2010. <http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88662>
4 April 2010.
Women’s Rights as Human Rights
10. Terrorism That’s Personal // Dexter Filkins
Acid attack epidemic complicates role of women in Middle East
Filkins, Dexter. “A School Bus for Shamsia.” New York Times. 17 August 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/
magazine/23school-t.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=shamsia&st=cse> 2 April 2010.

the vag.
From the editor
In which the editor tries to explain the
need a feminist ’zine for Regina, tries to
justify the possibly offensive name, says
some ivory-tower garbage, and
generally opens himself up for criticism,
all before the first page of the first issue
f you picked this magazine up
I and flipped to this page, you’ve
probably got a burning question
in the back of your mind:
“Why The Vag.?”
Why indeed. This project originally
began as a proposal for a national
magazine, meant for submission to
Canada’s Status of Women National
Office. But circumstances changed,
and the Office had its legs swept out
from under it.
With the status of women in
Canada in jeopardy, we realized we
were going about the project the
wrong way. For one thing, the budget
of the Office - what was left of it -
was probably better served on proj-
ects of a wider appeal and focus than
this. Canada has made great strides
toward gender parity over the last
century, but we’re still far enough off
that the Office needs to show extreme
discretion with the distribution of its
funding.
With that in mind, we stepped
back and refocused. If we didn’t have
funding, a national project would be
hard. Eventually, someone proposed
the ’zine model.
It was a perfect fit.
Modern desktop publishing has
made it much easier for amateur and
underground publications to produce
professional-quality material, even
from home, meaning that we could
put out what looks like a national-
quality issue on a local scale. As well,
the costs of a ’zine are fundamentally
low, meaning we wouldn’t have to
worry about overhead. Sure, we
wouldn’t make a living at it, but a
web-based donation model would
hopefully ensure that the publication
could sustain itself enough. And with
that model, we could publish for free.
So, to recap: we have a profes-
sional-looking piece of media aimed
at appealing to local readers if not
specifically featuring local issues, and
we can offer it to the public for free.
Like I said, perfect fit.
It’s important that magazine
shelves at bookstores and supermar-
kets have national feminist-oriented
magazines, but those can be pricey. A
free magazine that everyone can ac-
cess means that the ideas can pro-
pogate without barriers and with
great speed. A ’zine can be picked up,
read, and left on the bus for the next
person to read. In fact, we’d really
like to see that.
But another thing we’d like to see
is increased feminist activism in
Regina. With the status of women
being threatened by a callous national
government, it’s even more important
to aim at organizing concerned citi-
zens on a local level. With luck (and
Internet access), the feminist commu-
nity in Regina can organize itself and
network with other feminist move-
ments across the nation, forming a
united front in the face of patriarchal
oppression.
That’s tough to accomplish with a
national magazin, but a little easier
1
Editorial Welcome
for a magazine by, for and in part
about the Vag.
Which probably reminds you:
“Why The Vag.?”
Well.
Keith Richards of the Rolling
Stones called Regina “the city that
rhymes with ‘Fun’.” That’s true. But
the vagina means so much more - it’s
a place of love and joy and life and
pain and confusion and relief and
clarity. It’s a part of the human body
and, therefore, an integral part of
human experience.
So “the Vag” means what Keith
Richards meant, but it can and does
mean so much more. We want to say
“the Vag” and mean Regina in all of
its aspects, all those things which give
us joy and all of those things that, if
unchecked, present grave dager to us.
It’s a reminder to care for our home-
town the same way we’d care for any
part of our body, a reminder to show
it the respect it deserves and admire
it for what it represents. Just like,
well, the vag.
The Vag. doesn’t rhyme with “fun.”
It doesn’t rhyme with “Regina” either,
when you get down to it. But it does
stand for Regina, seeking to transform
a crude piece of juvenile comedy into
something that we, as a city, can take
pride in. Something that you, the
reader, can take pride in.
Something you can be part of.
John Cameron
Editor-in-Chief

the vag.
Speaking Out for
Reproductive Rights
Quotes from the closing plenary of the 2010
Civil Liberties and Public Policy conference, a
reproductive justice conference held this April
in Amherst, Massachusetts.
“ “
The opponents of abortion have really inten-
sified their campaign this year.
The health care bill, violence, tea parties are showing
us we have to fight more even though we thought
we'd won some ground. One of the things that keeps
me going forward is that all of our movements, all of
our identities are related. I am inspired by everyone
here who is willing and able to speak from their heart
and speak that truth to power.
“A lot of my work recently has been in the environ-
mental movement. The nuclear industry is saying, nu-
clear is the solution to climate change. It's posing a
solution, and it can be an appealing solution, because
nuclear power plants don't produce as much pollu-
tion as coal plants. But pitting those two against each
other is not recognizing the reality of both those sit-
uations. So if you take any question that's being
posed to you and break it down, recognize that's it's
more complicated. So the nuclear plants, where is it
happening? On indigenous lands. The plants are
being powered by coal plants.
“So it's asking these questions, finding that nuance,
making those connections. How can we create a so-
lution that's good for us now and in the future? The
goal is to work ourselves out of a job.”
Meredith Crafton
CLPP alum and law student
2
Reproductive Rights
Immigration status is a fundamental deter-
minant of your reproductive health status.
Organizing immigrant women has been one of the
most successful things we've ever done. Including im-
migrant women in our work is part and parcel of
what we do. At every panel I've been to immigration
status has been brought up. So I thought oh, we're
good. And then I remembered that we're here. And
we do need to talk about it because others don't
know.
“Immigrant women themselves and the context of im-
migration has to be a critical gear in the works that
drives the movement. The idea that there's immi-
grants and non-immigrants and we have different
lives is a false dichotomy that's created by policies.
Families in this country aren't just immigrant and
non-immigrant. Millions of people live in mixed im-
migration status households. Leaving out immigrant
women's reproductive health and rights in our work
is dangerous because leaving that piece alone doesn't
just leave immigrants where they were before. If you
advance rights for some people and leave out immi-
grant women you create a context where you are
making them a scapegoat for lack of rights in other
arenas. And you're also creating a precedent where
they can be left out.
“If we build a movement for reproductive justice that
leaves out immigrants it's not reflecting our lives. And
also, including immigrants is the right thing to do.”
Liza Fuentes
National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

the vag. Lesbians in Cross-Cultural Context
The Lawless
Netherworlds of
Gay Relationships in
The Ballad of
Tila Tequila
How Tila Tequila is giving us
a chance to look at the
importance of marriage
equality from another angle
— and what we can learn
from her story.
by riese // autostraddle.com
n the days following Casey
I Johnson’s death last Sunday
there’s been a lot of talk about
what in the heiress’s life and re-
lationship was “real” and what
wasn’t. The ring, ex-girlfriend
Courtenay Semel told the press,
was not real, nor was it really 17
karats. Casey’s much-touted
heiress fortune was also not real
– multiple sources confirm that
Casey’s family had cut her off.
Tila’s pregnancy wasn’t real ei-
ther, in the strictest (only) defini-
tion of “pregnancy” — due to
Tila’s apparent struggles conju-
gating verbs, she announced,
“I’m pregnant!” when she really
meant, “I’m going to be a surro-
gate parent for my brother!”
Some of their body parts, includ-
ing Tila’s breasts and Casey’s lips,
aren’t technically real, either.
But what about that other
thing that isn’t real? That thing us
gays don’t really wanna bring up,
lest we involve such a controver-
sial and unstable figure in our
very serious, very real, fight for
marriage equality? What about
http://www.tilashotspot.buzznet.com/web/tila/photos/tilatequila/ the engagement, y’all? What
wifey/?id=81717731 about the potential of an actual
3
marriage for Tila Nguyen and
Casey Johnson? ‘Cause that en-
gagement wasn’t, after all, real,
because Tila and Casey cannot
legally marry. I mean we all
admit that, right?
We don’t like to discuss this
vague conceptual notion of law-
less “marriage,” or even acknowl-
edge publicly that our
engagements aren’t as “real”/sig-
nificant as straight couple’s en-
gagements. As Julie Goldman so
deftly targets in her Commitment
Ceremony video, when we use
the same language for our cere-
monies that heteros do, we’re
only playing along. It’s important
for our movement that we play
along. We don’t like to talk about
the “fiancée” in quotation marks
because it’s offensive and disre-
spectful to include quotation
marks, as it implies illegitimacy.
The press must exclude quota-
tion marks because that’s the po-
litically correct thing to do and
we get pissed every time we see
“marry” in a headline. But let’s
“get real” here: gay marriage is
not the same thing as straight
marriage right now. It is, in prac-
tice, really only gay “marriage.”
****

the vag.
Wall Street
Women Still
Knocking
on Men’s
Rooms
by Susan Antilla // BusinessWeek
ack in an era that some Wall
B Street guys consider the good old
days, men got the promotions,
women got left out of important
meetings and anyone dumb enough
to complain met with a blitz of retali-
ation.
Ultimately, legal actions including
the embarrassing 1996 “Boom-Boom
Room” lawsuit against Smith Barney
& Co. got Wall Street’s attention. Some
firms apologized, sort of, using that
“We didn’t do anything wrong but we
sure are sorry if you think we did”
ploy that financial firms pull off like
no others.
Fast forward 14 years. These days,
women filing lawsuits against big fi-
nancial firms say men are getting the
promotions, women are getting left
out of important meetings and any-
one dumb enough to complain is met
with a blitz of retaliation. Sound famil-
iar?
Wall Street may be on the cutting
edge when it comes to financial ad-
vancements. Lehman Brothers’ fa-
mous Repo 105 accounting wizardry
comes to mind: China and India sure
didn’t beat us at inventing that.
Wall Street is an institutional di-
nosaur, though, when it comes to ac-
4
Women’s Work
(but what else do you expect goes on in buildings that look like this?)
cepting that if you want to treat
women equally, you can’t shut them
out of perks, equal pay or key busi-
ness meetings.
The latest round of complaints
against financial firms read a lot like
the Boom-Boom Room protests, ab-
sent the dirty-old- man-style sex talk
and the Penthouse centerfolds taped
to the trading-room walls. What they
have in common is outlining practices
that make it easy for men, not
women, to get ahead.
No Invites
Bank of America Corp. was hit with a
lawsuit on March 30 by one current
and two former employees who de-
scribe offices where women are left
off the invite list for meetings, plum
accounts are doled out to men and a
formal complaint can be followed by
a flurry of new compliance demands
that don’t apply to the guys. The bank
denies the allegations and is “regu-
larly recognized” as a top company
for women, spokeswoman Shirley
Norton said in an e-mail.
Dorly Hazan-Amir, an associate in
Citigroup Inc.’s Asset Finance Group
Daniel Mayer, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
-- where three women and 22 men File:Bank_of_America_Plaza_from_North_Ave_near_old_Wacovia_
worked on deals -- filed a complaint Building_garage.JPG

the vag.
A Feminist Critique of the Alleged
Southern
Debt
A Peruvian woman with her child, Sacred Valley, Peru.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91994044@N00/93022902
by Alison M. Jaggar //
Hypatia
n 7 September 2000, a pe-
O tition requesting cancella-
tion of the debts owed by the
most impoverished nations and
signed by over 22 million peo-
ple was handed to world lead-
ers meeting at the Millennium
Summit of the United Nations.
This paper argues that strong
feminist reasons exist for can-
celing much of the debt al-
legedly owed by developing
countries, a debt that not only
drains these countries' re-
sources but also traps them in
a situation of global indentured
servitude.
I. The Alleged Southern Debt
During the 1970s, when inter-
est rates were low, many devel-
oping countries engaged in
massive borrowing to finance
their economic and social de-
velopment. When interest rates
rose sharply at the end of the
decade, most debtor countries
had difficulty paying the inter-
est on their loans and in the
early 1980. s a world debt crisis
resulted, threatening the failure
of major U. S. banks and per-
haps a collapse of the world
economic system. In order to
forestall default by large
debtors such as Mexico, inter-
national lending institutions
such as the International Mone-
tary Fund and the World Bank
rescheduled many debts. At the
same time, they imposed new
loan conditions that mandated
policies of so-called structural
adjustment. Structural adjust-
ment policies or SAPs are ne-
oliberal economic policies that
"adjust" the "structures" of local
economies in order that they
may be integrated into the
global economic system. The
aim of the integration is to en-
able the local economies to
earn sufficient foreign currency
to service their external debts.
Thus, SAPs are designed to ori-
ent local economies away from
production intended to satisfy
the needs of local people and
toward producing goods for ex-
port. [1]
Any local economy that is
integrated into the global econ-
omy is exposed to the vicissi-
5
Women and Development
tudes of world trade; for exam-
ple, SAPs' promotion of cash
crop agriculture has made
many countries in the global
South vulnerable to drops in
world prices for their crops. At
the same time, the shift to cash
crop agriculture has encour-
aged these countries to become
permanently dependent on
Northern machines and fertiliz-
ers. [2] Thus, SAPs have en-
sured a "captive" supply of
cheap labor, cheap raw materi-
als and agricultural products for
Northern industries, and have
simultaneously created guaran-
teed markets for Northern
manufactured products, tech-
nologies, and consumer goods.
In a world where the terms of
trade for raw materials and
agricultural products have
 6
the vag. Women and Globalization

http://www.examiner.com/x-24740-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m4d2-The-Philippines-policemen-pimping-on-human-trafficking-victims-often-are-not-punished

To Serve and to Pimp

In the by Youngbee Dale, Human
Rights Examiner //
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
fighting for autonomy" does not
but also traffickers of women
and children, themselves. Some
help the situation, either. How- of the government officials
Philippines, examiner.com
esterday, a news article was
ever, what seems to be the were directly profit from the

policemen Y
greater problem is the govern- trafficking while others receive
reported to expose the situ- ment itself rather than MILF. protection fee from the brothels
ation of human trafficking of Human trafficking of in exchange of tolerating their

pimping on minors in Mindanao, Philip-

pines. The article starts out
with a story of a 14 year old girl
women and children in Min-
danao demonstrates the classic
illegal operation of sex trade.
Police men sometimes are the
example that the government is owners of a night club, where
human who had no choice but to leave
her family to become a domes-
part of the problem, not the so-
lution to the problem. Accord-
they traffick minors for com-
mercial sexual exploitation. In
trafficking totic helper in Kuwait. According
the report, poverty and
ing to a report, a hand full of
wealthy individuals became
this regard, a police man can be
not only an assistant to traffick-
human trafficking is far greater
victims in Mindanao than other regions
rich not because they worked
harder than others but because
ers but also a trafficker, or even
a pimp himself.
in the Philippines. The popula- they profited from smuggling Weak rule of law in Min-
often are tion living under less than $2 a
day is a lot higher in Mindanao
and corruption. Moreover, ac-
cording to 2009 U.S. State De-
danao was caused by the gov-
ernment corruption, which led
not than any other regions in the
Philippines. Certainly, the four
partment Report on Human
Trafficking, law enforcement
the public to mistrust the public
servants. Therefore, more peo-

punished decades old fight between "gov-

ernment troops and the Moro
officers and immigration offi-
cers not only assist traffickers
ple turned to MILF for protec-
tion by joining the group,

the vag.
SEXUALITY AND RELIGION
2020
In concert with Religious Institute, The Vag. is
very pleased to present this excerpt from the 51-
page booklet detailing their vision of sexually
healthy faith institutions over the next decade.
by Rev. Debra W. Haffner
and Timothy Palmer
his is a kairos moment.
T Kairos was the Greek god
of the fleeting moment. In the
Christian scriptures, kairos sig-
nals “the appointed time in the
purpose of God,” the moment
when God acts, and long-
needed change at last is made
possible. In broader faith terms,
it is a time of opportunity, when
the world opens itself to move-
ment and transformation.
In this moment, we are wit-
nessing a new willingness, in
religious communities and soci-
ety at large, toward transform-
ing traditional understandings
of sexuality and religion. Reli-
gious denominations have
spent decades addressing sexu-
ality and faith. Congregations
and clergy around the country
are increasingly recognizing
their responsibilities to be sex-
ually healthy, just and
prophetic.
Ten years ago, a new vision
of sexual health and wholeness
for America’s faith communities
was forged. In the spring of
1999, Debra W. Haffner and the
Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield con-
vened a meeting of 20 promi-
nent clergy, academicians,
ethicists and theologians to de-
velop a progressive vision of
the relationship of sexuality
and religion. The product of
their work was the Religious
Declaration on Sexual Morality,
Justice, and Healing. Published
on January 25, 2000, the Reli-
gious Declaration was a clarion
call to the nation’s religious
leaders for a new sexual ethic,
focused on social justice and
the integrity of personal rela-
tionships, rather than on partic-
ular sexual acts.
The Religious Declaration’s
affirming vision of sexuality
and spirituality, grounded in the
core teachings of the historic
faiths, emphasized breaking the
silence around sexuality that
persists in too many faith com-
munities. It urged religious
leaders and faith communities
to promote comprehensive sex-
uality education, sexual and re-
productive health, and the full
inclusion of women and les-
bian, gay, bisexual and trans-
gender persons in religious
communities and society at
large.
The last decade has seen re-
markable progress in furthering
the vision of the Religious Dec-
laration:
• Women’s ordination was
nothing new in 2000, but over
the past 10 years there has been
notable progress in the rise of
women to denominational lead-
7
Women and Religion
ership. Women currently lead
the Episcopal Church, the
Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ), the Fellowship of Met-
ropolitan Community Churches,
and the Fellowship. Women
also have been elected to serve
as bishops in such diverse tra-
ditions as the African Methodist
Episcopal Church, AME Zion,
the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America, Unity Fel-
lowship and The United
Methodist Church.
• In 2000, only a handful of de-
nominations had welcoming or-
ganizations promoting the full
inclusion of lesbian and gay
persons in communities of
faith. Today, welcoming organi-
zations are working toward full
inclusion in all of the mainline
Protestant denominations, in
several evangelical Christian de-
nominations, in the Roman
Catholic Church, and in Jewish

the vag.
where my
Michael Lewis, http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/photos/photo_saskatchewan_saskatchewan.html
Why are there so few women in the
Saskatchewan Legislature? Well, for starters,
there aren’t that many running for office.
by Kent Peterson //
Humble Opinion
or many elections, going
F back many years, the
Saskatchewan NDP has strug-
gled with the fact that it fails to
nominate anything close to an
acceptable number of female
candidates. At conventions, the
party has even passed resolu-
tions effectively stating that
nominating anything less than
50% female candidates is unac-
ceptable. Most of these efforts
towards sex parity, sadly, have
largely been ignored.
During the 2009 leadership
race, however, there seemed to
be a renewed commitment to
nominating 50% women. For in-
stance, [here] are two quotes
from two of the leadership can-
didates:
girls
at?
“I am committed to 50% of
our candidates in the 2011 elec-
tion being women. I publicly
stated my commitment to this
target when I declared my can-
didacy and I continue to state
the importance of an inclusive,
welcoming and representative
party….We also need to elect
more women – not just nomi-
nate them.”
- Yens Pedersen
March 24, 2009.
“In both 2003 and 2007,
Saskatchewan New Democrats
offered a smaller percentage of
women candidates for election
than either of the other two
main parties — slightly more
than 20%. In the 21st century
that is unacceptable and we
simply must do better to have
any hope of winning in 2011. “
- Dwain Lingenfelter
March 24, 2009.
[These] quotes are very
strong commitments to nomi-
nating, and electing, women.
Two current nomination
races are testament to the fact
that strong, intelligent, compas-
sionate, and effective women
want to run for our great party.
In Regina Coronation Park,
Tamara Harder is running an
excellent campaign and engag-
ing voters, but is being chal-
lenged by three other
individuals, all male.
In Regina South, Heather
McIntyre has been directing a
very organized, grassroots cam-
paign. On March 1, 2010,
Heather announced her candi-
dacy. She was the first person
to declare, with no other poten-
tial candidates on the horizon.
On March 19, however, another
candidate entered the nomina-
tion race. Yens Pedersen an-
nounced he would be
8
Women and Politics
challenging McIntyre in Regina
South. Pedersen's announce-
ment was surprising for three
main reasons. Firstly, his first
preference was Regina Lake-
view, the constituency in which
he lives. Secondly, he had also
approached MLA Ron Harper,
wondering he if he could in-
stead run in Regina Northeast.
(These two facts are reported in
the StarPhoenix here.) Finally,
the quote from Pedersen posted
above seems to suggest that he
would help strong female can-
didates, not run against them.
For the sake of parity, eq-
uity, and an NDP victory in
2011, I hope women are not
further discouraged by the
events listed above. We need
women for better policy, and
we need them to win.

the vag.
Haitian Women Demand
Role in Reconstruction
from IRIN
omen's civil society groups
W were noticeable by their
absence from the landmark Haiti
donor conference on March 31,
which secured pledges of
US$5.3 billion over the next two
years to support the country’s
post-quake recovery.
Their lack of a presence at
the meeting was indicative of a
broader missing voice in Haiti’s
long-term reconstruction
prospects, gender activists ar-
gued.
“Why are we not there right
now, where are the women at
this conference?” questioned
Marie St. Cyr, a Haitian human
rights advocate. “We still don’t
have full participation and we
certainly don’t have full inclu-
sion. Haitian women are still
being raped…they are support-
ing more than half of the house-
holds, and yet they are not being
heard.”
More than 20 women’s
groups attended an alternative
conference hosted by MADRE, a
New York-based rights organiza-
tion. St. Cyr said she had lobbied
for the past month to join the
donor meeting, but had not re-
ceived a response from any of
the various co-hosts, including
the United Nations, the Haitian
and the US governments.
9
Gender Equality Movements
Haitian-born Massachusetts
State Representative Marie St.
Fleur, who represented the dias-
pora community at the main
conference, said she was not sur-
prised to look across the room
and see few other female faces.
The text of the Haitian govern-
ment’s Post-Disaster Needs As-
sessment (PDNA), a blueprint
plan for recovery, offered a sim-
ilar lack of gender diversity, she
explained.
“There needs to be a bolder
vision for reconstruction, and
right now, there isn’t a very clear
place for women within that,” St.
Fleur told IRIN. “But I think we
make a mistake when we say
that we have to have a place for
women, because they must not
placed in a corner like that.
Women and girls must be inte-
grated throughout this plan. And
that doesn’t exist, right now.”
The PDNA report divides re-
construction into eight main
themes, including governance,
infrastructure sectors, and envi-
ronmental and disaster risk de-
velopment. Women gain
inclusion only in the “cross-cut-
ting sector,” which also ad-
dresses youth and culture.
The Haiti Gender Equality
Collaborative, a coalition of civil
society organizations, placed its
own spin on the document, issu-
ing a modified “gender shadow
http://revyrev.com/2009/01/29/wft-word-for-today-god-always-gives-what-is-right/
 9
the vag. Women’s Rights as Human Rights

Bushra Shari, 39, adjusts her

veil as she poses for a
photograph in Lahore,
Pakistan, Friday, July. 11,
2008. Bushra was burned
with acid thrown by her
husband five years ago
because she was trying
to divorce him.
She has
undergone
plastic surgery
25 times to try
to recover
from her scars.

Photo: Emilio Morenatti, http://blogs.tampabay.com/photo/2009/11/terrorism-thats-personal.html. Caption: Jim Verhulst, St. Petersburg Times, ibid.

Terrorism That’s WARNING:

The following pages

Personal
by Dexter Filkins //
New York Times
in June 2008, Taliban fighters
and suicide bombers attacked,
students. Kandahar’s Mirwais
Mena neighborhood sits just off
feature graphic
images. Please use
your discretion.

circled for several minutes as

ven before the men with
E acid came, the Mirwais
Mena School for Girls was sur-
rounded by enemies. It stood
on the outskirts of Kandahar,
barely 20 miles from the home-
town of Mullah Muhammad
Omar, the Taliban’s founder.
Just down the road from the
school, in an area known as
Old Town, residents had built a
shrine to Mullah Dadullah, the
Taliban commander with the
fiercest reputation, who made
his name by massacring mem-
bers of the Hazara minority. He
was killed in an American-led
operation in 2007. Also nearby
sat the Sarposa Prison, where,
freeing more than a thousand
criminals and comrades. The
area around the Mirwais Mena
School is the Taliban heartland.
Teaching girls to read was not
something that would escape
their notice. Across the country,
the Taliban have made the de-
struction of schools, particularly
schools for girls, a hallmark of
their war.
The Mirwais Mena School
— L-shaped, cement, two sto-
ries, with canvas tents donated
by the United Nations — was
built in 2004 with a grant from
the Japanese government. A
plaque out front gives the date;
it hangs on the 10-foot-high ce-
ment wall built to shield the
the national highway. A rutted
mud path called Panjwai Road
cuts through the center of the
neighborhood and up an out-
cropping of bare rock that rises
500 feet. A single electrical wire
runs into Mirwais Mena from a
pole along the highway; no one
can remember the last time it
carried any current.
The attackers appeared in
the morning on Nov. 12 of last
year, as the girls were walking
to school. The men came on
three motorcycles, each one
carrying a driver and a man on
back. They wore masks. Each of
the men riding on back carried
a small container filled with
battery acid. The masked men
the girls streamed to school.
Then they moved in.
Shamsia Husseini and her
sister, Atifa, were walking along
the highway when they spotted
the men on the motorbikes.
Shamsia, then 17, was old
enough to be married; she was
wearing a black scarf that cov-
ered most of her face. Shamsia
had seen Taliban gunmen be-
fore and figured the men on the
motorcycles would pass. Then
one of the bikes pulled along-
side her, and the man on back
jumped off. Through the mask,
he asked Shamsia what seemed
like a strange question.
“Are you going to school?”
The masked man pulled the
scarf away from Shamsia’s face