Body and Soul
notes something very creepy about the recent “celebrations” in Iraq:
One of the things that struck me watching the crowds tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein was that I
didn’t see any women. Another thing that struck me was that no one commented on this — as if streets
without women were entirely normal. Pardon my stereotypically feminist response, but to me a world wiped
clean of women is a little disturbing. It seems to say, “Here is the future of Iraq. And people of your
gender aren’t in it.” I don’t want to be a party-pooper, but it seems that about 65% of Iraq didn’t get its
invitation to the party.I hope that’s not the future of Iraq.
It’s not just what it says about Iraq that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like what it tells me about my
own country either. At some point in my life, I’d like to live in a country where people looked at a place
devoid of women and noticed that there was something strange about that, and where I didn’t feel like I was
committing a faux pas by bringing it up. I’d like at least one talking head to stop and comment, “Did
anyone notice there are no women? Doesn’t that seem eerie?”Where were the women? To me, that was the first sign that there was more chaos than joy. If it’s a party,
women will be there. But if women are staying away, I thought, maybe they are reading it as a far more
dangerous and threatening situation than what the American press was suggesting. Maybe the women of Iraq
know something that Wolf Blitzer doesn’t. The lawlessness that followed tells me that if that was their
reading, Iraqi women are pretty smart, in a way that potential victims have to be if they’re going to
survive.