I learned astonishing things investigating those early articles, such as that women are often killed under the pretense of honor, when in reality their families murder them because of baseless rumors, suspicion, incest they want to hide, inheritance manipulation, or simply because females are considered a burden on families. I learned that even though premeditated murder is usually punished by life in prison or death, due to Jordan’s laws some honor-crime killers get only two- to seven-year sentences. Many get even more shockingly short sentences—three to six months! Another discovery I made was that women who are under threat of, or those who survive, a murder attempt by their families for “immoral behaviors” are themselves indefinitely imprisoned by the authorities, ostensibly for protection. However, a woman cannot choose to leave prison, nor bail herself out. And if her family bails her out, it is likely because they plan to kill her. I have met women who have been locked up for eight years, with no end in sight. Everywhere else in the world the aggressor is put behind bars, not the victim.
I was angered and distressed: Women-killers were getting away with murder, and women’s human rights were being ignored. I decided to expose these injustices through my articles. I hoped that one day someone would hear me and be just as enraged.
I was heard, all right. Since my first of many news reports on this taboo topic, the newspaper has received numerous supportive letters. Then, as time passed, as the issue (and e-mail) became more prominent in Jordan, the negative comments started coming in. They questioned my motives. “Why are you reporting on honor killings?” they asked. “You are …”
“encouraging sexual freedom and promiscuity among women.”
“backed by the West, and aiming to destroy the morals of our people.”
“imposing Western values on our conservative society.”
“tarnishing the country’s image by exposing our dirty laundry abroad.”
And my favorite: “a radical feminist, seeking fame through these news reports.”
One high-up official, a woman, yelled at my editor: “You should stop Rana Husseini. She is exaggerating. These things do not happen here!”
As before, these words became fire burning inside me. Instead of making me stop, they kept me going. I was determined to prove the killings happened, even in the face of anonymous e-mail threats, such as “Stop writing about this issue or you will be ‘visited’ by someone at your work or home.”
I am not scared. I know what I am doing is right, and when you fight for something that’s right, you shouldn’t be scared. I know the people and the government must be held accountable for these women’s deaths. All should bear the responsibility of ensuring women’s safety and their right to life.
I have argued this point with judges—carefully, of course. The judiciary is one of the most respected institutions in our country. You can’t really question or accuse them of anything. But when a man who had killed his sister (because she was raped) received a six month sentence for this premeditated murder, I knocked on the office door of a judge from the trial and we calmly “chatted” off the record. The judge knew me and had seen me on TV, fighting for women’s rights.
“Why did you give that murderer such a lenient sentence? The girl was raped. It’s not her fault.”
“The defendant is a product of our culture. He was pressured by society and his family to take such actions.”
Clearly, the light punishment showed the defendant was not the only one who was a product of our culture. “There is something wrong here,” I told the judge. “These verdicts do not value women’s lives.”
He paused. I could see the conversation had an impact.
Now, the impact I see is nationwide. The personal accusations have not stopped, but in the past seven years of my reporting, lecturing, speaking on local, national, and international TV, appearing in documentaries worldwide, winning human rights awards, and earning international recognition, I have also seen real change. A group of us formed a grassroots organization, the National Jordanian Campaign to Eliminate so-called Crimes of Honor. We collected an unprecedented fifteen thousand signatures, calling for the abolishment of specific laws that discriminate against women, and presented them to decision makers and the Parliament. We also held Jordan’s first march for women’s rights, and five thousand people came. With the support of the royal family, there is now a growing movement demanding a guarantee of justice, freedom, and the right to life for women in my country.
rana husseini ([email protected]) continues her work as a journalist focusing on honor crimes for the Jordan Times. In 1998 she won the Reebok Human Rights Award, and in 2000 her organization was recognized with the Human Rights Watch Monitor’s Award. Back in her college days in the United States, Rana was captain of the women’s basketball team, and she still likes to wear sneakers.
Women, Niceness, and Anger Myth One: Anger is unladylike. (Like ladies don’t get pissed off, too? What about when our tea gets cold?) Myth Two: Women are nice, nurturing caregivers. (Well, yes. All the time? Hardly—and if so, perhaps to our detriment.)
Feeling angry is a healthy human response to being hurt. Whether one person disrespects a girl, or lots of people build institutions that leave her out, she is justified in being mad. No hesitation, no apology necessary. Part of what makes a person whole is the ability to express anger. It is natural to pound a fist on the table every once in a while. Expressing anger keeps a woman from turning it inward—a contributor to depression.
But the Be Nice, Dear finishing school many attend—simply by growing up in our society—trains girls to not show anger. (Kind of like how the Be Strong, Son prep school trains boys to not show sadness.) The school’s rules are unrelenting. Take Number 752: Being nice means being accommodating. (After a few years of that, a girl might need re-educating to simply learn how to say no.) Girls are taught to be understanding, to make room for why someone may act inappropriately. When a man “acts out” (warning: euphemism for harasses), a girl is to sit quiet, let it go, just take it. Here’s the distinction they forgot at finishing school: Being nice is a good thing. Being nice all the time can keep a girl complacent.
“The first thing they taught in my self-defense class,” one chapter contributor told me, “is that before we can defend ourselves, we have to give ourselves permission to not be nice.”
What? You mean saying please won’t stop a rapist?
Like a mama bear defending her cubs, women defend their babies. So why don’t more fight back in defense of themselves? Women are smart. They can assess when talking or fighting back will be too risky. But when it’s worth the risk, what’s the hesitation then? Self-defense is innately human; could it have been conditioned out of women to protect themselves? Rule Number 3,004: Don’t hit back. It is considered stepping out of Girlie Line even if a woman responds to violence someone else started.
The question is, when does it make sense to shrug off this conditioning? When is it justified to yell, hit back, retaliate, match the level of violence the assailant already started? When is it escalating the violence and when is it self-defense, or the firing of a warning shot that says, “Stop—or else!”? Right now, abusive men know: It’s a safe bet when you target a woman that you won’t have a fight on your hands. That’s why women are targeted so much more than men. If there were consequences for inappropriate or violent behavior (that is, if women verbally or physically fought back), would abusive men be less apt to target women?
Anger is tricky. A woman needs to decide when and with whom it should be expressed. If she wants to “reach” someone, have them understand how their behavior hurt her, if she wants to change their heart and mind, anger may not be a useful tool. It may trigger their defense mechanisms and keep them from being able to hear her. But sometimes a girl isn’t trying to “reach” a perpetrator or someone who mistreats her. Sometimes a girl just wants to fight back or make the statement, This behavior has got to stop!
This chapter is full of women who choose to act on
, instead of swallow, their anger. They are not settling a conflict with nice talk, compassion, or understanding. Some stories are about self-defense; most are about retaliation for being wronged. Some may go over the line of what is generally considered acceptable or principled behavior—perhaps readers will see them as overreactions to originally justifiable anger. But these are real women in the real world. Their acts are not prettied up for our benefit. These women have just had it. Fed up, they refuse to be used or abused another minute without taking a stand.
The main message in this most controversial chapter is: It is liberating to know that females can express anger. Thinking that they must always be nice keeps them accepting abuse way longer than they should. Keeps them from fighting back when it makes sense to fight back. If women and girls know they don’t have to be nice all the time, then they will not hesitate to stand up for themselves when mistreated or to fight back if attacked.
How to Stop a Thief
mary going
Working the night shift at a truck stop in rural Maine meant I served “breakfast” to all the drunks who came in after the bars closed. On this particular night, my section was packed. I didn’t have time to clear a table before the next set of customers sat down.
At one point, two men came in and sat at a table where some of my regular customers had just been. The regulars always tipped me well, but on this night, after the men sat down, there was nothing. I was pretty sure the two guys had stolen the money, but I wasn’t positive until I was out of their sight behind the coffee machine and overheard one (the instigator) tell his buddy that he should get the money off the next table, too.
I knew what I had to do. I filled a pitcher to the top with ice water and went to their table. I was nervous, but as I poured the jerk’s glass full, I “accidentally” dumped the entire pitcher of freezing water into his lap. As he stood up in shock, I got right in his face and told him that if he ever stole money from me again, it would be “f***ing hot coffee.”
Swimming in water, he paid for his untouched meal and didn’t complain to management. As you can imagine, they found out anyway and fired me. Let me assure you, it was worth it.
mary going lives in Maine, manages a superhero website about hot sauce (www.firegirl.com), and in general does not have a particular fondness for ice water.
Eye on the Ball
kathleen antonia
Plain-looking and out of touch with the latest fads, I wasn’t popular with the girls at my high school. I probably would have cared more about their rejection if I hadn’t had The Boys. The Boys were my everything. They asked me how I was doing and cared about the answer. They were impressed with my smarts and complimented me when I actually managed an outfit not too far out of fashion. We teased each other, supported each other, and helped each other kick major butt on the athletic field. That was why they liked me. At seventeen years old, I benched more than 90 percent of the guys on the varsity football team. Unfortunately, I did not attend a school that allowed girls to play tackle football. But The Boys knew my skills. I taught them a thing or two, and they smiled when they saw me in the hall: an even trade. The girls didn’t get it. They figured there could be no possible reason to justify my popularity with the members of the football team, except that I must be sleeping around. In fact, I was a virgin, and I planned on keeping it that way.
One evening after practice (track and field for me, football for them), I drove three of the team’s finest to their respective homes. One, Alexi, demanded he sit shotgun. As I rounded a dark street corner toward his family’s apartment, he ran his fingers up my inner thigh and with his other hand tried to grab my right breast. Alexi was my friend, so I was more pissed off than scared. Mostly I was trying to figure out how to get out of this situation. I pushed his hands away, downshifted, and steered around the corner all at the same time (a feat of which I am particularly proud). The two in the backseat laughed. Encouraged, Alexi tried again. I again pushed his hands away, finally stopping the car.
“Get out, all of you.”
The two in the backseat were quick to exit. Alexi remained shotgun and turned toward me. Leaning in for a kiss, he whispered, “You know you want me.”
Others surely would have; after all, he was the star of the football team. And I did consider it, for a second. I looked at his soft, pouting lips, his dark eyes, his nearing, muscular body. I imagined what it would feel like to have his mouth upon mine, his hands roaming all over me.
Nope, I decided. Not today, and certainly not this way.
“Get out,” I demanded. I had said that before, however, and it hadn’t worked. This time, to make my point perfectly clear, I went for the only vulnerable spot on his impervious body: I grabbed the crotch of his pants and squeezed lightly.
“Let go, Kathleen,” he ordered, clearly shocked.
“Unlock the door,” I growled. I was not going to let go, I told myself, no matter what might happen.
“Let go, first!” Alexi commanded. But as I squeezed tighter, he gingerly released the lock.
“Now open the door.”
Alexi complied and asked, “Are you going to let go now?”
“Get out,” I seethed. Still holding onto his package, stretching my long arm across the passenger seat, I guided him out of my car and into a stagnant puddle near the curb. “Now lock the door, and close it.”
“You’re still holding onto me,” he whimpered.
“Lock the door.”
Alexi looked sheepishly into my burning face, his pitiful round eyes stained red with tears. There he was, the delight of high-school football fans across the state, looking ready to collapse.
“On the count of three, you’re going to push the door closed,” I said. “And on the count of three-and-a-half, I’m going to let go. Ready?”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Alexi pleaded.
“One, one-and-a-half, two, two-and-a-half, three.”
Alexi pushed the door to swing it closed. At the same time, I let go and drove off. Three-and-a-half, four. I felt relieved. I also felt sad. After all, this was a friend I had trusted.
I never drove any of The Boys home again. The girls at school were certain I must have taken a vow of celibacy. In fact, they were sort of right. Determined that it would happen on my terms, and with the right person, I remained a virgin until long after graduation.
kathleen antonia :([email protected]) is an X-generation singer/acter (yes, with an “e”—to make the word gender neutral). She has performed onstage with the California African-American Shakespeare Company and at the Annual San Francisco HIV Prevention Awards. And since we know you want to know, Antonia chucked her virginity after high school when she found a fellow footballer who was the right person and who did it on her terms.
Mike Meets the Dykes
judith k. witherow
We had just finished eating dinner when the first call came. It was my younger sister. She usually kept her life private, but this night she was asking for help in whispered tones. Before she could finish saying what was going on, I heard her boyfriend, Mike, demand she hang up. After the call, Sue and I discussed whether to go to her apartment or just wait. Mike had a drinking problem, and like many others with his addiction, he became abusive after enough alcohol coated his cowardice. The phone rang again. More whispering: not because Mike might overhear, but because he had choked her, damaging her vocal cords. Her three youngest children were crying in the background.
“Barricade the apartment door. Don’t let him back in. We’re on our way,” I said.
Sue and I drove to my sister’s apartment, where we saw a struggle had taken place. Her always immaculate home looked like a hurricane had touched down.
“Where are the children?” I asked.
Three little heads came up from behind the overturned couch where they were hiding. “Hi, Aunt Judy. Hi, Aunt Sue,” they said. The relief on their faces fueled our rage.
“Where’s Mike?” I was boiling now. This had gone on long en
ough.
“Probably at one of the bars,” Sis said.
We nodded and handed her a baseball bat for protection.
Sue and I started cruising the parking lots of neighborhood dives. We discussed possible ways to confront Mike to stop this madness, but dealing with an alcoholic rarely allows reason as an option. We came to the conclusion that we’d have to be prepared for anything. As someone who came from generations of alcoholics, I knew violence was only one swig of liquor away.
At the second bar, we spotted Mike’s pickup truck. Adrenaline began seeping from my every pore. We discussed disabling his vehicle so he couldn’t leave before we “chatted him up.” Our first idea was to remove the distributor cap. No good: the hood was chained and padlocked. (What does that tell you about Mike?) Plan B: Flatten a tire.
“Do you have your pocketknife?” Sue asked, rhetorically.
My knife is like the credit card in that commercial; I don’t leave home without it. She leaned down and stuck the blade in up to the handle. I didn’t know if the tire would explode or what, but it went so smoothly, we decided to puncture another.
“I’m cutting the tires high up on the whitewall, so they can’t be fixed,” Sue explained.
Nice touch. How do I love thee, my woman? Let me count the ways …
Next, we peered inside the bar’s glass front door and immediately saw Mike in the foyer talking on the pay phone. When Sue pulled the door open, we heard him yelling at my sister. He was threatening to hurt her and the children again!
From there on it was like watching a surreal movie. Sue looked as if she was walking in slow motion as she crossed the floor in three long strides. Her arms lifted up and she wrapped both hands around Mike’s throat. The phone receiver dropped and swung back and forth like a pendulum. Without loosening her grip on his neck, Sue began beating his head against the plate-glass window. With each slam she said, “How do you like it? How do you like it?” His tongue had little trouble touching the bottom of his chin. His eyes looked like twin eight balls racked—and still she didn’t stop. In all our years together, I’d never seen her like this.
That Takes Ovaries! Page 19