From: Briseis Gatto
Date: 2006-06-14 23:51:29
Not that its a surprise, but on another thread,I’ve seen lots of reposts from the BBC about the “crocodile tears” terrible anti-feminist conditions in Iran–which doesn’t seem all that odd until you think, well, how much coverage of feminist issues do they usually provide? How much coverage of violence against women, unequal pay, etc. in other countries right now, are they providing? Not much, I’ll bet. Just pointing this out, because although this seemingly “human rights” coverage doesn’t immediately grab one’s attention as war-mongering, it really is. And its in an old tradition, too– I remember Noam Chomsky’s Washington Connection with Third World Fascism pointing out decades ago the inequality in press coverage in the NYTimes between human rights violations in Russia, in contrast to countries that were US allies. In any event, I hope folks will object to this kind of unbalanced coverage when possible–war won’t help our countries, the people of Iran, or women’s rights. Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian woman who won the Nobel peace-prize for her women’s rights work within Iran, has said that women’s rights will best be advanced in her country by its not being a target of aggression.
