The kind of subtle sexism that really gets my goat
Another CNN headline - "Boy, 5, Boasted Warrior Status While Jill Carroll Quivered." Quivered? Really? Absolutely necessary? Shaking, the word used in the text of the article, wasn't sufficient? You just had to cast her in Victorian-romance-novel-sexpot terms? I know, I know, I can hear you now. But Megan, you're totally overreacting. This piece is written by Carroll herself, maybe she used the word quivered. Whatever. It's sexist and gross.
1 Comments:
I'm not super-educated meself - and particularly about this. In true blog fashion, however, I'll throw out what I THINK I know. The true lebanese government is indeed an internationally-propped democracy. Lebanon is a very odd state in being half muslim and half christian (perhaps those figures are off, but much closer to half than any prototypical arab country.) Like any arab country (using arab to mean middleeasttern, majority muslim and historic lack of separation in church and state) true democracy doesn't really fly, and the government has to appease the fundamentalists at least partially to remain in power. One way the lebanese government has done this has been by having hezbollah sit on it's parliament. That's right - it's part of the government. SO... drawing on your comments I would think the next logical step would be for the international community, in propping the lebanese government, to prop them towards eradicating hezbollah just as iran is propping hezbollah to eradicate jews (bold statement, I know). You see the issue, however. We (we being card-carrying "international community" members and not "Americans" per se) are trying to prop a goverment to eradicate.. a part of that government. Based on my understanding above, the thing I don't understand is why Israel didn't make disassociation with Hezbollah a condition of any ceasefire. I imagine this 'disarming' of hezbollah is intended to do the same, but it may well take the establishment of an entirely new group (I'd recommend calling it the "Government of Lebanon") to only effect the humanitarian/social endeavors of hezbollah. I also don't see how the return of the soldiers wasn't a part of the ceasefire.
In any event I believe a tenet of the original incursion was 'if your children sell drugs out of your house, you are completely responsible and will be punished in expectation that you will pass the fear/punishment on to your kids'. This made sense as Israel struck Lebanese army installations at times. With the current state of the ceasefire, however, I don't see how that tenet is upheld or what the long-term solution is here. It's sad to say, but I think the only solution was to continue hostilities, demand/force removal of hezbollah from the Lebanese parliment, outlaw the group (via occupational legislation if need be) and try to divert it's funds/organization to better causes. This means forcing a LARGE number of residents to not do what they believe in. Many people in Lebanon love Hezbollah.. many hate jews. Many hate separation of church and state. Other don't, sure... but enough to do never have a state of equilibrium without a little oppression. So perhaps oppression is the answer. I mean hell... we don't AGREE with some people - perhaps they gotta be beaten down? I went to Clemson, so I hate the University of South Carolina. I don't try to hear their rationale, sympathize with their cause.. I'm in whole-hog.
-jp
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