In her article on the abuse of women
published in KurdistanObserver, on June 12, 2007 , Pam Steer intends to steer
our society with her critical and courageous words. Interestingly her name
fits her objective. To my limited understanding of English words, “Steer”
could mean a young ox castrated before sexual maturity, giving an advice, to
pursue an action, or to head in a forward direction.
Steer’s words reminded me of a
journalist I met in a flight who wanted to hear my view on women and their
rights. After making sure that my ring was visible, I told her why I am an
advocate of gender equality. She was surprised and started to complain about
her opposite experience in our society during a six month assignment.
Apparently the cheerful and outgoing aspect of her personality and profession
had been misunderstood by some of our men that she is in love with them until
she had put them in their place with the confident, righteous, and emancipated
part of her character that they could not expect in women.
Possibly Steer has had a similar experience that made her confront our
men so strongly in her article. To please some of our politicians in power,
she would have it easier to focus only on the positive aspects of our society.
However, she seems to be skeptical, determined, value honor, but rightfully
attack honor killing and similar crimes against our mothers, sisters, and
daughters. Steer might be seen as antagonist of our men, yet in fact she tries
to guide our society to improve and stand out among the conservative and
dictatorial countries in one of the most troubled region of the world.
Some
of our men might be freighted by Steer’s words and mark her as an impractical
idealist with noconnection to real life of our people, and one that
humiliates us so we lose confidence in our ultimate objective. They might
argue that we need to focus on demanding our national rights instead of women
rights at this critical stage. They might question that since we as a society
have not had an opportunity to stand on our feet how could we talk about
running or even walking? Such arguments remind me of the outdated arguments of
self serving nations that expect oppressed people prioritize the territorial
integrity of the oppressing state over their own national rights. It is
similar to the argument of a promiscuous man that expects every woman be
pleased with existence of harems, temporary and underage marriages, and other
forms of male polygamy.
While Steer rightfully attacks dishonorable aspect of the culture of our
people, she forgets to mention that
honor as an honest and fair attitude of people with integrity has been part of
their culture regardless of their faith and ethnic background. She forgets to
mention that the
whole troubled region has been politically mislead or religiously misguided by
various patriarchal
emperors, kings, sultans, sheikhs, ayatollahs, priests, and rabies for
centuries. She forgets to mention that honor killing and other crimes against
women are global matters rather than local.
Steer
deserves to know that she is not alone in her fight against backward aspect of
our society. Many of us have talked about it over and over and been partially
helpful in promoting some changes.
I hope Steer’s words are more productive, since some of our leaders might need
to be steered by an outsider to believe change is needed.
