scATX: Speaker's Corner in the ATX

Leil-Zahra Mortada has collected a Facebook photo album of images of women from the Egyptian protests.  I don’t have the time or energy to collect the links, but I have been reading a lot that women are not involved in the protests, that there presence is a sign of the oppressive or misogynistic Egyptian and/or Muslim society.  Mortada shows that women are indeed out in numbers, making their voices heard.  When our media does not report or people in our society fail to see the participation of women in the protests, I think that says more about us than it does about the Egyptians.  Who, then, are the misogynists?

Check out the collection.

At the bottom of the facebook page, there is a link to a photo album of images of women in the Tunisian revolution.

And then there is this video:

Related:

• Where are Egypt’s women? Right here. (Suzanne Merkleson at Foreign Policy)
• Egypt: Why the Kiss Picture Is So Radical (Garance Franke-Ruta at The Atlantic)

[h/t to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish for the Facebook link and the YouTube video]

For background.

For more on stopping HR3 and for a better understanding of what it would mean for rape victims:

• Jill at Feministe
• Sady Doyle at Tiger Beatdown
• Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon
• Chloe at Feministing

What to do: From Melissa McEwan at Shakesville:

Write your representative and voice your objection to H.R.3.

Get involved in the Twitter campaign and make some noise: #DearJohn.

Tweet Speaker Boehner directly: @johnboehner.

Make noise on your blog, Tumblr, Facebook, etc.

If you know of other resources or ways to speak out, please leave them in comments.  I’d really appreciate it.

This:

It reads: “Women in Tahrir say #Egypt democracy won’t lead to oppression. They note that autocracy hasn’t been so hot for them either.” – posted by Nicholas Kristoff, two time Pulitzer Prize winner, NY Times columnist, feminist, author of Half the Sky.

Yeah, that’s a twitter feed.

There’s nothing really to say except that that is @fuckedup.

I have been completely in awe and totally enraptured by what has taken place in Tunisia and now is happening in Egypt. To see people in such large numbers come together and put their bodies and their lives on the line to protest and demand change is incredibly inspiring.

I personally think two things when I witness such a historic event:

1) Thank goodness that I do not have to protect my family from police and snipers or my house from looters.

2) If push came to shove and I had to make the choice to witness change from my couch or to camp out in a public square surrounded by tanks and armed men, what would I choose? We always love to imagine that it is the latter – we are the revolutionaries, the abolitionists, the civil rights activists. We are Normandy, Stonewall, Selma, Harpers Ferry, etc. But if we know anything from history, it is that most people are never the reformer or the protester or the revolutionary. That is why great systemic change is so hard.

It takes people who are willing to sacrifice their lives. It takes people who are brave enough to stare down physical force. It takes people who are unrelenting and stubborn. It takes people who are passionate. It takes people who have the ability to see past the now and the status quo to something else (whether or not their dream for themselves and their nation come to fruition). It also take lots and lots people.

When I see the images of men being sprayed with water cannons, when I hear reports of people being killed by snipers, when learn of the death of protesters, I am often thankful that I am not in the middle of it but also inspired by such courage and conviction.

Here’s hoping that it never comes to having to protest, to stage a revolution, to oust a government here in the US. But if it does, here’s also hoping that I turn out to be on the right side of justice, willing to sacrifice for the greater good in a very real way, willing to be brave enough, stubborn enough, passionate enough, unrelenting enough to stand up against force. Here’s hoping that I will always and forever able to see a better future, one for which it is worth fighting.

And here’s hoping, if it ever gets bad enough, that there are enough people – lots and lots of them – who agree and are also willing to do something about it.

But odds are you and I will not be one of those people you see in the images, the live feeds, the videos, crowding the streets and squares in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez. They are the historical exceptions. What these people are doing is amazing on so many levels. As we watch from our desks, computer, and couches, we need to remember that.

My thoughts are with the protesters in Egypt. I am riveted by your bravery and amazed at your conviction.

Children:

• Texas Children: Canaries in the Coal Mine (Pamela Oldham at Miller-McCune)

It looks like Texas’ longtime model of cutting spending and never raising taxes works exceptionally well, so it’s not surprising that many states are following Texas’ lead. But it’s less obvious that the state’s fiscal policies and widely admired approach to balancing its budget have created a devastating legacy. According to officials at Austin-based Texans Care for Children, a multi-issue, nonpartisan policy organization, Texas children are falling behind the rest of the country in nearly every aspect of child well-being.

The Elderly:

• State budget cuts may mean hundreds of nursing homes close, industry warns (Robert T. Garrett at The Dallas Morning News)

More articles after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

The big story at the end of the week:

• In a stunning reversal, USDA chief Vilsack greenlights Monsanto’s alfalfa (Tom Philpott at the Grist)

USDA chief Tom Vilsack had hinted strongly that he would place geographic restrictions on the growing of GMO alfalfa, to protect organic alfalfa growers from the threat of GMO contamination. He even floated a fancy name for the policy: “coexistence,” as in GMO crops and organic crops all just getting along. Even such a relatively mild restrictive policy would have broken with the longstanding USDA practice of giving GMOs a free pass. [...]

Thursday’s announcement marks a complete USDA cave-in to the biotech industry’s demands, and yet more evidence that Obama wants to be seen as a friend to powerful business interests — at the expense of smaller, less powerful interests like organic alfalfa and dairy growers, and, in this case, of the public interest.

• USDA approves controversial GM alfalfa (Marion Nestle at Food Politics)
• Monsanto’s Hostile Takeover of the USDA (Michele Simon at Appetite for Profit)
• Genetifically Modified Alfalfa Officially On The Way (Barry Estabrook of The Atlantic)
• Vilsack caved on GM alfalfa, so what’s the impact? (Sam Fromartz at Chews Wise)

More articles after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

An Egyptian woman shouts as she demonstrates outside the Lawyers' Sydicate in Cairo on January 27, 2011, demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, 82-years-old, who has held on to power for more than three decades. By Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

Andrew Sullivan posted this picture when linking to an article in Foreign Policy by Ellen Knickenmeyer that discusses the role of the youth in the unrest in northern Africa and the Middle East.