Category: Reviews

City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman’s Account of War and Resistance
by Haifa Zangana
Seven Stories Press

Contrary to the cliché, ignorance is not bliss; it breeds destruction and despair—a fact that is amply proved in Iraqi journalist Haifa Zangana’s incisive look at women in Iraq, City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman’s Account of War and Resistance.

Zangana, who is now based in London, and whose analysis regularly appears in numerous publications in the UK, was imprisoned and tortured at Abu Ghraib for her political activities during Saddam Hussein’s reign. In this slim volume, she covers the rise of the modern Iraqi state, life under Hussein, the years of sanctions and occupation, and the status of women throughout. The fact that Zangana can offer so much enlightenment in so few pages is less a testament to her wisdom or writing than to the gaping void that is what most Americans know about Iraq—even now, almost five years after invading it.

To understand Iraq in the present, Zangana explains, one must take a look at the past and the foundation upon which Iraqi society was built. To that end, she outlines the evolution of modern Iraqi society from the Ottoman Empire through British colonialism to the rise of Hussein’s Ba’ath Party and into the present day.

Iraq was and is a society based on tradition, but, until recently, it was also relatively secular. Due to the efforts—often made at great personal risk—of many activists and artists, Iraq eventually adopted one of the most progressive constitutions in the Arab world, guaranteeing equality for all individuals, and for women, the right to inherit property and the right to divorce, among other provisions. Zangana also notes that, in contrast to common Western perceptions of women’s status in Arab and Muslim societies, in Iraq, the education of women (among the upper classes anyway) was seen as a critical part of its advancement as a nation.

Unfortunately, much of the civil infrastructure that maintained Iraq’s secular balance was destroyed during the current occupation, and now religious fundamentalist groups have grown in strength, often through collaboration with the occupation, and have begun exerting their restrictive codes of behavior upon women throughout Iraq.

The book’s title reflects the plight of women in today’s Iraq. According to one report cited, each day 90 women become widows. Zangana recounts many of the horror stories of the occupation, like the rape and murder by U.S. soldiers of 14-year-old A’beer Qassim Hamza al-Janaby, whose family was also murdered and their bodies burned in an attempt to cover up the terrible crime. In discussing various aspects of the occupation—such as how deadly it’s been for media professionals as well as Iraqi citizens—she reveals how women’s experiences in particular have been buried and misunderstood.

The author lays a large part of that confusion at the feet of those she calls “imperialist feminists.” Leading up to the invasion, the Bush administration adopted sudden concern for the plight of Iraqi women as one of its reasons for wanting to “liberate” the country. To convey this idea to the U.S. media, several U.S.-funded Iraqi women’s organizations were founded, staffed largely by Iraqi exiles and Iraqi-Americans. Their job was to convince the U.S. public that Iraqi women were desperate for “regime change”; after the invasion, their role was to promote democracy. Funding for these NGOs came from the U.S. State Department, but also from conservative U.S. think tanks like Lynne Cheney’s Independent Women’s Forum. Zangana calls out these NGOs as tools of U.S. foreign policy, completely divorced from Iraqi women’s real concerns under occupation—feeding their children, keeping their families safe, etc.—not learning how to vote. She notes that several of the Iraqi women involved in these NGOs have gone on to serve in the post-invasion Iraqi government while rarely speaking out about the atrocities the occupation has caused.

In the final section of the book, Zangana examines Iraqi resistance to the occupation. Reminding readers that armed resistance against occupation is a right enshrined by international law, she shows how difficult it’s been for peaceful political resistance to develop during the last four years, with leaders having to go into exile and occupation forces practicing collective punishment in areas where even nonviolent anti-occupation activity has taken place. She contrasts homegrown women’s organizations, like Iraqi Women’s Will and Knowledge for Women in Iraqi Society, with the imported, “depoliticized” NGOs funded by the U.S. These independent groups have been active in protesting the occupation and human rights abuses, and providing financial, occupational, medical, and educational support.

City of Widows is a somewhat disjointed read, but only because there is so much to tell, and Zangana attempts to do it in so few pages. Though it may feel wrong for Americans to ask anything of an Iraqi at this point, Zangana’s readers will feel compelled to ask for more. —Susan Chenelle

Originally published in the Spring 2008 issue of Bitch Magazine.

Taking on the Big Boys: Or Why Feminism Is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation
by Ellen Bravo
The Feminist Press

Protections like anti-discrimination laws, the Family Medical Leave Act, and the right to a sexual-harassment-free workplace seem like such sensible, necessary, no-brainers. So we often forget that it takes individuals like Ellen Bravo, and organizations like 9to5, the National Association of Working Women (which Bravo directed, and which inspired the 1980 film), to fight for and secure those protections.

After more than 30 years of educating people about equality in the workplace, Bravo’s still pissed off, and with good reason: “The majority of women in the United States earn less than $25,000 a year. The average woman loses nearly half a million dollars over her lifetime because of pay inequities. Cameroon, Brazil and India offer better maternity leave than we do. The percentage of female executives is down and the percentage of kids in poverty has gone back up. And feminists like me are the ones with a bad reputation?”

As Taking on the Big Boys makes clear, feminism’s “bad reputation” is due in large part to the titular baddies—the interests that go to great lengths to maintain such social and economic inequities. The Big Boys are the privileged and powerful few who exploit women, workers, minorities, immigrants, and so on, in order to maintain the status quo. Not all men are Big Boys—in fact, most aren’t—and not all Big Boys are men.

Bravo’s definition of feminism goes beyond the dictionary’s: “Feminism is a system of beliefs, laws, and practices that fully values women and work associated with women in order to help all people reach their potential.” That definition is manifest throughout the book, and is noteworthy in that by highlighting the value of “work associated with women” (or any exploited group), it brings consideration of race and class front and center.

One of the most valuable elements of this book its identification and illustration of the Big Boys’ tactics: minimize, trivialize, patronize, demonize, catastrophize, and compartmentalize. In each chapter of the book, Bravo demonstrates how these strategies are used not only to resist particular reforms, but also to sustain the many myths about women in the workplace. (Women are opting out of the rat race! Women like the flexibility of part-time/temp work!) She also shows how, in her many battles with the Big Boys, anticipating such tactics helped her counter them.

If there’s one weakness in the book, it’s that Bravo doesn’t offer more explicit examples of how reforms she’s fought for directly benefited the bottom line (e.g., X reform saved X company X amount of money), which of course is what really grabs the Big Boys’ attention. However, she does point to studies showing how workers who have a better work-life balance are more productive; and she points out that family-friendly policies benefit society as a whole through savings on social services. Such examples offer those engaging in similar struggles tips on where to look for such beneficial trade-offs. But inevitably, part of winning these battles is getting businesses to look at the bigger picture and or by simply shaming them into doing the right thing.

Bravo’s book makes it abundantly clear that feminism is indeed good for everyone. While she explicitly orients the policies she has fought for as part of a feminist vision, it’s not clear that when such battles are won, feminism gets the credit (although we know it gets the blame). Taking on the Big Boys is not only an enormously valuable resource for anyone wanting to contribute toward a better world, but a powerful and much-needed shot at combating the demonization of the F-word. This is a book to take into battle. —Susan Chenelle

Originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of Bitch Magazine.

Review by Susan Chenelle

Warning: Myriam Gurba’s sensual, precise prose is addictive. The four short stories that open Dahlia Season seduce and hit hard: In “White Girl” and “Primera Comuni—n,” Gurba’s protagonists find that reaching across dangerous boundaries can sometimes lead to earth-shattering love and healing. “Just Drift” follows a Latino teenager through a school day that begins with the goal of delivering the perfect flan as a bribe to his English teacher, and ends with him helping his girlfriend end her pregnancy.

Like most teenagers, Desiree Garcia, the heroine of the book’s titular novella, is obsessed with figuring herself out. However, it’s not being an artistic, lesbian goth that troubles her—let her parents worry about that—it’s her compulsive physical and mental tics she doesn’t get. Like her creator, Desiree has grown up with undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette’s syndrome. Dahlia Season follows her through her family’s attempts to “de-weirdoize” her and her own to diagnose and accept herself. This collection lavishes love, recognition and respect on anyone with Tourette’s or other behavior disorders; it also kicks down relief and acceptance for the parts in all of us that twitch or misbehave. —Susan Chenelle

Originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of Bitch Magazine.

Published in the January 10, 2007, issue of The Indypendent.

What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live
by Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway with Catherine Whitney
Free Press

Review by Susan Chenelle

Just after the 2004 presidential election, Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway, pollsters from opposite ends of the political spectrum, joined forces to conduct a new poll with a special purpose: to demonstrate how “a not-so-silent majority of women—from seniors to boomers to Generations X and Y—confront the singular challenge of recasting the nation in their image…shaking the culture to its core.”

It’s a commendable goal, but the authors get off to a rocky start by defining eight highly questionable “archetypes,” which they contend represent “the faces of American women.” These range from “Feminist Champion” and “Multicutural Maverick” to “Religious Crusader” and “Senior Survivor.” Many women will find it difficult to identify with any of these simplistic profiles, as the authors offer no indication of how they were teased out of the poll data, nor any criteria by which women were categorized. Instead, they offer puzzling statements like “You might find [the Multicultural Maverick] at the health club, coffee bar, or bistro, hanging out with friends, at a family barbecue, or attending and Earth Day concert”—without explaining why or how certain women are likely to exhibit any of the aforementioned very common behaviors. (Doesn’t the Senior Survivor also like going to the health club?)

While the authors highlight some very real concerns facing American women, such as lack of healthcare and having to tend to young children and aging parents simultaneously, there’s no question that their methodology is flawed. The substance of the book consists of responses to two polls, conducted over nine nights in early 2005, surveying a grand total of 1,604 women and 400 men. Furthermore, the two polls had entirely different sets of questions, and only a fraction of those polled (200 women) were asked all nine of the questions that comprise the heart of the book’s analysis.

Lake and Conway do demonstrate that very different women are making similar choices, and that those trends are causing significant shifts in our society—such as the increasing acceptance of more flexible work schedules and alternative career arcs. But they fail to offer any evidence that these convergences somehow erode the very real differences between them, due to factors like race and class, as well as perspectives on things like abortion, welfare, or same-sex marriage. And because the authors are pollsters and not sociologists or journalists, they don’t seek out or discuss any initiatives in which women organize across social divides toward common goals. Nor do they attempt to acknowledge the economic or political basis for divisions between women, the ones that result in what they somewhat condescendingly describe as the “underclass.” They insist that their poll sampling was demographically representative of the country’s population as whole, and they do make occasional efforts to address the realities of poor and minority women—particularly when it comes to healthcare issues—but overall the book’s perspective is skewed toward the concerns of and choices available to white, relatively affluent women.

It’s in the final chapter of the book—on women and politics—that its real audience is revealed, and it’s a disconcerting twist. Reversing the feminist mantra that “the personal is political,” the authors contend that, for women, “politics is personal.” Again, Lake and Conway can’t go too deep because they’re trying to keep things bipartisan, but they’re happy to reassure politicians that women don’t vote solely on abortion, and instead place priority on the “HERS agenda”; health, education, retirement, and security. Directly addressing their intended audience, they advise, “Women’s broad support of the HERS agenda creates a niche market for politicians. Speak to women in their language, and they may follow you to the ballot box.”

As the back-cover quotes from the likes of Jack Kemp and Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona might intimate, What Women Really Want is really just a handbook for politicians and marketing professionals. Highlighting the common goals women are striving for, it disingenuously tries to pretend that how we get there doesn’t matter: Just put the right buzzwords in your ads, and women will vote for you. —Susan Chenelle

Originally published in the Anniversary 2006 issue of Bitch Magazine.

Review by Susan Chenelle

Comedian Margaret Cho is someone you want on your side. In her new book of writings culled from her blog, she declares her fierce devotion to anyone and everyone who’s ever been marginalized or made to feel bad about themselves for being gay, for being a woman, for not being white, and for speaking up. She addresses everything from current events—particularly the injustices committed by the Bush administration—to body image to the people she loves. Some of the most endearing pieces are those in which she’s a fan herself, sending open mash notes to Richard Pryor or sharing the story of how she met David Bowie. The book captures everything people read blogs for: the immediacy, the strong voice and personality, the quasi-intimacy. However, it also exhibits the shortcomings of committing a blog to paper: Entries are often short and reactive to a particular topic of the day, and don’t always stand up well on their own or connect coherently with other selections in a chapter. But everyone should read the chapter on feminism, in which she unequivocally declares, “Feminism is nonnegotiable. If you’re not a feminist, you do not deserve to live.” —Susan Chenelle

Originally published in the Anniversary 2006 issue of Bitch Magazine.

Review by Susan Chenelle

We need more women like Starhawk. In November 1999, she was incarcerated for five days following the protests in Seattle. Since then, this Pagan activist, teacher, thinker, and visionary has dedicated herself to the global justice movement, traveling to Quebec City, Washington, DC, Genoa, Porto Alegre, and back again. Of equal importance, she has been doing what her fans have appreciated for more than 30 years, writing, continuously, posting columns to her website and other forums, from within the besieged activist headquarters in Genoa to the ruins of Jenin in Palestine. Webs of Power collects these eloquent reflections and astute analyses, beginning with Seattle, continuing through the struggles since and looking toward the future.

In the first half of the book, “Actions,” she shows what it means to confront the awesome political and economic forces intent on enforcing global corporate hegemony at the expense of the freedom, health, peace, and survival of peoples across the globe. Her opening essay, “How We Really Shut Down the WTO,” not only outlines the principles and methods of decentralized, democratic direct action, but also vividly expresses what happens when you place yourself within a mass struggle and what you need to do to survive. But Webs of Power is far more than a collection of reports from the battlefront. In subsequent essays, like “Hermana Cristina’s Well,” Starhawk gets behind the activist lingo and illustrates what “globalization” means, how it impacts the daily lives of ordinary people and what ordinary people around the world are doing about it.

For those involved in the global justice movement, the most compelling and provocative parts of Starhawk’s book are those in the second section, “Visions,” in which she addresses intra-movement conflicts and concerns, such as the quarrel over direct action vs. non-violence, or “diversity of tactics.” Where most activist-writers have become bogged down on one side or the other of this debate, she thinks beyond this dichotomy and backs up her philosophical discourses with examples where potentially destructive situations were diffused by listening and seeking constructive compromises that respected all parties’ mutual and divergent interests. In this section, she also delivers one of the most cogent analyses of the history of the left in America to be found anywhere, as well as a sharp-minded look at gender and sexuality during the Civil Rights movement.

Whether or not one embraces Paganism or magic ritual, few will disagree that, facing such challenges from within and without, the survival and progress of the global justice movement will require, if not a manifest sense of spirituality, then a great deal of deep thinking, insight, and wisdom. Weaving principle, action, politics, and spirituality together, Starhawk calls for a new political language, one that eschews jargon and all its historical baggage for clarity and makes the vital connections between all forms of repression and exploitation. Starhawk’s own eloquence demonstrates what that language might be like. Such a revitalized discourse would not only mediate or eliminate the conflicts that so often arise around ideology within the movement but also speak to those alienated by such bickering and elitist rhetoric.

Webs of Power is an important guide for those participating in the global justice movement, and an excellent primer for readers looking for a way to become involved and informed. In a time when the Bush administration is hell-bent on making war wherever and whenever possible and/or profitable, shredding international treaties left and right, and throwing up missile defense shields that don’t work, when 15 million people are starving in southern Africa thanks to the IMF and first-world greed, when states and cities across the U.S., following the federal government’s lead, are fending off huge budget deficits by cutting jobs, education, health care, and other critical services like fire departments, instead of rescinding one or two tiny corporate welfare loopholes or tax breaks, this book is, as Alice Walker says in her endorsement, “a must and soonest read.”

Originally published in the March/April 2003 issue of Clamor Magazine.

Review by Susan Chenelle

In this worthy primer on one of the major players in the anti-sweatshop movement, journalist Liza Featherstone does a very good job of distilling the history of United Students Against Sweatshops and the conflicts and tensions that have challenged it along the way, both from within and without. Perhaps best of all, she supplements her very readable narrative with poignant accounts contributed by both student and worker activists, documenting particular campaigns and tactics, some even written from within occupied campus buildings, corporate megastores and Mexican maquiladoras.

While recognizing the significant impact USAS has had on corporations and colleges across the country and around the world, Featherstone, a frequent contributor to The Nation, Newsday and the Washington Post, also forthrightly addresses the serious obstacles that have threatened the movement’s development. USAS and other groups have come under fire for fighting on behalf of workers in sweatshops thousands of miles away while neglecting those at home. Many critics have also pointed out that the social justice movement is largely comprised of white, highly privileged college students, who tend to marginalize issues concerning race, class and gender and fail to realize that all forms of repression and exploitation are integrally connected. Featherstone correctly acknowledges that USAS and its counterparts have taken strides to remedy these weaknesses, particularly by adding living wage campaigns to their focus, but she often seems willing to interpret any initiative, however isolated, as a sign that such barriers are being overcome. While such hopefulness is welcome, and necessary, it could be construed not only as overly optimistic, but also as an example of the dismissiveness toward race, class and gender issues that the movement itself is often accused of. In any case, it reveals how fragile the ties of solidarity that are critical to future of the global justice movement still are.

Overall, the tone throughout this slim volume is very measured and journalistic, neither too dire or desperate nor too hopeful or ambitious. While the absence of impassioned rhetoric is generally quite refreshing, it is also frustrating, as larger considerations, such as what’s at stake and the state of the global justice movement at large, are left untouched. The realities of the post-September 11 world are not even mentioned until the conclusion, and then only given cursory speculation. This omission seems rather odd, since the implications of activism and dissent after September 11 will deeply impact the future of USAS and similar organizations. But a thorough discussion of this new, rapidly changing, reality, while crucial, is understandably beyond the scope of this book. “Students Against Sweatshops,” though an important testament to the accomplishments of an extraordinary organization, is only the first chapter. More significantly, it’s a reminder that “keeping our eyes on the prize” means not only watching where we’re going, but also remembering where we’ve been.

(Originally published in the November/December 2002 issue of Clamor Magazine.)

Review by Susan Chenelle

In his new book, mega-philanthropist George Soros says he was spurred to set down his thoughts on globalization by what he calls the “unwitting alliance” between antiglobalization activists on the Left and market fundamentalists on the far Right. The fact that he opens with this reductive and ill-informed premise is almost enough cause to dismiss the book altogether. However, if one presses on, there are some ideas and insights worth the effort.

First, Soros argues that international institutions like the IMF and the WTO can be fixed, and should be supplemented with other far-reaching arrangements that would facilitate the more equitable distribution of wealth around the world. He contends that globalization has exacerbated the inequities between the world’s rich and poor because “[t]he development of our international institutions has not kept pace with the development of international financial markets and our political arrangements have lagged behind the globalization of the economy.” Furthermore, Soros insists that when projects funded by international aid and philanthropic initiatives like those of his Open Society foundations fail, it is largely due to weak and corrupt governments or poorly conceived or executed projects, i.e., nothing worth questioning the legitimacy of global capitalism itself about.

To sidestep these pitfalls, he proposes a system of international aid where all countries would be allocated “special drawing rights” or SDRs. Rich countries could donate their SDRs to poor countries, which could then apply those funds to pre-approved projects and organizations that have met certain quality control standards. Poor countries could use their own SDRs to stabilize their money supply. Amid all of Soros’s economic jargon, complete with charts and graphs, the most difficult concept for the non-economist to grasp is that SDRs are essentially money created out of thin air. The powers that be collectively decide that there is money, and there is money. The fact that this is so and yet poverty exists on the scale that it does today is baffling.

For those of us on the global justice left, the real reason to consider Soros’s concise treatise is that it offers insight into what happens inside those international forums, when they manage to occur, while we’re protesting outside. According to Soros, when he suggests his modest proposals to his fellow elite, he is scoffed at. The idea that we should let anything but the market govern the distribution of wealth is still anathema among many, an arrogant and selfish narrow-mindedness that Soros condems.

In the end, however, he still argues that, thanks in part to the questions raised by those concerned with global justice, changes have been made to international institutions like the IMF and WTO that will make them kinder and gentler; we just have to be patient and allow them to work. Likewise, Soros admits that the projects he and his society of benevolent billionaires fund will sometimes go awry from time to time, as they did so catastrophically in Russia. That’s to be expected of any experimental attempt addressing so many complicated factors, he says. The bottom line, however, is that in the meantime, people die. Millions of men, women, and children go without adequate food, clean water, quality education, accessible medical care, and a safe place to live every day. This is unacceptable, and while it’s nice to see that someone with great wealth and good intentions has dedicated himself to doing something about it, it’s our job to keep telling him and his fellow elite that their efforts thus far are not remotely good enough.

(Originally published in the November/December 2002 issue of Clamor Magazine.)

by Joel Schalit (Akashic Books; $14.95)

“American by birth, Israeli by association, and homeless by conscience,” 34-year-old Joel Schalit is a poster child for the post-modern world. However, the purpose of his new collection of essays, Jerusalem Calling: A Homeless Conscience in a Post-Everything World (Akashic Books), is not to flaunt the Punk Planet and Bad Subjects editor’s leftist punk street cred, nor to wallow in the angst of his experience. Instead, Jerusalem Calling delivers thoughtful, passionate analyses of subjects including the religious fundamentalism of American cultural politics, the failures of the left, the inner conflicts of punk, and the past, present, and future of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

As a “homeless conscience,” Schalit presents his views as those of an outsider. However, what makes this book so compelling is that he grounds his arguments in his own engagements with history and the development of his personal beliefs. This approach not only lends contextual support and accessibility to his ideas, but also underscores the timely conviction implicit throughout the book that, whatever countries or cultures we belong to, as citizens of this planet, we are all connected by our humanity and implicated in what happens throughout the world. He argues that, “[w]hen there are no finer distinctions than ‘us’ versus ‘them,’ it becomes almost impossible to inspire meaningful action in a real world where each of us is both ‘us’ and ‘them.'” Schalit’s meditations on a recent journey to Israel are more refreshingly insightful than most any other current writing on the Middle East.

The only dissatisfying part of Jerusalem Calling is Schalit’s essay on music. As he meanders through the rise and fall of the early ’90s Seattle rock scene, and the crimes and punishments of working in the music industry, he eloquently articulates the dissonance between the DIY anarchy of punk in the ’90s and the narcissism and conservative, capitalistically-oriented politics it often became mired in. However, Schalit also condemns the fact that our political culture is so bankrupt that we seek “new heroes to magically transform our frustrated political ambitions into useless cultural capital.” Given that statement, the discussion of the crisis of faith that almost caused Schalit to stop making music doesn’t quite work.

After seven years of culling Christian radio shows for song material, he began to fear he was becoming numb to the exploitation that he and his fellow Christal Methodists were trying to draw attention to. The inspiration that resolves his dilemma is to record a song using a speech by former Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. He concludes that he has “finally found a way to have my punk and play it, too.” Has he really? Sure, he’s found a more creatively and politically satisfying way to express himself, but for the rest of us, isn’t it just more “useless cultural capital” to consume? Or, are we simply supposed to be inspired to find our own ways of merging our political convictions with our creative impulses? Is that enough?

Perhaps we shouldn’t look to Schalit the musician to lead us to political nirvana. However, Schalit the essayist provokes so many important questions, and brings so much insight to the table, it’s hard not to ask for more.

(Originally published in the May/June 2002 issue of Clamor Magazine.)