Woman's Work

International Women's Day came and went last Tuesday with very little coverage in the media, what with all the time needed to discuss Michael Jackson's kiddy porn and whether or not Mark McGwire took steroids (fucking duh). About the only coverage on TV about the day at all was of Turkish police (allies of the U.S.) beating demonstrators at a rally for gender equality two days prior. Love those democratic Turks!

Well, one day is too short of time to focus on the struggle for gender equality anyway. So I'm making it International Women's Week here at Out Of Tune. I'll use this space to highlight extraordinary women, personal heroes, and women I just plain admire.

We'll start with a woman I just found out about last night on 60 Minutes. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a member of the Dutch parliament. She immigrated to the Netherlands at the age of 22. Well, more like escaped to the Netherlands from a marriage arranged by her Muslim Somali parents. They were sending her to Canada to marry a cousin and when the plane made a stop in Germany she got off and caught a train to Holland, where she asked for asylum. She decided as a young child she rejected the ideas of Islam, especially the ideas about the place of women in the religion. She has made it her life struggle to speak out against the misogynistic culture of Islam, and the violence that happens against women. In this vein she conceived a short film called Submission: Part I directed by controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was brutally murdered (shot twice, stabbed in chest, throat slit) by a religious fanatic. In the 12-minute film, a Muslim woman is forced into an arranged marriage, abused, and then punished for committing adultery after she is raped by her uncle. The woman wore a transparent burka and had verses from the Koran written all over her body. Powerful message. Pissed off a lot of people who see it as there god-given right to treat women like animals and servants. It's why Theo van Gogh was killed and Ayaan Hirsi Ali lives under around the clock protection. The murderer pinned a note on van Gogh's body addressed to Hirsi Ali, and she has received many other threats. But she fights on and continues to speak out on the horrible treatment of women in the name of religion. After getting herself out of that world she could have just left it behind her and lived her life, but instead she has dedicated herself to helping more women get out from under that same horrible oppression. And she's risked her life to do it. I admire her, and more people should know her name than Paris Hilton's.