Wednesday, October 06, 2004

They really don't need that kind of help

The White House has selected the right-wing, anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum to--get this--train Iraqi women in political participation and democracy. My irony meter exploded over this news and can never be used again.

The IWF doesn't say how big a piece of the $10,000 training grant it has received. The Washington-based group uses its agenda of "common sense" to attack basic feminist principles, and attacks those principles by calling them "radical feminism" (not that there's anything wrong with radical feminism, but using the term is a scare tactic, if ever there were one). So while White House members are on television with their women's-rights-in-Iraq-blah-blah-blah, they are making sure that anti-feminists are sent to Iraq to help.

Of course, there are plenty of feminists in Iraq who could mess up the administration's indoctrination plans. Just like there are plenty of feminists in Afghanistan, the place Laura Bush likes to talk about, where women have such a great life now that we have "liberated" them.