At the Women's Convention of Akron, Ohio in 1851, Sojourner Truth, what we would call today a human rights activist, spoke about a woman's right to be treated equally to a man.
"That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? . . .”
It was not long ago at all that the Occidental bastions of freedom and egalitarianism we imagine Europe and North America to be, were in fact quite similar in their treatment of women as some of the most repressive regimes in the world today. Author Joan Hoff-Wilson notes as recently as 1845 in the United States, a woman lost every right to control her own property when she married a man. If it was hers before she married him, it was his when she said ‘I do.’ Only a century and a half insulates us from that monstrous reality. When my grandfather was born in 1919, my great grandmother could not yet legally vote in the United States.
So you would imagine that those societies that have benefited from the struggle of women like Sojourner for over a century, would jump at the chance to support similar struggles going on today. This month in Saudi Arabia, women are fighting for the right to drive, banned from doing so in that country. Not just the right to drive, of course, but the right to be regarded as whole human beings equal to all other human beings, whether they are born with a uterus or not. This is the latest battle in the Arab Civil Rights Movement, and the most recent stop on humanity’s beautiful, painful odyssey for equality.
USA Today reports that an organization leading the campaign, Saudi Women for Driving, is calling upon western female diplomats and politicians to speak out in support of this campaign. That they even have to ask, is very saddening. In the spirit of the long battle for gender and sex equality in the United States so well captured by Sojourner’s words – you would think prominent leaders would shout their support from the proverbial rooftops.
Yet I have not yet heard of any western diplomat or politician voicing their support for this women’s rights movement in the Gulf. If they haven’t come out to support it yet, it is shameful, but even if they have, it is just as shameful that they waited long enough to have to be asked in the first place. Saudi Women for Driving has sent a letter to Secretary Clinton and to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton asking them, and any other female western leaders, for their support. Secretary Clinton and chief Ashton are not alone in their responsibility to respond to that letter. Where are the 76 members of the Canadian parliament that the CBC reports happen to be female? Why hasn’t German Chancellor Angela Merkal or Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff voiced their support for these brave women? These are the very people Saudi Women for Driving is calling upon for their help.
The obvious explanation for their cruel silence is that the west, especially the United States, dares not criticize the habits of its largest supplier of petroleum and fellow G-20 member, Saudi Arabia. They dare not because they fear economic and social disruption to western economies if they step on the wrong Saudi toes. But it doesn’t matter how real their fears are, they should have the courage to ask the people they lead to make sacrifices for the freedom of our Arab sisters.
I don’t believe I am alone when I say I want to hear western leaders ask those of us that live in the west to make sacrifices for the sake of human rights worldwide. I think all decent people would be willing to pay more for gas, endure unemployment, suffer for the right reasons if a leader, genuine and courageous enough, would have the ambition to ask us to. That doing so jeopardizes their ability to be reelected, makes the request all the more noble. That is, after all what happened during the second world war – governments in the west asked their people to conserve, accept rations, work a bit harder, strive a bit more – for the right reasons. Humans, being the tenacious creatures that we are, lived up to the challenge. It is demeaning to the intelligence and moral fortitude of us common folk, that leaders would shield us from our collective responsibility.
Great leaders challenge the people they lead. Forget the cheap gas - to quote Sojourner, we don’t need to be politically helped into carriages and lifted over ditches. I would ask every female political leader in the west to challenge the people you lead, and ask us to make the necessary sacrifices to support the women of Saudi Arabia in their quest for equality. If nothing else, you should be standing with your sisters across the pond. How about it Secretary Clinton? Ain’t you a woman?
Sources:
- AP "Saudi women seek help in driving campaign," USA Today (June 20, 2011)
- Fitzpatrick, Meagan "Record number of women elected," CBC news (May 3, 2011)
- Halsall, Paul, "Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman? Delivered December 185, Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio" Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham University (1997)
- Hoff-Wilson, Joan. Law, Gender, and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women. New York: New York University Press, 1991
Steven Sacco - Steven Sacco is a law student at Albany Law School, and a Masters of Social Work student at the State University of New York at Albany. He ...
Join the Conversation