Celebrations of International Women's Day usually center around recognizing things women do and have done, but what about all of the things that women do not do and have never done? It could be that those things are just as important.
Last night I watched the video that has gone viral about Joseph Kony, and the list of the International Court's most wanted people got me to thinking. None of the people on that list are women. I started wondering if there had ever even been a female dictator, mass murderer, drug lord, ethnic cleanser, warlord, tyrant, or any of the other worst things that people could be. I definitely couldn't think of any off the top of my head. When I googled "female dictator" the closest I got was Indira Gandhi, who suspended democracy for 2 years during her rule as president. And a news article that came up named a Mexican woman as the supposed first-ever female drug lord, but this was in 2011--fairly recent, so still a novelty. Generally, women have not been directly responsible for wars, the drug trade, Central American gangs, the suppression of democracy, African warlords, nuclear weapons, genocides, killings of civilians, violations of human rights, school shootings, torture, inequality, and I would even say things like underdevelopment and the financial crisis. Maybe even climate change. There are a lot of possible reasons for this, most obviously women's historical exclusion from power and lots of other realms of life. People might say that given the same opportunity, women would act similarly to men, but the women who have assumed roles of power mostly haven't shown signs of this. Additionally, people might say that it has to do with women being the gentler sex or whatnot, which I don't believe... I can't attempt to explain this phenomenon, but since it is International Women's Day I think it is very worth noting!
Also, I thought I would share a very clever and entertaining article I read today. I wasn't familiar with all of the references to recent U.S. news but it was still interesting:
Subject for Debate: Are Women People? | TIME Ideas | TIME.com
jueves, 8 de marzo de 2012
jueves, 1 de marzo de 2012
CENTRAL AMERICA IS NO SOMALIA, BUT CLOSE
CENTRAL AMERICA IS NO SOMALIA, BUT CLOSE - Andres Oppenheimer - MiamiHerald.com
“Central America is a compound of geological fault lines, drug trafficking routes, hurricane paths, historical grievances, insensitive oligarchies that resist paying taxes, irrational political polarization, states without natural resources, extreme poverty, high corruption rates, savage gangs, mighty drug kingpins, and a political class that is incapable of maintaining social cohesion,” Villalobos wrote.
“Central America is a compound of geological fault lines, drug trafficking routes, hurricane paths, historical grievances, insensitive oligarchies that resist paying taxes, irrational political polarization, states without natural resources, extreme poverty, high corruption rates, savage gangs, mighty drug kingpins, and a political class that is incapable of maintaining social cohesion,” Villalobos wrote.
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