united in outrage

The only response to David Horowitz's FrontPageMagazine.com story, "Two Women Stoned: Feminists Mum," is Duh, David. Of course we're outraged. I fail to see how blaming feminists for not writing enough or at all about this story is newsworthy in and of itself. The fact is that two women have been sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery. The fact is that there are humanitarian offenses against women in developing countries and here at home every single day. He specifically calls upon Katha Pollitt and the women who signed her Open Letter from American Feminists to protest this outrage. I signed that letter, and I guarantee that there's not a single woman on that roster who's not outraged. I'm also outraged by the news that mentally disabled women are being used by Iraqi insurgents as unwitting suicide bombers. I'm also outraged by the number of atrocities that women face around the world: female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child marriage, spousal violence, rape.

I urge Mr. Horowitz to also consider that women everywhere are working and writing for change, and that there are other voices and other forms of media outside of his very limited circles. I would like to draw his attention, for instance, to a book we published last fall called SHOUT OUT: Women of Color Respond to Violence. I would also call attention to Eve Ensler's newest book, A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer, and to INCITE's The Color of Violence, and to our own Voices of Resistance. Women are outraged. We are and we have been. And the blogosphere and the handful of prominent voices are not the only women whose voices need to be heard.

It's easy to spout off about what's not being done. It's harder to look a little deeper, to consider the world outside your immediate circles and beyond your blogroll.


---Brooke