Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 17:29:42 +0100 From: Diane Severson Subject: [*FSF-L*] Handmaid's Tale To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Hello Everyone, Since I nominated this book, it falls to me to open the discussion. I'm sure most of you had already read this book. I read it for the first time in early September. What are your thoughts about this book in light of what has occurred in the USA and in Afghanistan recently? How does it make you feel? Diane Currently Reading: The Fellowship of the Rings, JRR Tolkein; White Teeth, Zadie Smith. Recently Read: Harry Potter #1 4/5; The Red Tent, Anita Diamant 4+/5; All the Weyrs of Pern, Anne McCaffrey 3+/5; The Renegade's of Pern, Anne McCaffrey 3/5. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 10:39:21 -0500 From: Dave Belden Subject: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU On October 28 (i.e. a week ago) Margaret Atwood wrote an article in the color magazine of the New York Times about her visit to Afghanistan in 1978 with her husband and young daughter. She said that visit became the main inspiration for writing The Handmaid's Tale. That helped to make more sense of the book to me: it was prophetic more about Afghan society than North American society. Looked at like this, the book becomes a way that we can feel with Afghani women the horror of their situation. When I read the book at first publication I thought that it was well written, but its power was drained away by its implausibility. There was no convincing explanation in the novel (for me anyway) of how the fundamentalists had managed to take power. As a sociologist I see that the basic trends of the modern economy are going in the other direction, towards more power for women. It is intriguing to me how feminism was a cry in the wilderness (Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot) until the modern economy brought wages, education, professional careers to women. I learned my feminism in England in the 1970s from women who were socialists; but clearly it is capitalism, or at least the industrial economy, that brought women off the isolation of the farm and into modern cities, employment, education and this enabled them to organize, think together, turn the isolated feminist cry into a mass movement. Likewise, the best hope for women in poor countries today is to modernize their economies. (And one of the best ways to modernize the economy it's now agreed by most economists is to empower and educate women). The future of North America is all bound up with the 'knowledge economy' and women have an equal, if not better than equal, chance of getting good employment within it: women's strength is only going to grow as heavy industry follows farming into an almost insignificant proportion of the working population. It is amazing how fundamentalism has survived in the midst of all this: people basically believing in the equivalent of a flat earth while flying around it in airplanes. But it's just not the kind of threat Atwood envisaged. So I saw the novel as a bad dream that need not disrupt my waking hours, because it's so unlikely. But a well written and creepy bad dream. Terrific imagery. Dave Belden (of www.davidbelden.com) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 11:26:57 EST From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Handmaid's Tale To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU It's been a while since I've read the Handmaid's Tale. Very interesting that Atwood wrote it after a visit to Afghanistan. I'm not sure of the time frame, when the Taliban came to power visavis when Atwood visited. My understanding is that in preTaliban Afghanistan, women were significantly represented in the ranks of the educated middle class, in the cities at least. I'm currently reading a book by Jason Elliot, 'An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan", which gives some insight into the preTaliban, Soviet and post Soviet era. The Soviet invasion spurred the rise of fundamentalism in what was (and is) a very diverse culture. In terms of Islam, the following quotes are interesting (these are fairly long, so I beg your indulgence): Stopping in a mud-walled 'serai' for the evening with his guide Ali, Jason Elliot (the author) became, as always, the object of utmost curiosity. This exchange occurred (now the quote begins): "the old man wheezed a question...'Where in this world is your friend from?' 'Ha! You would never believe where he is from.' [Ali] enjoyed this little tease; he too got weary of the inevitable questioning and, I noticed, at each stop, a little more protective of me. I heard two men speak among themselves in the shadows. 'Is he a believer?' 'Not a chance,' said the other, 'he's a foreigner and a kafir.' 'By Allah, he is NOT!' Ali...shot back; overhearing them. And then, almost coyly, he said:'Everywhere we go people think he is a Moslem.' ...[paragraph] ...I was touched by his defence, which expressed a wonderful ambiguity. It did not matter that I might not be a Moslem: it was enough that people thought I was. In a country where a man's integrity is judged by his adherence to the multiplicitous regulations of religion, the distinction between believer and unbeliever is bound to be fierce. Yet in Afghanistan, where of all Islamic nations you might least expect to find such a softening at the edges, the natural sense of moderation of the people has always kept extremes of religious behaviour in check. Only under the cataclysmic influence of the Soviets were religious leaders able to gain exceptional power...The vast majority of Afghans are deeply observant ...but are no purists... What you hear, when a person's behaviour can't be measured by the traditional criteria, is whether a thing is 'close to Islam' or 'far from Islam'...Afghans, who have never enjoyed being told too much how to behave, make frequent use of the expression." The second quote is this: "Ali...would often ask me if I was tired. I said...that I was only sometimes tired, 'like in life', I said, and recited my old couplet from Hafez:'Though the way is full of perils, and the goal far out of sight...' 'Hah! Bravo!' he chuckled. 'Do people read Hafez in England?' 'A few. And they have heard of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, too.' 'Master Rumi? In England? Well I never...You must make a translation, so that everyone in England can read him,' he said, and began to spout couplets, which I endeavoured to match but quickly exhausted my supply. I told him that when I was younger I had visited Turkey and paid my respects at the tomb of the saint himself. 'By Allah!' he beamed, 'There's no difference between your religion and mine after all!" (Sufism is widespread in Afghanistan, and famous Sufis include women. One I've just learned of in Elliot's book is Rabi'a of Balkh, a 9th century woman and Afghanistan's earliest Sufi poet. Her tomb is one of many Sufi shrines in Balkh, near Mazar-e-Sharif, if I've gotten the geography straight. I'm thinking of trying to find some of her poetry. ) The picture I have gained so far of Afghanistan is a very diverse culture, with incredible history as the crossroads of Asia, which has suffered huge setbacks directly related to the Soviet invasion there, American fostering of the Taliban as an antiSoviet force, and now American reaction to the results of that. My memories of the Handmaid's Tale right now,however, are of its consonance with my deepest fears about the present war, which are not fears of foreign terrorism but of fears of a decided right wing drift in our own country. Conspiracy theorists on the internet paint an equally unsettling picture of the current war as part of what could be described as a coup d'etat, using a terrorist attack as a pretext. Certainly we've seen enough attempts to wrap rightwing agenda items in the flag to give that theory some resonance. I myself am not a fan of conspiracy theories, because ultimately they come full circle, it seems to me, and explain nothing. But in terms of the book, and fears, those are the connections that current events inspire. I think we're doing a pretty good job at scaring ourselves right now, so when I say this, I am not advocating these theories, just commenting on the emotional connections to Atwood's work and current events. However, I do not think one can be overly complacent about the robustness of women's rights under capitalism. The rise of fascism in Germany, one of the most cosmopolitan of European states in the prefascist period, belies that idea. Capitalism is the current force pushing the history of the world in all its aspects. Some of the results are much less benign than others. In fact, I think the current elevation of capitalism as the end all and be all theory of everything amounts to a secular religion. History did not stop with the fall of the Berlin wall, capitalism still depends on expanding markets in its current forms, and expanding markets adhered to as a blind principle is bound to bring conflicts with unforeseen outcomes. That unfortunately isn't conspiracy theory, and what I see almost everywhere in the socalled intelligentsia of the first world, is a hidebound refusal to see that capitalism is a historical phenomenon which is no more permanent than any other economic/ideological system in history. The question is, what's next? -Joy Martin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:01:50 -0500 From: Gwen Veazey Subject: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU How interesting that Margaret Atwood visited Afghanistan in 1978 and this influenced her vision for _HT_. Thanks for your comments, Dave and Diane. I have a little different feeling about the book than you, Dave. While the rigid rules of dress and behavior seemed exaggerated, the idea of fundamentalists running things did not appear so far-fetched in the mid-80's (around 1987) when I read the novel. For those of us feminists in the U.S. who lived through the terrible day of Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984, and witnessed right-wing idealogues like Jerry Falwell interviewed on TV as the grand poo-bahs of the powerful "Moral Majority," it was a rough time. And conservatives again took the White House in 1988. Also, don't forget the Equal Rights Amendment, a simple statement making sure women were included in the protections of the Constitution ("Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex") was defeated in the early 80's because not enough states ratified it. Quite a victory for the fundamentalists. I also had a five-year-old daughter then! My lasting impression of this novel is that it was the first time I truly noticed the difference between adequate/mainstream writing and literary writing which absolutely sparkled. Atwood is one of the most talented writers around, I believe, and I have enjoyed all her novels. (Have not delved into the poetry.) Best, Gwen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 19:46:09 -0000 From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU >On October 28 (i.e. a week ago) Margaret Atwood wrote an article in the >color magazine of the New York Times about her visit to Afghanistan in 1978 >with her husband and young daughter. She said that visit became the main >inspiration for writing The Handmaid's Tale. I find this a really odd statement. Where did she go in Afghanistan? I was there in late 78 and in spite of the tense political/military situation, curfews, etc, found it less oppressive for women (at least in Kabul and Herat) than Pakistan at the same date. Certainly many women in Kabul were working at that date and did not wear the full burqua but only, maybe, a light headscarf. However, Pakistan in this account would work for me (memory of not being able to get on a bus because all the purdah seats were already taken, etc) Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 12:19:05 -0800 From: Freddie Baer Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU >>I find this a really odd statement. Where did she go in Afghanistan? I was there in late 78 and in spite of the tense political/military situation, curfews, etc, found it less oppressive for women (at least in Kabul and Herat) than Pakistan at the same date. Certainly many women in Kabul were working at that date and did not wear the full burqua but only, maybe, a light headscarf. However, Pakistan in this account would work for me (memory of not being able to get on a bus because all the purdah seats were already taken, etc)<< Here's that article in full: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/magazine/28LIVES.html?pagewanted=print October 28, 2001 A Novelist Remembers When Afghanistan Was at Peace By MARGARET ATWOOD In February 1978, almost 23 years ago, I visited Afghanistan with my spouse, Graeme Gibson, and our 18-month-old daughter. We went there almost by chance: we were on our way to the Adelaide literary festival in Australia. Pausing at intervals, we felt, would surely be easier on a child's time clock. (Wrong, as it turned out.) We thought Afghanistan would make a fascinating two-week stopover. Its military history impressed us -- neither Alexander the Great nor the British in the 19th century had stayed in the country long because of the ferocity of its warriors. "Don't go to Afghanistan," my father said when told of our plans. "There's going to be a war there." He was fond of reading history books. "As Alexander the Great said, Afghanistan is easy to march into but hard to march out of." But we hadn't heard any other rumors of war, so off we went. We were among the last to see Afghanistan in its days of relative peace -- relative, because even then there were tribal disputes and superpowers in play. The three biggest buildings in Kabul were the Chinese Embassy, the Soviet Embassy and the American Embassy, and the head of the country was reportedly playing the three against one another. The houses of Kabul were carved wood, and the streets were like a living "Book of Hours": people in flowing robes, camels, donkeys, carts with huge wooden wheels being pushed and pulled by men at either end. There were few motorized vehicles. Among them were buses covered with ornate Arabic script, with eyes painted on the front so the buses could see where they were going. We managed to hire a car in order to see the terrain of the famous and disastrous British retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad. The scenery was breathtaking: jagged mountains and the *Arabian Nights* dwellings in the valleys -- part houses, part fortresses -- reflected in the enchanted blue-green of the rivers. Our driver took the switchback road at breakneck speed since we had to be back before sundown because of bandits. The men we encountered were friendly and fond of children: our curly-headed, fair-haired child got a lot of attention. The winter coat I wore had a large hood so that I was sufficiently covered and did not attract undue notice. Many wanted to talk; some knew English, while others spoke through our driver. But they all addressed Graeme exclusively. To have spoken to me would have been impolite. And yet when our interpreter negotiated our entry into an all-male teahouse, I received nothing worse than uneasy glances. The law of hospitality toward visitors ranked higher than the no-women-in-the-teahouse custom. In the hotel, those who served meals and cleaned rooms were men, tall men with scars either from dueling or from the national sport, played on horseback, in which gaining possession of a headless calf is the aim. Girls and women we glimpsed on the street wore the chador, the long, pleated garment with a crocheted grill for the eyes that is more comprehensive than any other Muslim coverup. At that time, you often saw chic boots and shoes peeking out from the hem. The chador wasn't obligatory back then; Hindu women didn't wear it. It was a cultural custom, and since I had grown up hearing that you weren't decently dressed without a girdle and white gloves, I thought I could understand such a thing. I also knew that clothing is a symbol, that all symbols are ambiguous and that this one might signify a fear of women or a desire to protect them from the gaze of strangers. But it could also mean more negative things, just as the color red can mean love, blood, life, royalty, good luck -- or sin. I bought a chador in the market. A jovial crowd of men gathered around, amused by the spectacle of a Western woman picking out such a non-Western item. They offered advice about color and quality. Purple was better than light green or the blue, they said. (I bought the purple.) Every writer wants the Cloak of Invisibility -- the power to see without being seen -- or so I was thinking as I donned the chador. But once I had put it on, I had an odd sense of having been turned into negative space, a blank in the visual field, a sort of antimatter -- both there and not there. Such a space has power of a sort, but it is a passive power, the power of taboo. Several weeks after we left Afghanistan, the war broke out. My father was right, after all. Over the next years, we often remembered the people we met and their courtesy and curiosity. How many of them are now dead, through no fault of their own? Six years after our trip, I wrote *The Handmaid's Tale*, a speculative fiction about an American theocracy. The women in that book wear outfits derived in part from nuns' costumes, partly from girls' schools' hemlines and partly -- I must admit -- from the faceless woman on the Old Dutch Cleanser box, but also partly from the chador I acquired in Afghanistan and its conflicting associations. As one character says, there is freedom to and freedom from. But how much of the first should you have to give up in order to assure the second? All cultures have had to grapple with that, and our own -- as we are now seeing -- is no exception. Would I have written the book if I never visited Afghanistan? Possibly. Would it have been the same? Unlikely. Margaret Atwood is the author, most recently, of *The Blind Assassin*. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 15:42:30 -0500 From: Dave Belden Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Thanks for reproducing the article. Maybe my description of it as her "main inspiration for writing The Handmaid's Tale" was an exaggeration, but it was clearly part of it, and I think it's interesting that the fears in the novel have been realized (to a degree) not in our society but in that one, a very poor country. It does also seems as if her memory and Lesley Hall's are somewhat different, about Afghanistan at that time, which is curious. Dave ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 20:47:59 -0000 From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Thanks for posting this - Atwood also seems to have managed to miss seeing the famous painted lorries (I wonder what happened to those - as many of the motifs were figurative I imagine they have been painted out) - and the bicycles. I recall a good deal more motor traffic than she suggests - though still little even by the standards of urban Pakistan . It was _not_ just the Hindu women who did not wear the chador, at least in Kabul - in fact I was told that it was only women from families which had fairly recently moved to the city who did. As I recollect - over 20 years later - I got this information from the Afghan woman who was secretary at the British Institute. I was in Afghanistan for about 4-5 weeks in the autumn of 1978, mostly in Kabul, but also saw something of Herat and Kandahar, also made a trip to Bamyian (and climbed up one of the now destroyed standing Buddhas through the caves behind). But I can see that the _idea_ of the chador could have been imaginatively powerful for Atwood in writing _The Handmaid's Tale_. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 13:02:40 -0800 From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU There was a reference on an overnight radio show about three weeks ago, maybe four, when there was a discussion about oppression of women in Afghanistan. I did not catch the name of the guest but he was a self-called "adventurer" who had the chance to meet with Bin Laden's associates at a time when the war with the Russians was over and the country had just started being taken over by the Taliban. He stated that Kabul remained for a long time the town where the media/press wanted to see what "normal" Afghans looked liked and interacted on a day to day basis, so they were taken to Kabul and shown their version of what was representative of the entire country, thus this is the context most westerners saw in the 1980s. According to this person, what you saw in Kabul was way way different than what you saw say in the northern region. The interpretation was you are not oppressed when you follow God's laws. This is why when CNN showed that documentary Beneath the Veil I think it was on their Perspectives show, we were shocked at watching executions being carried out on the football field recorded by hidden cameras by RAWA; and what was even more chilling was the interview between the narrator and the Minister of Information who said if the UN would help them build a place to carry out the executions, they would bring football back to the stadium for all to enjoy again. In the context of how chilling and unnerving to know that such behavior is being done to its own citizens currently(the documentary was made in 2000), I think when a younger person (20-ish these days) reads Handmaid's Tale, they can more than likely compare it to what Afghanistan has become, rather than what it used to be. Jo Ann ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 22:12:13 EST From: Marilyn Gibson Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Your story of (most probably female) executions in a football field in Afghanistan is indeed chilling. I read The Handmaid's Tale years ago and felt it to be a great work of feminist fiction, disturbingly close to home now that the right-wing is in power. At the root of all subjugation of women is fear of their power. (This subject is much more exhaustively discussed in The War on Women by Marilyn French, available at Amazon.com). In my opinion, the situation in Afghanistan is parallel to the one depicted in that book and if we were forced to live under these conditions, America would be a police state. But I disagree that women's employment is responsible for the gains we have made. Before men seized power and defined women through their relationship as wives and mothers, matriarchal knowledge was deeply respected. Women's power, now celebrated in a resurgence of magical practice and earth religions, is enjoying a period of growth unrelated to financial or intellectual knowledge. Marilyn Gibson www.hangingbyastring.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 11:08:55 -0000 From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood/Afghanistan To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU One other thing I forgot to mention about things I was told about the chador while I was in Afghanistan in 78 (this one I think by an anthropologist working there) - that in most rural communities/villages the women didn't have to wear it in the normal course of events because everyone in the community was of a sufficiently close degree of kinship that they didn't need to - there were no 'strangers' to conceal themselves from. This changed if the family moved to a larger conurbation. This probably doesn't apply in contemporary Afghanistan - apart from anything else presumably the years of upheaval have broken up communities and caused a lot of migration. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 13:27:07 +0100 From: Diane Severson Subject: [*FSF-L*] Handmaid's Tale (Atwood) To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU From Dave: > When I read the book at first publication I thought that it was well > written, but its power was drained away by its implausibility. There > was no convincing explanation in the novel (for me anyway) of how the > fundamentalists had managed to take power. Maybe I'm not much of a stickler for realism. Her explanation of how the fundamentalists came into power seemed plausible enough to me. And after the recent events (although they are not really similar), even more so. I don't think it would be terribly hard to disable a government and effect a coup. Especially if the coup came from within. But the way Atwood presents the situation and bit by bit reveals how it came to pass is what I find so brilliant about the book. I couldn't believe that anything like that could really take place in the US but I read on, it took on more and more horrifying plausibility. From Joy: > My memories of the Handmaid's Tale right now,however, are of its > consonance with my deepest fears about the present war, which are not > fears of foreign terrorism but of fears of a decided right wing drift > in our own country. Yes, my sentiments exactly! I don't really believe that it will happen, I hope that we are too far along for that, but if we don't pay attention and become complacent, I think it *could* happen. Isn't it interesting that a book that was written 20 years ago can have such relevance today? Speaks for the truth of what she wrote about. Diane Currently Reading: The Fellowship of the Rings, JRR Tolkein; White Teeth, Zadie Smith. Recently Read: Harry Potter #1 4/5; The Red Tent, Anita Diamant 4+/5; All the Weyrs of Pern, Anne McCaffrey 3+/5; The Renegade's of Pern, Anne McCaffrey 3/5. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 09:01:37 -0600 From: Deborah Oosterhouse Organization: Editorial Services Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I have been reading *The Handmaid's Tale* for the second time, and shortly after Diane sent out her original message inviting us to begin the discussion, I read chapter 28, in which She (I don't like to call her by her "handmaid" name and she never gives her real one) talks about how the fundamentalists came into power. The whole way in which it happened struck me far more than it did the first time that I read it, because of the recent events. On p. 225 of my paperback edition, She says that "they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time." I think that's one of the things that I find most troubling about the way our world is shaping up at this time, that it really would be easy enough for someone within our own country to carry out something like this and blame it on someone from the outside and no one (or very few anyway) would question it. Already there are polls asking questions about national ID cards and setting up interment camps, and quite a few of those polled already think such things are a good idea -- as if those are really effective means of keeping us "secure" (whatever that means). I do like to think that we're not yet at the point where there would be no outcry if the Constitution were suspended, and we haven't yet gotten rid of paper money so anyone who would be in a position to make these events reality wouldn't have that advantage. I would also like to express my agreement with Marilyn and Nuria on the subject of capitalism and women's power. Yes, I think that women have been able to take advantage of being able to work and make their own money and not HAVE to find a man to support them, etc. But I don't feel that it has anything to do with women being valuable as people, but only as consumers. I also agree with Gwen's statements about Atwood writing abilities -- absolute beautiful!! Yes, you can definitely tell that Atwood is a poet. Even her prose has a strong sense of rhythm, of movement that is just stunning. Deborah ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 13:01:01 EST From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood/Afghanistan To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In a message dated 11/7/01 5:25:24 AM Central Standard Time, lesleyah@PRIMEX.CO.UK writes: << One other thing I forgot to mention about things I was told about the chador while I was in Afghanistan in 78 (this one I think by an anthropologist working there) - that in most rural communities/villages the women didn't have to wear it in the normal course of events because everyone in the community was of a sufficiently close degree of kinship that they didn't need to - there were no 'strangers' to conceal themselves from. This changed if the family moved to a larger conurbation. This probably doesn't apply in contemporary Afghanistan - apart from anything else presumably the years of upheaval have broken up communities and caused a lot of migration. Lesley Hall >> Actually, I read recently in a newsarticle that when militants from Pakistan started to pour into Afghanistan recently, and also some were blocking off the silk road route, that women in nearby communities complained because the presence of strangers was making them uncomfortable. Whether that meant they were or were not wearing the chador (or burqa,which is more encompassing than the chador, especially around the face) ordinarily, I can't say. In Elliot's book he mentions seeing women walking in burqas in remote villages, but they were on the roads, which are traveled by outsiders, so that could be distinct from other places more off the beaten path.-Joy Martin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 13:01:05 EST From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In a message dated 11/6/01 2:09:50 PM Central Standard Time, fbaer@WESTED.ORG writes: << http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/magazine/28LIVES.html?pagewanted=print October 28, 2001 A Novelist Remembers When Afghanistan Was at Peace >> Thanks for sending the complete article. It puts things in quite a different light from the original reference.-Joy Martin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 14:40:39 +1100 From: Maire Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU AS I remember from reading the book, and I really apologise if someone has mentioend this, as I have about 15 emails to catch up on, in Handmaid the reason that the fundamentalists had got enough popualr support to gain power, was because there was a great problem with fertility, declining borth rights and so on... now, I for one, can *very* easily imagine, in such a situation, the tides of public feeling turning against career women, female students etc- for capering about in men's business when they should be attending to the crucial business of baby making. I mean, there are people who feel that way now. I have just finished Darwin'e radio by Greg Bear, and one of the underlying issues of the book is how far we could go in removing civil liberties in order to when reproduction becomes a threat- going so far, step by step, as to order quarantine for pregnant women etc (basically due to a virus infecting pregnant women, and the resulting babies being considered public health risk- you have to read the book)As I recall there was a lot of talk of quarantine when AIDS frenzy was at its height. ANyway- must end and catch up with all the other emails, sorry for the lack of full-stops Maire Hard SF- Nov discussion "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 14:53:16 +1100 From: Maire Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Just a comment on the AFghanistan thing- IIRC, the freedom of women to be educated, have careers, freedom of their own lives to shop, socialise, drive etc, was a pretty short thing in Afghanistan. I can *not* remember the time frame, but basically, I think an "anti-taliban" came in some decades previously, and sort of semi-forcibly emancipated women- I particuraly remember accounts of older women who were absolutely shamed and crying that the burqua was being outlawed etc etc- you have to understand that this was a religios thing. As I think about it- I am beginning to think that I am getting this history confused with another country altogether- Saudi? sorry! I read so much in a short period. Whichever country it was... or, sorry, perhaps a different one altogether- tehre was a movement from teh young, educated women in particular, in the past decade, to return to burqua etc etc. A huge fundamentalist movement- from woman as well. the ratinale being that Islam does respect and have a place for women, hard for westerners to understand etc etc. Which I agree with. Its just that Islam- as it is written- is *invariably* misinterpreted. I would like to see some discussion about the woman that Offred (name right?) lived with- the "Wife". What must she have been feeling? Obviuosly the sex scenes were horribly humilating for al concerned, I for one think perhaps that went to far... it seems to me very hard to enforce. I mean, when you have three people in a room, none of whom want to do something, surely it wont happen? Not sure. Or was the thought of an infant enough to make this woman go through these indignities? Anyway.. I certialy think that what Atwood has proposed could happen- but I dont think it *will*. But oppression does take all sorts of insidious forms. Personaly, I agree with Naomi Wolfe (sp?) about teh Beauty Myth.. women going to extremem measures to be beautiful, plus, women now work, but also bear the brunt of housework and childrearing as well. Women are free... free to work like ..hell. Maire Hard SF- Nov discussion "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 14:56:30 +1100 From: Maire Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU sorry- replace all burqua with chador in my post, I couldnt remember the correct name, but now think its chador (embrassed cringe) maire Hard SF- Nov discussion "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 15:03:57 +1100 From: Maire Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU I read a brilliant autoboagraphy by ...sorry, prety sure a pakistani women? no..cant remember, sorry! Anyway, she was married to a very prominent politican who used to beat her- condoned of course by society on the basis of the KOran statement "when your wife displease you, first leave her bed..dadada.... the last being then beat her with teh force of a bird's wing" (sorry,my words, but very close) So of course this is used to justify widespread bashing and abuse. Anyway, this woman documents an incident in a family her family is friends with- the man's adult daughter was accused o f some shameful behaviour- and locked up in a room for the rest of her life!!! A young woman at the time- she went slowly mad, although she died young, in her 30's, she did spend over a decade in that room, with no human contact. I think it was saudi or Afghanistan now..if anyone is interested I will find out, or maybe someone knows) Anyway, I think this must be one of th most horrific tales I have heard. Yet quite the norm, quite the norm. A "family matter". Maire Hard SF- Nov discussion "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 22:56:04 -0800 From: Sandy Cronin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU > Anyway, this woman documents an incident in a > family her family is friends with- the man's adult daughter was accused o f > some shameful behaviour- and locked up in a room for the rest of her life!!! > A young woman at the time- she went slowly mad, although she died young, in > her 30's, she did spend over a decade in that room, with no human contact. This has been one of my nightmares ever since I read the Yellow Wallpaper in college. *shudder*. -Sandy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 08:16:04 -0600 From: Deborah Oosterhouse Organization: Editorial Services Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Maire wrote: > > I would like to see some discussion about the woman that Offred (name right?) > lived with- the "Wife". What must she have been feeling? There is some mention in *The Handmaid's Tale* about Serena Joy. The Handmaid remembers her as a televangelist from former times whose main line was that women should be at home having babies and taking care of their men. The Handmaid's reaction to realizing who the Wife is (p. 61 of my paperback edition) is "She doesn't make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn't seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word." My feeling about the whole thing is a kind of "be careful what you wish (or in this case preach) for" -- be careful about towing the line of the societal or religious attitudes around you, especially when you yourself step out of those boundaries. Rather reminds me of Dr. Laura: a career woman who says that the best place for women to be is home taking care of their families. > Obviuosly the sex scenes were horribly humilating for al concerned, I for one > think perhaps that went to far... it seems to me very hard to enforce. I mean, > when you have three people in a room, none of whom want to do something, > surely it wont happen? Not sure. Or was the thought of an infant enough to > make this woman go through these indignities? I think if all that you have been left with is the hope of taking care of a baby -- the only thing that will fill up the empty spaces in your life -- then it DOES become important enough to go through these indignities. At least when it was all done, the Wives had their babies (provided they weren't "shredders"), but the Handmaids simply went to another house and lived through the same emptiness and isolation as before. > Anyway.. I certialy think that what Atwood has proposed could happen- but I > dont think it *will*. But oppression does take all sorts of insidious forms. > Personaly, I agree with Naomi Wolfe (sp?) about teh Beauty Myth.. women going > to extremem measures to be beautiful, plus, women now work, but also bear the > brunt of housework and childrearing as well. Women are free... free to work > like ..hell. > Maire Yeah, definitely a different notion of "freedom". I'm not sure anyone can be considered truly free in a system under which you MUST work, often at a job that you don't care for, simply to survive, to have a roof over your head and food and clothing. Deborah ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 12:58:13 EST From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In a message dated 11/8/01 10:04:41 PM Central Standard Time, mairen@BIGPOND.COM writes: << I read a brilliant autoboagraphy >> Does anyone know who the author was? <> in Western history of course the rule, similar, was you could beat your wife with a stick no bigger than your thumb..anyway, both the smallness of the bird's wing force and the smaller size of the stick were probably considered reforms at the time, as opposed to beating your wife with the force of your fists, or a much bigger stick. And we all know that men are still beating their wives with more viciousness than those long ago "reforms" would have it. Both in the West and in the East. It's only been in the last 20-30 years in the US (since the second wave of feminism) that wifebeating has been treated seriously at all by the powers that be here. Til then it was a 'private family matter', although looked at askance, of course, by people who wanted to pretend nice folks didn't do that sort of thing. <> actually several rulers in the near past in the Middle East have tried to impose Western modernization by pushing removal of the veil etc. In Iran, people hated the attempts by the police who went around pulling veils off women. In Afghanistan, a modernizing king had his own wife appear before tribal leaders without her veil, and so affronted them that his regime was doomed, despite many positive aspects. Attempts to modernize which do not take into account the real concerns of everyday people are usually a mess. Sometimes they are also an excuse for terrorizing certain segments of society. Looked at from womens' points of view, the traditional dress is probably one of the least of the problems they want addressed (or, not viewed as a problem at all). I was just reading in the Elliot book (An Unexpected Light) about interviews he went on with a Dutch woman, with women in Herat, where the Taliban were practically given the city in order to avoid bloodshed. The Taliban didn't expect to win there so soon. (It's interesting. You read a lot of these stories, where opposition forces backed off, in order to avoid destroying a city. OTOH, since then, you read about terribly vicious reprisals. Apparently as it became clear there was a real civil war going on.) They began their edicts, and women were very upset, because they couldn't go out and do the normal things they needed to do to take care of their families. These were all women who probably wore traditional clothing. It didn't stop them from taking an active life in the community and the support of their families. <> no need for embarrassment. Some wear burquas, some chadors, some only head scarves, some tribal peoples probably wear none of the above. It depends on the country, the tribe, the section of country. But your points are understood in any case. Nobody should be embarrassed about trying to learn about something they haven't encountered before. Best, Joy Martin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 20:31:07 -0000 From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU >in Western history of course the rule, similar, was you could beat your wife >with a stick no bigger than your thumb I understand that this is one of those persistent historical myths and not something anyone has ever found in legal textbooks, judges' rulings, etc Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 18:40:58 EST From: Marilyn Gibson Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Maire, This stance seems unconscionable given the following information: Marilyn www.hangingbyastring.com The environmental outlook for our planet is bleak if we cannot control mushrooming birthrates, according to the United Nation's annual "State of the World Population" report, released today. The study predicts that world population could grow from 6.1 billion to as many as 10.9 billion people by mid-century, unless dramatic gains are made in women's education, health care, and access to birth control. All the projected growth would occur in developing nations, creating widespread poverty and environmental degradation. The report takes the developed world to task for failing to adequately bankroll measures designed to curb world population growth, and cautions that humanity could be on a "collision course" with the environment. straight to the source: BBC News, Alex Kirby, 07 Nov 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1640000/1640890.stm straight to the source: Arizona Republic, Associated Press, 07 Nov 2001 http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/breaking/1107Worldpopulation07-ON.html only in Grist: The deep six -- the day the planet's population reached six billion -- by Donella Meadows http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen101299.stm?source=weekly ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 19:04:33 EST From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In a message dated 11/9/01 2:53:43 PM Central Standard Time, lesleyah@PRIMEX.CO.UK writes: << I understand that this is one of those persistent historical myths and not something anyone has ever found in legal textbooks, judges' rulings, etc >> Hmm, I'll have to look out for the sources I've found it under. But I don't think it would be legal sources, as such. What's the source for it as a "persistent historical myth"?-Joy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 19:25:29 EST From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In a message dated 11/9/01 2:53:43 PM Central Standard Time, - writes: << >in Western history of course the rule, similar, was you could beat your >wife with a stick no bigger than your thumb I understand that this is one of those persistent historical myths and not something anyone has ever found in legal textbooks, judges' rulings >> Just now, with a little checking on google what I found was this: a long article talking about how the phrase 'rule of thumb' had been turned into a feminist myth, by the association with 'unproved' legal precedent. The article continues on about how it's always been against the law -or, for a long time- in the West to beat your wife. A. 'rule of thumb' is a phrase I use a lot; it has nothing to do with the aforesaid beating your wife idea, except apparently that some people - on various sides of the political spectrum- have muddied the waters by acting as if the issue was the phrase 'rule of thumb'. Furthermore, the article had links to a nice little propatriarchy site. And whether wifebeating was against the law or not isn't the point, but that against the law or not, it has been treated as a private matter. Secondly, further searches pulled up information that no, it wasn't a law, but it was used in legal precedents (mostly to decry the precedents). But there are historical connections found in various sorts of literature, back well before the second wave of feminism. So, not to beat a dead horse (another phrase we could probably make much of), I'd still like to keep looking for where the sources are I've heard it used, but the main point to be remembered is: it's only in recent history (within my adult lifetime) that any effective response to wifebeating through official channels has taken place in the West, and that only because of persistent feminist organizing. Thus, it's not surprising to also find it's common elsewhere in the world than in the West. -Joy Martin ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 17:54:33 +1100 From: Maire Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Lesley, I am pretty sure that in fact it was written into the law, in 15 C England, give or take a few centuries, IIRC my 1st year criminal law Maire Hard SF- Nov discussion "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 17:56:41 +1100 From: Maire Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU ALl true Marilyn, yet I am suprised its only the deve,oping world getting it- since US and other developed nations use far more greeenhouse gas, non-renewable resources etc per capita From the developing countries POV, we already stuffed up our environment and reaped the huge economic gains and power, why shouldnt they be given the chance just because we dont wnat them to? Maire Hard SF- Nov discussion "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear > -----Original Message----- > From: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC > [mailto:feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU]On Behalf Of Marilyn Gibson > Sent: Saturday, 10 November 2001 10:41 AM > To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood > > Maire, > This stance seems unconscionable given the following information: > Marilyn > www.hangingbyastring.com > > The environmental outlook for our planet is bleak if we cannot > control mushrooming birthrates, according to the United Nation's > > annual "State of the World Population" report, released > today. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 14:25:46 -0000 From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU >article talking about how the phrase 'rule of thumb' had been turned into a >feminist myth, by the association with 'unproved' legal precedent. It's more than a 'feminist myth' - this was a persistent popular belief a long time before 'the second wave'. I'll try and dig up my copy of the standard study of the Victorian campaigns against matrimonial cruelty (Maeve Doggett, _Marriage, Wife-beating and the Law in Victorian England_, 1993) and see if it was cited by them. I think what's happening here (as you point out) is that something that was more or less outwith legal attention is being restated _as if_ there were actual legislation ( I can't help thinking of the persistent myth about Queen Victoria striking lesbianism out of the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1885 - no way was it ever going to be included in the Act). However, I should add that as just mentioned, there were major C19th campaigns against wife-beating, and also, it was grounds for legal separation (though not divorce, except in combination with adultery) in the UK, _well_ before 2nd wave feminism (like at least 100 years). I'm pretty sure there were discussions on the 'rule of thumb' on either the Victorian studies or H-Albion list within the last couple of years, but haven't kept the refs. Lesley Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 15:43:53 +0100 From: Torreif Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Friday, November 09, 2001, 9:31:07 PM, Lesley Hall wrote: >>in Western history of course the rule, similar, was you could beat >>your wife with a stick no bigger than your thumb LH> I understand that this is one of those persistent historical myths and not LH> something anyone has ever found in legal textbooks, judges' rulings, etc LH> Lesley Hall It was part of British Common Law and is pretty well documented by historians. -- Wildbird mailto:torreif@yahoo.co.uk "You know, if you're considering having sex, Emily, you should make sure that they're properly educated. Otherwise you could hurt them severely, honey." Susan: Alien Nation, Body and Soul Owner/Moderator of: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MoonShield_WingSisters http://groups.yahoo.com/group/magevale ICQ: 82980723 Authorization required OutVale Wizard for MageVale MUSH, an adult kink-friendly role play MUSH Telnet:MageVale.mudservices.com:3333 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 14:53:06 -0000 From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] 'rule of thumb' To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Actually derives from 'the use by many craftsmen of the thumb as a rough measuring device'. Useful citation about: (quote) 'the false etymology spawned by a handful of jurists to justify wife-beating (as long as the stick was no larger in diameter than the husband's thumb), see Henry Ansgar Kelly's article "'Rule of Thumb' and the Folklaw of the Husband's Stick" in the _Journal of Legal Education_(Sept. 1994).' (I find 'folk-law/lore' - what people believe, wrongly, to be the law, a very interesting subject. However, this all seems to be getting a bit remote for an 'on-topic' group?) Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 10:02:09 EST From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In a message dated 11/10/01 8:29:31 AM Central Standard Time, lesleyah@PRIMEX.CO.UK writes: << However, I should add that as just mentioned, there were major C19th campaigns against wife-beating, and also, it was grounds for legal separation (though not divorce, except in combination with adultery) in the UK, _well_ before 2nd wave feminism (like at least 100 years). >> I'd never want to discount the efforts of the first wave. And perhaps this is another forinstance of how feminism reaches peaks, then valleys, since the first wave didn't end wifebeating (and neither has the second wave, yet,though legal remedies and police and court response have improved).-Joy Martin ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 11:26:31 EST From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In a message dated 11/10/01 8:28:57 AM Central Standard Time, lesleyah@primex.co.uk writes: <> Yes, no doubt we are ranging a bit afield. Apparently because I made a comparison between the Koran citation - beating with the force of a bird's wing- and the common-law notion of only beating your wife with a thumbswidth stick. Whether this is in the lawbooks, or was an expression of common practice, mattered little to the point I was making. <> Del Martin's overview says "[in England] the law [in the 1880s] was changed to allow a wife who had been habitually beaten by her husband to the point of 'endangering her life' to separate from him, though not to divorce him." She goes on to write, "Also, a law was passed in 1885 prohibiting a British husband from selling his wife or daughter into prostitution - but only if she was under 16 years old. In 1891, special legislation was passed preventing a husband from keeping his wife under lock and key. Since then the trend in England has been toward making wife-beating a crime. But...the application of the law is another matter." So, to state the obvious, there's been progress in 100 years, but the popular conception of legal rights looks to me to be, if anything, more generous then the actual law provided at the time.- Joy Martin ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 16:51:43 -0000 From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU >stick. Whether this is in the lawbooks, or was an expression of common >practice, mattered little to the point I was making. I really don't want to prolong this debate. As a historian I tend to pick up on the historical equivalent of 'urban myths' when I come across them. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 20:15:07 +1100 From: Julieanne Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU At 05:56 PM 10/11/01 +1100, Maire wrote: >ALl true Marilyn, yet I am suprised its only the deve,oping world getting >it- since US and other developed nations use far more greeenhouse gas, >non-renewable resources etc per capita >From the developing countries POV, we already stuffed up our environment and >reaped the huge economic gains and power, why shouldnt they be given the >chance just because we dont wnat them to? Yes, it is very racist - its not population that's the problem, its over-consumption and wastage. A Western family of 4 consumes about 250 times more electricity, food, water etc (and most of that is wasted, or unneccessary) than an African family of 12. So who is over-populated? And who forces developing world peoples to stop growing food for themselves and grow cash-crops like coffee, just so we can sit in our cafes and enjoy unlimited free refills with our bagels & hash browns? And what is the biggest health problem in the Western world? Obesity, diabetes and heart-disease. Besides, lowering birth-rates will have absolutely no impact for decades - meanwhile the richer countries will have continued to decimate whatever remains through over-consumption and wastage. You should read 'Sex & Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility" - particularly the chapter on "The OverPopulation Myth" - which documents how the 'population time-bomb' mythology from the 60s onwards was brought to you by the multinationals which also brought us styrofoam disposable cups and packaging, and is designed to blame all those brown, black and yellow babies for being born....(who don't eat much, nor do they turn on air-conditioning anytime they feel like it etc) and allowing us to not feel guilty, change our own consumption patterns, or take any responsibility for the policies which brought us here in the first place... J ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 20:38:42 -0600 From: Deborah Oosterhouse Organization: Editorial Services Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Atwood To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Julieanne wrote: > Yes, it is very racist - its not population that's the problem, its > over-consumption and wastage. A Western family of 4 consumes about 250 times > more electricity, food, water etc (and most of that is wasted, or unneccessary) > than an African family of 12. So who is over-populated? And who forces > developing world peoples to stop growing food for themselves and grow > cash-crops like coffee, just so we can sit in our cafes and enjoy unlimited > free refills with our bagels & hash browns? And what is the biggest health > problem in the Western world? Obesity, diabetes and heart-disease. Hmmm, I'm not sure that over-population itself isn't the problem. I think it's more that people in industrialized nations believe it's only a "third-world" problem that doesn't affect them because they have their advanced farming techniques to provide enough food, their advanced building techniques to provide enough housing, their various forms of entertainment to keep everybody happy (or at least distracted). I think you touch on this idea a bit with the ideas of getting people in less technologically developed nations to produce our convenience foods and that the major health problems of the Western world are those related to distraction -- eat three big meals and countless snacks in a day so you will feel prosperous and superior and not think about living in a society where many people don't know the people who live around them, even within a few houses away. > Besides, lowering birth-rates will have absolutely no impact for decades - > meanwhile the richer countries will have continued to decimate whatever remains > through over-consumption and wastage. You should read 'Sex & Destiny: The > Politics of Human Fertility" - particularly the chapter on "The OverPopulation > Myth" - which documents how the 'population time-bomb' mythology from the 60s > onwards was brought to you by the multinationals which also brought us > styrofoam disposable cups and packaging, and is designed to blame all those > brown, black and yellow babies for being born....(who don't eat much, nor do > they turn on air-conditioning anytime they feel like it etc) and allowing us > to not feel guilty, change our own consumption patterns, or take any > responsibility for the policies which brought us here in the first place... However, I don't think that lowering birth rates should be dismissed simply because we won't see immediate effects. The sooner it starts, the sooner the results will be felt. But it shouldn't be concentrated in developing countries, but more in the industrialized nations who are relying too much on technology to save them from their own bad policies. This book that you mention sounds like an interesting one -- I'll have to check for that at the library. I'm sure the way that Western multinationals would approach the issue, it would come out as overwhelmingly racist. After all, they don't want to decrease the population in the countries where people actually buy their stuff. Deborah