Gender in Prison Scandal

Re “Feminism Assumptions Upended,” Opinion, May 16: Since when does feminism have anything to do with the abuse of prisoners? The fact that three out of the seven prison guards at Abu Ghraib who engaged in abuse of prisoners were women is no reflection of gender equality. Barbara Ehrenreich states that “a certain kind of feminism’s” assumption is that women are morally superior to men. That is ridiculous.

Morality has nothing to do with gender. Male or female, a person who engages in abuse of others obviously has severe emotional deficits that should have prevented him or her from being in the military in the first place. Feminism is about gender equality, as in rights, responsibilities and obligations; it’s not about morality. Morality is an entirely different issue.

Melinda Trotter

Glendora

*

Ehrenreich argues that the women implicated in Abu Ghraib demonstrate the inadequacy of contemporary feminism. Does the position of [national security advisor] Condi Rice and a few female generals demonstrate gender equality? How about the meager number of women legislators in Washington? It’s a bit presumptuous to assert that true gender equality would not further the causes of peace and social justice.

It’s not coincidental that many of the world’s most troubled nations are those with the least respect for women’s rights. Even the Bush administration, an enemy of women’s rights at home, demands gender power sharing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Daniel Sullivan

San Diego

*

Calling upon us, as feminists, to not only “ ... assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them” sounds suspiciously like a proposed gender war. What feminist illusion of moral superiority have we, as women, discarded if we believe we need to “infiltrate and subvert,” rather than integrate, the institutions men created?

Alison Wattles

Manhattan Beach

*

With great respect for Ehrenreich, I am puzzled by her depiction of feminism as a monolithic perspective rather than multiple frameworks that have evolved in the struggle to understand women’s experiences and to act against women’s oppression.

Coming in “waves” from the women’s suffrage movement, to the women’s liberation and civil rights movements in the late 1960s, to a more postmodern view, feminism has long moved past arguments of gender difference and the moral superiority of women. “Third wave” feminism offers the kind of insights for which Ehrenreich calls. In their embracing of historically marginalized peoples, third-wave feminists offer hope of identifying and replacing the power structures that benefit those who have ruled unjustly, whether they are men or women.

Christine Mallon

Orange

*

The Abu Ghraib prison photos broke Ehrenreich’s heart? What of the numerous unwanted pregnancies that are the fairly regular result of women in the military? About a year ago we read about an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf that sent home about 20 pregnant enlisted women.

Now Ehrenreich admits it was not just that women were equal but, in the opinion of some feminists, morally superior. She writes that she was “delighted” that the presence of women in Saudi Arabia “irked their Saudi hosts.” How culturally sensitive of her. What happened to the tyranny of multiculturalism that dictates abject respect for cultures different from our own?

The obvious facts are that men and women are differently constructed and morally equal, given their widely varied nurture and education. Feminists like Ehrenreich are shamelessly naive, so naive that they have done great harm to women. Those young women in Iraq, though equally qualified, should not be there. Their presence complicates the job men are there to do. I remember Jack Nicholson’s line in “A Few Good Men”: “You can’t handle the truth.”

It’s true, too, of all those who express outrage and shock at the still-unexplained perversions that took place at Abu Ghraib. War is a nasty business. It is never undertaken lightly, for obvious reasons. Feminists have done women no favor at all by insisting that they be part of it.

Patricia McCarthy

Burbank

*

Ehrenreich has it right. What happened to feminism is women assimilated into the male culture instead of changing it. What she doesn’t say is how difficult it is to force change when the male culture still has all the power and authority. Not many women are in a financial position to risk their jobs, education or long-fought rise in the corporate world in order to make the necessary changes.

This is the bane of feminism -- the men didn’t want change and didn’t change. Women gave up and went back to their roles as sex objects and gold diggers. Too many, particularly young women, will do anything in their desperate, pathetic attempts to get male attention.

Zelda McKay

Idyllwild