Thanks for the listing of her good works, Funnie.

Interesting point, Polly. It’s required in patriarchy for women to love and revere men, and acceptable in patriarchy for men to love men at all levels (witness the token gay male relationship in Mamma Mia!, among the circles of gal pals all in search of a special man to romance, with no “taboo” lesbian love to be found). Women who put themselves as women and other women first aren’t featured in the public eye, period. The only publicly permissible lesbians are hotties on a male-fantasy model. (Most men would “do” Ellen DeGeneres, or invite her for a three-way.)

Categorize the roles this way the next time you see a movie, watch a TV program, or consider who wins leadership positions.

We have lots of cosmic weaving still to do, not as men do, but as we choose.

Bingo!

http://www.glamour.com/women-of-the-year/2008/condoleezza-rice

Her tenure has been controversial, but the din over the war in Iraq has drawn public attention away from some of her most important work at the State Department: championing the rights and health of women around the world. In June she got the U.N. Security Council to officially recognize rape as a weapon of war. “Rape was always viewed as a circumstance of war,” Rice says, “either hush-hush or not in the category of other crimes against humanity. This is a strong message that yes, it is [a crime].”

Quietly but forcefully, Rice helped to both secure a $50 million presidential initiative to fight sex and labor slavery worldwide and launch the first major women’s health campaign in the Middle East. This year, she started the $100 million One Woman Initiative, a public-private partnership that trains Muslim women for leadership. “The difference she’s made is immeasurable,” says Carly Fiorina, a cochair of One Woman. “She’s a visionary,” agrees Democratic strategist Donna Brazile. “She’s created innovative programs for women to serve in leadership roles, helping them to reform their governments.”

Darfurians still talk about Rice, says Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer. The women Frazer met there marveled that Rice had listened so patiently; what many didn’t know is that she’d gone on to persuade the United States to allocate $15 million for rape centers and other programs to restore their lives. Says Frazer, “The women told me, ‘She is our sister.’”

Rice negatively discusses the violence done to women in conflict & postconflict environments…but she also strongly believes that women in Afghanistan and Iraq have been served by US intervention and war.

Rice also advocates for women’s rights as a reason to put pressure on foreign governments. I don’t disagree with the idea behind that — women’s rights, all human rights, should be an important part of international dialogue and countries should pressure each other to raise the bar — but I am deeply suspicious of it in practice. Women’s rights have been “important” only when castigating a country for failing on that front aligns with US foreign policy and warmaking/”peacekeeping” — period. And it would be one thing if that selective-vision of women’s rights simply meant that progress were uneven, but what it has actually meant is that there IS no progress. And women in fact lose out, time and again.

I, too, am encouraged that she brought up the actions of UN peacekeepers. But then, the administration of which she’s a part has tended to be much more critical of the UN than the US, when it comes to military action, so maybe her critique of the UN isn’t that suprising. Did she mention the woman-abusing habits of the US troops abroad? No.

I don’t think Rice is evil. I think Rice does care about women. And I’m not interested in deriding her for caring about women. But no, I’m also not interested in promoting her initiatives. Rice is wrong, dead wrong, and that matters. So, engaging her (constructively) seems like the way forward for feminists, IMO.

Good for Condi! I think she’s really going to come into her own once she gets out of that creepy White House.