Rana's War - Women's War?

Rana Husseini at her desk at The Jordan Times. Photo courtesy of Alasdair Soussi.

We are fortunate that women are not in exactly the same situation as those in Middle Eastern countries - but we must continue, in this fourth wave of feminism, to fight for our rights as citizens, not as chattel, or property.


Rana's War

“An incident [in 1994] involving a 16-year-old girl, shocked me the most,” says Husseini, speaking of the story that sparked off her initial interest. “It was the beginning of my career, and I covered this story which involved the death of this girl at the hands of her 31-year-old brother. She was killed because she was raped by her other 21-year-old brother, who put sleeping pills in her tea before carrying out the rape, threatening to kill her if she told her family. But she became pregnant, so she had to tell. So, he tried to kill her and she survived, but underwent an abortion. Later on, she was married off to a man 50 years older than her, but that only lasted six months. And on the day he divorced her, she was killed by her brother, to cleanse the family name.”

“When I went to talk to her uncles who plotted the murder, I asked them why they helped to kill her if she was raped and why they punished her. And they said she seduced her brother to sleep with him. Then I asked them why she would want to sleep with her brother when there were other men on the street, and they began criticizing me for the way I was dressed [Husseini favors western style jeans and T-shirts over more traditional Arab women’s wear], for not being married, and other things of this sort.”

Of course, there is a part of the population in this country who would keep women as chattel...this post from Pam's House Blend - about the feeling of Republican men about the U.S. women's right to vote - illustrates it well.