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THE W EFFECT:
Bush's War on Women
Laura Flanders, ed.

review by lua preta
12.05.04

"AN ARCH-DESPOT WHO NO AUDIT DREADS rules by his own rough will." -Aeschylus

I wonder if all US presidents-be they elected or installed-should be tasked with writing their own obituary. Take the late President Ronald Reagan, pomaded Hollywood icon of the New Right and broker to that made-by-Machiavelli marriage between the GOP and Christian fundamentalism. (Niiiiice. But wait a minute: Which one gets to be the girl?) Seems to me that he should've written his own obituary, damn it, instead of leaving it to the amateurs, i.e., the corporate media. I'd be intrigued to read Reagan's account of what some of us remember as one of the most dangerous presidencies in US history. Curious to see how closely the final entry in his own cowboy diaries would measure up against the zealous, fawning and ahistorical eulogy that gushed-practically oozed-ad nauseum from most airwaves this summer. Some days it was all I could do not to shower afterwards.

Overall, I was shocked, strangely enough, by the Media's open contempt of history. Does no one remember the wonder and surprise of supply-side economics and the capital-D deficit? The Reagan administration's essentially murderous "response" to the AIDS crisis? (On a good day: Ignore it.) What about our former president's paranoid delusions involving a conspiracy of welfare queens single-handedly keeping Cadillac in the black? Iran-Contra ring any bells? (Even I remember that, sans Google, for crying out loud, and I was just a latch-key sixth grader crushing-and I mean crushing hard-on Brian Pothier when the sun set on Reagan's empire.)

Strangely enough, I half-suspect that Reagan himself would have echoed at least some of my dissent. Really. Surely he'd be mightily disappointed-bewildered, even-by what the Media outlawed from the altar of his presidential memory in the rush to grant him the dubious honor of "greatest president of the 20th century." True, it's not as if brilliant plans like trading arms for hostages grow on trees. (Oh yeah, right, like you would've guessed what the hostage-takers would do the next time they wanted bigger and badder guns.) Or diverting funds from these same arms deals to surreptitiously invade tiny Central American countries; train an illegal paramilitary force to overthrow their own government; bill it an "indigenous uprising" even as the Contras slaughter hundreds, possibly thousands, of their own people; and then, after it becomes evident that staging a people's revolution is sort of harder than it looks, send in your own CIA operatives to blow up bridges and such. Here's where Ronnie and I part ways. For me, this is one of many points of outrage deliberately obscured from his record. For him, this is just another battle in the Cold War and so a point of honor (they were Commies, for chrissakes), a row of stars savagely ripped from his shoulder. Imagine Reagan spinning, demanding his heirs avenge his blood and restore his full legacy as the ancients would. Imagine that.

Let's turn now to Reagan's heir apparent George II, as it seems George I is only the displaced presumptive. Note how well the former both models (gotta love those arrogant and illegal wars) and exceeds (but fuck hiding them) his father figure as any fortunate son must. What would he choose to record-and discard-for the annals of history were he to write his own goodnight letters? Certainly his burden matches Reagan's, probably surpasses it-lord knows he's been busy. Lucky for Bush, many sharp-eyed journalists, activists and other outraged citizens of the world are dutifully taking notes, compiling an exhaustive audit of all his greatest hits. For a sneak peek, pick up The W Effect: Bush's War on Women, a startling and agitating (in more ways than one) collection from the Feminist Press.

Perhaps belied by the book's goofy and alienating cover (dude, where all the women of color at?), the W effect-that is, Bush saying he's doing one thing for women when he's actually doing another-is deadly serious. Edited by media warrior and Bushwomen author Laura Flanders, The W Effect is a damning indictment of the Bush administration's sometimes furtive, usually shameless and utterly systematic assault on women's human rights and its dangerous ripple effect: Policies designed to pilfer women's human rights endanger not only the world's majority (as contributor Lesley Abdela notes, "fifty-five percent of Iraqis are women") but each and every one of us. To paraphrase-hell-to correct Protagoras: Woman is the measure.

In her sly introduction, "Feigning Feminism, Fueling Backlash," Flanders broadly plots Dubya's offensive, borrowing Richard Goldstein's handle "stealth misogyny" to name the somewhat nebulous phenomenon. She recalls Bush's stump promise that his "W is for women," an evolving soundbite loudly deployed after 9/11 when, in his "drive to war," Bush suddenly embraced the cause of liberating Afghan woman. (Clearly, if Bush ever expresses any interest in liberating you, run; do not walk.) Of course, this rhetorical tactic is not only disingenuous, but a time-tested strategy of old imperialists. Writing of France's desperate attempts to subdue a revolting Algeria through its veiled women, liberation theorist Frantz Fanon observed, "It was the situation of woman that was accordingly taken as the theme of action." But in this sitting president's case, what was soon unveiled were, in effect, Bush values, revealed in The W Effect to be "against taxes, environmental restrictions, workplace regulations, and pretty much any function of government outside of policing and the military-and socially controlling." In lurid detail, nearly 60 contributing writers-including anonymous girl blogger Riverbend, legal scholar Patricia J. Williams, journalist Naomi Klein, ecowarrior Vandana Shiva, novelist Ahdaf Soueif and more-document the W effect in many of its guises, from the obvious to the more characteristic stealth variety.

From the welfare office to the bedroom, from Ground Zero to Gitmo, from Baghdad to the overflowing women's shelters serving your local military base, these writers have got news for you, Dubya: The fucking heist is up.

Although the collection is strong overall, certain editorial choices raise critical questions; a few are just plain offensive. For example, in The W Effect the world's women seem oddly split into two major encampments: women of West Asia and white US women. There are exceptions, but the lingering impression is that they are just that. This odd bifurcation struck me to be part-and-parcel with Flanders' editorial focus, fixated largely on reproductive rights (and, more narrowly, abortion rights) and the US wars on Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. Several of the anthology's eight sections are of dubious utility-the logic of "Winner Takes All" frankly eludes me altogether, and the articles gathered under "World" seem sadly orphaned there. I was particularly startled by the opening selection to "War," an interview with Women for Afghan Women program director Masuda Sultan by Phoebe St. John that is offensively naive, painfully oversimplified and radically tokenizing-it's inane to ask one Afghan woman to speak for all Afghan women (literally), never mind an American woman of Afghan descent. The interview's tone is also heavy-handed, leading, even patronizing, as suggested by desired answers posed as questions, such as, "Tell us a bit about yourself. You're Afghan?" Here and elsewhere, a strong whiff of "well meaning" tokenization plagues the collection.

On the other hand, many gems await readers in "Weddings, Wombs, and Whoopee," "Wages and Well-Being" and, especially, "Winning Hearts and Minds"; these sections comprise the collection's backbone and, by and large, make up for its initial false starts, political shortcomings and fragmented logic. Reproductive justice, for example, is momentarily broadened from abortion rights to reproductive self-determination in an excellent interview with veteran activist/scholar Dorothy Roberts. And there is some welcome and overdue reporting on the less high-profile but still devastating W effects on Title IX, poor GLBT folks, Native American military families, the contemporary AIDS crisis and more. Maria Raha's "Veiled Intentions: The U.S. Media's Hug and Run Affair with Afghan Women" sharply counterbalances the bizarre Sultan interview, and Amber Hollibaugh's "Queers Without Money: They Are Everywhere, but We Refuse to See Them" is brave and illuminating. In the spirit of Nina J. Easton's brilliant and risky "The Power and the Glory: Who Needs the Christian Coalition When You've Got the White House?," much of The W Effect delivers what's promised: a decent political education. Just be sure not to stop there.

In her unbeholden essay "Whatever Happened to the Gender Gap?," Jennifer L. Pozner asks: "What are we going to do about this, today?" You can start by taking The W Effect with you to gatherings of the uninitiated who demand you produce Bush's rap sheet on site. Share this collection, let them decide for themselves and keep watch. For a war is being waged against us here on Planet W, a stealth war, and the stakes couldn't be higher.

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