Naomi Wolf Is Enraptured With Jordan, The Country

Naomi Wolf in enamored with Jordanian feminism.

She writes:

...the faces of Muslim feminism I encountered in recent travels -- notably in Jordan, a country fascinatingly poised between tradition and innovation, developing under a forward-looking monarchy that is seeking to modernize and, to an extent, democratize. For those Westerners who worry about Islamic fundamentalism in the Arab world, surely Jordan is a worthy model to understand, support, and engage.

The women leaders I met in Amman were not saying, "Please tell the West to save us." They were too busy making egalitarian, modernist new worlds of their own, with an Arab, and often Islamic, imprimatur.

...my attention [was directed] to Jordanian-made films about the subordination of women inside the home, and to Rana Husseini's powerful book on honor killings, Murder in the Name of Honor . But her implicit message was that these critical examinations of women's inequality in the Arab world are most enlightening when they are created by women's advocates from within that culture, rather than sensationalized or superficial versions of the problem created in the West.

...there is Rana Husseini herself -- a role model for investigative reporters everywhere who began documenting and investigating honor killings in her newspaper, The Jordan Times . Honor killings claim an estimated 5,000 women every year, and are increasingly common in immigrant communities abroad. According to her account, a woman can be killed for "laughing at a joke in the street, wearing makeup or a short skirt...or being raped by a brother."

After she began her series of reports, Husseini received death threats at her office almost daily - as well as hundreds of letters of support from readers. As a result of her brave investigations, which included interviews in prisons, many Muslim countries are revising their criminal codes, and the issue has taken center stage internationally.

These women are exactly the kind of leaders that everyone should be cultivating and supporting, rather than overlooking because of a belief that they cannot exist in the Middle East. We would do better to find out more about them than to waste our time on superficial debates about how they -- and many others who are just as accomplished -- should dress.

Yep, Jordan is such a great place for feminists:

Sept. 30, 2009 -

AMMAN - Criminal Prosecutor Tareq Shqeirat on Thursday charged three men with complicity in premeditated murder charges in connection with stabbing to death their older divorced sister a day earlier for reasons reportedly related to family honour, official sources said.

The three men, aged between 20 and 26, allegedly stabbed their sister, then set the house afire after her children went to school on Monday, one senior official told The Jordan Times...

...Shqeirat questioned the three brothers, one of whom reportedly confessed to “plotting to murder his sister with the help of his two brothers because she had a bad reputation”.

The suspect said the victim was divorced in 2003 and that “the family had asked her repeatedly to move out of their building”, said a second source quoting the suspect’s initial testimony.

“The victim refused to move out so they decided to kill her and cleanse their family’s honour, according to the suspect’s claims,” the source told The Jordan Times.

Sep 9, 2009 -

AMMAN — A Jordanian youth was charged with premeditated murder on Wednesday after allegedly stabbing to death his divorced teenaged sister because she "knew many men," police said.

The suspect, 18, "stabbed to death his 17-year-old divorced sister with a kitchen knife because he claimed she beat their mother and that she was mean and knew many men," a police spokesman told AFP.

"Police arrested him and he confessed to the crime," in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba.

Murder is punishable by the death penalty in Jordan, but in the case of so-called "honour killings," a court usually commutes or reduces sentences, particularly if the victim's family urges leniency.

On Tuesday, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Jordan to reform its penal code, which it says condones the murder of women as "honour crimes." In the past, parliament has refused to institute harsher penalties.

Around 15-20 women are murdered each year in Jordan in the name of honour, despite government efforts to fight such crimes. So far this year, there have been 15 reported.

And this -

On August 12, the Jordan Times reported the 14th such killing this year, of a 16-year-old girl by her 39-year-old uncle to "cleanse his family's honor." He shot the girl after learning that his sons had raped her and that she had a child by one of them. Under Jordanian law, murder of a relative believed to be engaged in extramarital sex carries a reduced sentence.