The wrong focus and the right focus -- in the same Sunday NY Times review section!
So you know those women's advocacy groups that kill who-knows-how-many trees to send those alarmist "send us money" letters? Just think what they could accomplish if they spent nearly as much effort on the plight of women around the world as they do on demonizing Republican straw men. But I guess if you really want to rake the money in you have to redefine women's issues as simply issues that affect American women.
Posted by Matt Bruce at June 16, 2008 10:01 AMWhat exactly are the arguments that you consider to be straw men? It's not clear from the links, and I don't want to make the wrong assumptions. To the best of my knowledge, Republicans really do oppose the status quo on abortion rights, so it's not a straw man to point that out, etc. even if you think Democratic women are wrong to consider this a voting issue.
As for the difference in focus, it's an issue of leverage. U.S. women can affect policy in the U.S. through the political process, so they do. You may feel they're making stuff up or treating Republicans unfairly, that's a whole other argument, the point is if that Republicans are doing X that women's group Y think is wrong, they can change it by funding Democrats who promise to do anti-X and getting them elected.
If they want to improve conditions for women in other countries, the only effective way to do that is to exert influence on the U.S. government to act on their behalf. U.S women screamed their heads off about the Taliban mistreatment of women pre-9/11 through media campaigns and non-governmental organizations but it didn't change anything, because the Taliban didn't care and the U.S. government had no influence on the regime. Similarly, Iran. Women's rights are a problem there. What are U.S. women in a position to do to change that? They do publicize issues. I remember Instapundit getting busted making some "their silence is deafening" comments about groups that did, in fact, shout out about issues in other countries back in the day when he was claiming George W. Bush was making strides for women's rights around the world.
Regarding the "right focus," people are capable of dealing with more than one problem at a time. It's good to help rape victims heal. It doesn't follow from that, "give up everything else." If you want to intervene with a government that has rape as a matter of policy, to stop rape from happening in the first place there's little you can do as an NGO to do it. Amnesty International is a rare case for success.
The best things these groups can do is get an in with politicians who will be responsive to their concerns and get these issues added to foreign policy.