 Aloha. Welcome to Global Connections. I'm your host, Grace Chang, and I'm here today with Dr. Linda Learheimer, Professor of History at Hawaii Pacific University. We're going to be talking about the topic of violence against women and the myth of rescue with Linda today. So I welcome her to the program. Thank you. Hi, Linda. Thank you for coming and wonderful to have you here. Thank you for having me. So you are a professor of history and you teach history from various periods, especially French history as well as women's studies. So can you tell us a bit about your background in the field? Yeah. So I'm a professor of history. I have a PhD in history and my research is on French history from early modern French history, mostly focusing on the 17th century. But I have another hat, which is I teach women's studies and I am the coordinator, the minor in gender and women's studies at HPU. And I've been part of women's studies programs for my whole career since I was a graduate student. I've been teaching women's studies, working for women's studies programs. So this is something that is really important to me. Yeah. And your specialization in French history also is about nuns, right? Yeah. So I work on women and religion, particularly on nuns, and really nuns. It was the 18th century. Nuns with an autonomous spirit. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Really interesting research I know that you do in that field. Yeah. Yeah. One of the few places where women could actually be autonomous and exert power was in the convent in that period of history. Interestingly enough, right? Yeah. So that's why I'm interested in it. Yeah. I mean, your work really, I mean, this topic of women and their autonomy or efforts to limit that, I think this is an ongoing issue, which is what we want to talk about today on this topic of violence against women. In particular, we're interested in talking about this on a global level. Right. Yeah. So I recently gave a talk about this, about global feminisms and focusing on the topic of violence against women and what I call the myth of rescue. It's not really my idea, but based on a lot of recent writings about, I guess, feminism and decolonization, post-colonial feminist theory. Although I'm not really a theorist, more of a practical ... Yeah. ... I focus more on the practical. I think theory and practice really inform each other. Exactly. Theory helps us to kind of interpret that, right? Yeah. Well, one of the things I love about gender and women's studies is the way that what you study applies to real life and it's the relationship between theory and practice. Like you study the theory and then you go out and you try and make change. So as a historian of 17th century France, I don't really get to, you can't really do activism on that subject, but the relationship between ideas and activism is really an important one. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's interesting. I mean, what you study in 17th century France, I mean, we see how the institution has changed over time. So I mean, this is what, history is a very dynamic thing that we see changing. Even up to today, we know, understanding the background is important to understand the contemporary context. In your talk, you talked about the immigration order that President Trump had issued. There was an interesting element that's related to our topic today. Could you tell us about this? Yeah. So most people, when they talk about the executive order, only focus on the travel ban, but there's also part of this pretty long executive order are instructions to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to collect information about people who've been involved in terrorist activities, things like that. And one of the things that they collect information about is foreign nationals who have been engaged in violence against women. And they particularly single out honor killings as something that they want to collect information about. And that's part of the executive order. That's really interesting. Yeah. Why do you think that is included in the, I mean, terrorism is one thing. But I mean, it's not that they're not important, but they don't seem to kind of logically go together in the same category. Well, it actually made me really angry when I found that out because it's like, there are a lot of examples of using what seem like feminist positions to justify really racist positions, racism and Western imperialism. And this just seemed like another example of that. You know, it's not, it's highly unlikely that Trump really cares about violence against women since he's threatened to cut all of the funding for violence against women act grants in the upcoming budget. And we don't know if that's actually going to happen. But you know, like $480 million are going to be cut out of these programs that help victims of domestic abuse and domestic violence. And I mean, it just seems so ironic that there's a focus on what is really minor in the US, at least they're like, nobody really knows how many so called honor killings there are, but no more than 30 a year, 25 to 30, whereas there's 1500 women or more who are murdered by their, their partners or spouses every year. So it's like, okay, that, you know, that's a domestic and so clearly it's in the interest of feeding Islamophobia. Focus on because nobody ever talks about honor killings except in relationship to Islam. But yeah, like a high, that is the statistically, right, the very high level of death, but or women murder of women is in the hands of a loved one, or a partner or somebody that they're intimate with or dating or yeah, so that this is a terrible problem. And we don't I guess I mean, there are statistics being collected about that, but certainly not. There's it's not a priority, at least not for this new administration. So to focus on only on violence against women by Muslims is disingenuous, to say the least. Well, and that's where the post colonial theory kind of comes in, right, because there's been a history of invoking this desire to protect women as as a part of an imperial mission in the colonies, right, during the the 19th century, 20th century. And we heard that with with the American led intervention in Afghanistan against the Taliban, right, how they were treating women. Yeah, so the I mean, just those are great examples. The example it reminds the Trump order reminded me of when the US was preparing to bomb Afghanistan. There was a lot of talk about saving Muslim women from the Taliban. And what's ironic is that women and women who had been making people aware of what was going on with the Taliban and were opposing the Taliban work, they were also opposed to us bombing. So, you know, nobody said to them, Well, would you prefer to be like, oppressed by the Taliban or to have your community bombed? I mean, those aren't real choices. And it was, it really is has been used as an excuse for US imperialism and militarism. If you go back to the 19th century, and I think one of the things that we don't understand, most people don't understand is that I attempt to save women on the part of Westerners has actually had the opposite effect. It's in fact, associated led to an association of the women's rights with Western imperialism, which is actually kind of a lot of the background for why many nationalist movements, particularly in the Middle East are they latch on to, you know, traditional gender roles as representing traditional culture because of that history. In British India, for example, there was a lot of justification for imperialism around violence against women, particularly the practice of bride burning. And the British passed all these laws to try and not just to stop set set, but then to impose their own ideas about marriage on India. And that led to this association of women's rights with British imperialism. So it was hard to when Indian nationalism arose, it was hard to make to it's made it more difficult for women's rights to be integrated into that movement. There's a very strong women's rights movement in India today. Yeah, because of that association with imperialism, the cultural practice is an object of imperialist, you know, efforts to eradicate. So you want to preserve your autonomy so that develop the symbolism of its own that undermines that. And then women have to choose, are asked to choose between, you know, women's rights and their identification with their community and their loyalty to their communities. And that's true not just abroad, but also, you know, among minority groups in the U.S. as well. Yeah. And I mean, this practice of Sati is, you know, it's a Hindu practice or associated with certain, you know, communities that are largely Hindu. But, you know, so it's not just Islam, right? It's not just the association. But yeah, just as a general kind of practice looking at foreign civilizations or cultures. And recently, you know, we hear a lot of international incidents, right, of that, that really captured the headlines. Right. The one the Delhi. The Delhi rape case, for example, which kind of really sparked a lot of outrage internationally. But there was also, I don't know if there was a lot of attention to it in India, but you kind of studied that quite a bit. Well, I mean, I talked about this in my talk, I have a friend who's worked on this and told me about these women's groups in India that were really important in raising consciousness about not just about the, that particular case, which became a kind of, you know, huge news sensation and sparked riots and demonstrations all over India. And that's what we heard about. But we didn't hear about these women's groups in India that were pushing for the conversation to be not just about, oh, how horrible this person, that this person was, was raped and murdered, but that we need to, like, put that in the context of the problems that women in India face every day, just trying to get to work and navigating public space. And those conversations kind of fell, I don't know, I don't think most of us heard that, but that was going on on the ground. This one group in Calcutta that my friend has been, was actually part of, because she's Indian, and she was there for some of these protests, was organizing regular take back the night marches every six weeks, I think. So to make sure that this wasn't just a one time thing, and that it became not just a question of protecting women, but of really changing the system, empowering Indian women. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, really interesting. So let's, let's continue this after a little break here, Linda. Thank you. All right. Okay, stay tuned. We'll be back in one minute with more global connection. My name is Mark Shklav and I'm the host of Law Across the Sea. And Law Across the Sea is a program that brings attorneys who have traveled across the sea and live in Hawaii or are staying in Hawaii for a time to talk about their travels, where they're from, where they're going, and bring it all together, because really, we're all connected some way, although we travel across the sea. So I hope that you'll tune in and watch our program. Thank you very much. You want to talk about some socially sensitive issues relevant to women? Listen to these guys. Well, I think it's important in Judaism that we don't take the Bible literally. We take it seriously. Okay. I agree. And really the key to understanding Christianity is compassion. If you're compassionate towards other people, you are living a Christian life. And that relates also to dealing with women and men and women issues as well. Are women and men equal? They're equal. Who's better? Who's better? Tune in. Tune in. Welcome back to Global Connections. I'm Grace Chang, your host. And today we have into the studio with us is Dr. Linda Lurerheimer, Professor of History at Hawaii Pacific University. And we're talking about violence against women and the myth of rescue. So before the break, Linda was telling us about this topic of the incidents in Delhi a few years ago, the very, very horrible case of a gang rape of a medical student. But how the difference was between the international kind of representation of it and what was actually going on in India by women's rights groups. Yeah. I guess the point I wanted to make was that we tend to think that we know how to help people, especially in the West. This is something that really irritates me, that we feel like we know best and that those poor people in the global South, they don't really understand and that we need to enlighten them. I mean, it's a continuation of this, actually of this imperialist project, even by well-meaning people. Whereas in, if you look at that particular case, and it's just one case, two cases, all over like in Afghanistan, this group, the RALA, R-A-B-A, they are, they're the ones, they're working on the ground, they know their communities, they are sometimes they're more progressive than we are. For example, one of these groups in India invited transgender people to participate in their marches. So that kind of challenges our prejudices and assumptions that if you leave the West or you leave the US, it's not people are less, I don't know, less enlightened or don't have, I mean these people all over the world, they know what's best for their communities. They can think for themselves. Right, exactly. They're only to be told, oh, you're oppressed. Yeah, and actually, I think that sometimes we in the West make things worse for them by, you know, by, through programs that actually impoverish women, disempower them. And that's one of the things I think we need to look at ourselves and look at ourselves critically and also look outside of ourselves for models of activism because, you know, what's going on in, around the world is just as or more inspiring and can provide models for us and on how to make changes at home. Right, so this is that part of the myth of the rescue, right? We really are talking about cases that seem to get a lot of international or Western attention, right, because they kind of reinforce for us that, you know, maybe they're not as well along the lines as far as progress and gender relations, but in the efforts to try to save them, are we really empowering and really uplifting and doing meaningful things to change the situations of gender imbalance? Well, and that idea of saving others is just inherently unequal, unequal. It reaffirms this idea that Westerners are superior to others, which is that we need to, like, break and challenge that myth that somehow we're superior. And that, every time we talk about saving others, it really is reaffirming, it's all about, you can never save somebody unless if they're equal to you, right? Yeah, well, sort of like, they're an object to be saved rather than that they have agency. Right, exactly. Yeah, they can tell you or, you know, I guess that's the issue. I think that came out of this discussion is that, yeah, do the people that purportedly are, we are trying to save, do they have any voice in choice? Yeah, well, they should, right? I mean, it's their communities, their lives. I think the problem, too, is that sometimes we assume that our problems are everybody else's problems, right? We need to let, not women, because I focus on women, but people in other cultures and parts of the world define what are the key issues for them. So, I think Westerners are really obsessed with, like, women's dress and the repression of women's sexuality. Instead of, like, focusing on, well, asking women in other parts of the world what are the key issues that matter to you? I mean, it might be poverty or, like, water rights, food security, freedom from being bombed, those are feminist issues, too, right? So, I think that it's important for us not to impose our vision of what we think progress for women is on others. Yeah. I mean, in this historical association between, you know, outside efforts to promote women's rights, is there still that association with, you know, in certain countries of feminism, with the imperialist project? I think there is, for some, I mean, obviously, for fundamentalists, people who want to go back to traditional values, I mean, that's definitely part of it, Westernization, and feminism isn't the only thing, but it's associated with Westernization. But I think for women activists who may or may not call themselves feminist, and there are those activists everywhere around the world, I mean, so I think there's a huge desire for a kind of solidarity, not a rejection. I mean, obviously, that's not blanket, but one of the things that was really striking about the Women's March was how many, there were marches on every continent, including Antarctica. This was the march after the inauguration, yeah. And it was really very inspiring because of that, it raised that possibility of solidarity across cultures, and that doesn't mean, solidarity doesn't mean that we all have to agree, but that we need to work together to create global change across boundaries, not creating more boundaries, but finding ways to, I guess, solidarity is working together for a common project, people with diverse interests working together for a common goal. Without imposing agendas locally. Right, exactly. And listening to one another and acknowledging that we may not always agree on what the important issues are. I was, I'm hoping that that impetus will, that that will carry through. Continue onward, yeah. It wasn't just something that happened in the United States, but the fact that women in Africa and South America and all over were marching in solidarity, it's a lot of promise. And very different from what you were talking about, were you started with the immigration order and trying to, or other top down efforts to try to, or use this purported purpose of wanting to save women, versus this really kind of bottom up, like, you know, more empowerment, right? So, yeah, we were talking about how, I'm always very wary about this idea of saving anybody, and one of the, this is true in the Delhi rape case, but also here, when I remember when the allegations against Trump came out, there was all these people who were appalled. We wouldn't want that happening to our wife or daughter, but it's this wanting to protect women. That's almost as, that's almost as bad as that, that impulse to protect is actually, you know, reaffirming women's subordinate status, right? A weaker position. Where the goal should be to empower women and not have them be reliant on male protection. And that was one of the points that the Delhi, or the Delhi feminists were making as well, refusing to let the conversation be about, you know, we don't want this happening to our daughters, but, you know, this is a human rights issue, this is an issue that goes beyond wanting to protect them, and in fact protecting them doesn't solve anything because it just leads to more policing of women. Okay, yeah, so this is maybe one way to see these efforts to protect women from honor killings or from the Taliban and their, is that it's protecting them, but that's keeping them subordinate. That's sort of like reaffirming their weak position. Either we as Westerners know what's best, it's not that different from, you know, we as men, you know, in their own culture saying, you know, they need to, we need to listen to what they need. But, I mean, it's, it is a problem because at the end of the day, what do we do then? I don't want to lead people thinking that we should just, you know. Well, in the beginning you said you were talking about global feminism, right? Yeah, which is kind of... And the S is important, it's not just like one, you know, one movement where everybody's going to agree. You know, we need to find ways to work together across boundaries so that we don't reaffirm, so that we, I mean, we can help each other rather than one person helping the other, rather than it being about saving people. It doesn't appear on the news very often, these issues, unless they're very sensational, but you know, at least, so there are many more things going on than the women's marches across the globe, you know, in January, but that at least shows an instance of that kind of global... So we need to work on the grassroots level to create connections and coalitions to help improve the situation of women around the world. Yeah, yeah, so that's kind of good evidence of that. And I think, well, today we have all of these conversations going because of the unity that has been involving. Yeah, yeah, so the conversation is ongoing. Well, thanks for the great points and this excellent discussion, Linda. Thank you for having me. Come back again anytime. Thank you. All right, thanks. Okay, thank you all for tuning in to Global Connections. I'm Grace Cheng and I'm the host of Global Connections here every Thursday at 1 p.m. See you next time.