Rwanda and Why Women Should Rule the World

I promised I'd write about my experience reading Why Women Should Rule the World by Dee Dee Myers, but I never did. This won't be a comprehensive review, but I do want to talk briefly about one of Myers's arguments regarding women and peace processes and its particular relevance given a CNN article about women in Rwanda.

Myers talks about Rwanda and other war-torn countries and women's particular role in the peace process there. Women, she claims, are especially situated politically, given their complete lack of involvement in prior governments and their importance as heads of households (i.e. men maintain the title, but women make the decisions) to bridge factions and bring about true peace. I'm really interested in the idea of the domestic being the site of political development and women's leadership role in that area. CNN's piece about women in Rwanda supports both my hopes and Myers's argument, telling the story of a woman who forgave her husband and children's killer and befriended his wife. (The role of women is not only domestic, though, given Rwanda's cabinet, one-third of which are women, and Parliament, 48% of which are women, the highest rate in the world.)

I find incredible hope in a story like this one and, especially, in the numerous situations that Myers presents that are the same or similar.

In other news, I just started reading Three Cups of Tea. (It's the one by Greg Mortenson, the American man who started 50+ schools in Taliban strongholds and has single-handedly done more to combat terrorism than the entire "coalition" put together by the United States.) Not as well written as another in the same genre, Reading Lolita in Tehran, which I firmly believe every English professor should read every semester. But it tells a really great story. Mortenson was particularly committed to starting schools for girls in towns that had no schools at all. More at eleven.