It finally happened: Women were kidnapped from their school for the crime of being women and wanting to be educated. Some say they've been married to their kidnappers, while other surmise they were sold as slaves.
The story is being spun as an assault on education, a human rights crisis, a terrorism story, a tale of the ineffectiveness of the international community to effectively work towards a safer planet - but, with the exception of Nicholas Kristof*, its not really being spun as a women's issue. I say "not really" because there are some voices out there - notably, Leimah Gbowee - but they tend to be a) few and b) non-Western.
Modern American Feminist groups (and, from what I can tell, European ones as well), so quick to fight for an extra week of maternity leave or critique the weight of the trendiest Hollywood actresses, seem oddly silent about this. If Feminism is about fighting for a better world for women (and for all people), and about eradicating the gender inequalities that can be found across the globe, why aren't we fighting for our Nigerian sisters, or against a world in which being educated is so much more dangerous for women than it is for men?
Part of the answer might have to do with a feeling of disempowerment in the face of such tragedy. The "#Bring Back Our Girls" campaign shows the depth of that disempowerment, where we feel the most we can do is post a twitter status or a photograph. Even world leaders, such as Michelle Obama, are participating in the campaign, which started as an attempt to get world leaders to do something more than just post a photograph.
Of course, part of the reason world leaders are stopping at photographs is that they feel disempowered to - afraid to send in troops**, unsure how to cast out a group that's already been outlawed, but at the same time, afraid of pushing that group to further extremes, and owning precious little that might prove an incentive for Boko Haram to come to the table: A group whose title means "Western Education is Forbidden" is fairly unlikely to be lured into peace by the promise of eventual participation in Western society, and financial bribery hardly seems like a good long-term solution.
So what are we to do, exactly?
I don't know, but I think part of the answer lies in spreading awareness, not just about the kidnapped girls, but about the general plight of women's education around the globe, and the links between poverty, corruption, violence, unstable governments, and women's education - both in that these things help cause many of the obstacles women pursuing education may face, and in that educated women may be one of the best tools for fighting these social ills.***
I think part of that awareness also has to be about spreading the stories of the kidnapped students: So often women have remained nameless, delegated to the margins of history, portrayed as powerless victims. Perhaps the best thing we can do for these women is to recognize who they are: To know their names and their stories, and acknowledge the power they were exerting over their lives when they chose to learn - and most importantly, to learn from their example, and to exert power over our own lives - to take action, and to try to make ourselves a little bit better and a little bet smarter, so that next time a crisis occurs, maybe we will know some of the answers.
* an would I expect anything else from the co-author of "Half The Sky"?
** lest it a) start a war b) prove political suicide or c) all of the above
*** Example: Poor sanitation may deter women from coming to school while menstruating. The poor sanitation may be a result of poverty, as well as a corrupt government that pockets money instead of spending it on infrastructure. But poverty helps cause corruption, which helps governments to be ineffective and unable to protect both women and men from violence.
