Do Women in Syria Need ‘Saving’?

What I witnessed in Damascus was women of all ages occupying public space with ease. They did not appear provisional or apologetic, but embedded in the city.

Don’t we all?!

When we look at the so-called international liberal order, with the US as its main anchor, what do we see? A crony, clientelist system revolving around the abuse of young girls and women. A system which, as Nancy Fraser argues in Cannibal Capitalism, in a way feeds on the flesh of women. Across social negotiations, cultures and nations, subtle or conspicuous, the patriarchal mindset continues to determine what women can do, cannot do, must do and must not do.

A panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council recently concluded that the crimes revealed in the Epstein files showed a commodification and dehumanisation of women and girls. “So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls,” they wrote, “that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity.”

So yes, women in Syria need ‘saving’. So do women anywhere else. The problem lies …