Some Perspective

After watching the leadership and participation of the women of Egypt in the recent protests, I was particularly disheartened to hear the story of the attacks on CBS reporter Lara Logan. The story bothered me so much that I wanted to avoid hearing about it for fear its telling would be used to diminish this profound moment in history. But I knew better, that's not the right response. We can't hide from the reality of what so often happens to women and expect it to ever stop.

A better way of approaching this is to listen to the solidarity the women of Egypt are offering to Logan.

The reaction here to the attack on Logan has been consternation. "Lara Logan, I apologize sincerely with all my heart," reads an online petition being circulated Thursday. "To every girl, woman, mother harassed, I apologize sincerely with all my heart. To my mother nation Egypt, I apologize sincerely with all my heart. And I promise you all that I will try the very best that I can to bring an end to this, in the quest to have our sisters 'Walk Free.'"

"We are all Lara," says Engy Ghozlan, 26, a co-founder of HarassMap, a digital map that monitors incidents of sexual harassment against women here.

In case we in the US are tempted to get on our high horse about the plight of women in Egypt, take note of this.

“There are three types of women in the Army,” says Rebecca Havrilla, a former sergeant and explosive-ordnance-disposal technician. “Bitch, dyke, and whore.” During the four years that Havrilla was on active duty, she was called all three—by fellow soldiers, team leaders, even unit commanders. Once, during a sexual-assault prevention training, the 28-year-old South Carolina native claims, she watched a fellow soldier—male—strip naked and dance on top of a table as the rest of the team laughed. While deployed in Afghanistan, Havrilla spent four months working under a man she alleges bit her neck, pulled her into his bed, and grabbed her butt and waist—on a daily basis. When, on the last day of her deployment, she alleges she was raped by a soldier she considered a friend, it was, she says, “the icing on the cake.”

That's the lead paragraph in a story about a law suit that was filed against Sec. of Defense Gates and his predecessor Rumsfeld alleging that the "military's repeated failures to take action in rape cases created a culture where violence against women was tolerated."