In an article a few weeks ago, so-called "social justice organizer" Maryam Drangi is bothered by the fact that EthicalOil.org is doing something that women's rights organizations in Canada are failing to do: stand up for the rights of oppressed women in conflict oil regimes Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Last month we ran an ad educating Canadian consumers about the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia and the role played by Saudi oil exports in enabling this atrocious oppression. Women in this oil-rich kingdom aren't allowed the drive, aren't allowed to have a job without the permission of their 'master,' and their testimony in court is worth only half that of a man's. Saudi women can't leave the house into the desert heat unless they're fully covered head to toe in thick drapes of fabric. Women in Saudi Arabia can be stoned to death for the 'crime' of adultery, which means burying up to their shoulders and then having rocks thrown at them till they die from head injuries.
Being raped is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to a Saudi woman since it often leads to punishment of the victim. In 2007 a Saudi rape victim was brutally sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail. It's no wonder that Saudi Arabia was even recently named one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman by a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey.
Saudi Arabia isn't the only conflict oil regime where being woman is practically a crime. In Iran, an actress named Marzieh Vafamehr was recently sentenced to 90 lashes for the alleged crime of playing a role in a film that the Iranian regime didn't like.
How does the treatment of women in these conflict oil regimes compare to Canada? Well, it is hardly worth the comparison. The most powerful politician in Alberta is a woman: newly-minted Premier Alison Redford. The mayor of Fort McMurray is a woman named Melissa Blake and there are lots of women working in lucrative trades in Fort McMurray. In Canada, women are doctors, lawyers, leaders and entrepreneurs. The majority of university graduates in Canada are women.
Let's face it, Canada is without a doubt one of the best places in the world to be a woman. To dispute this, like Drangi does, is not only ludicrous but it is also a slap in the face to the many women who suffer very real and bloody gender based oppression and abuse in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran. As a woman, I feel fortunate to live in a place like Canada, where my rights are respected and I am free to work and live in a democratic, peaceful environment.
So where are the women's rights groups and human rights advocates speaking out against the terrible oppression of women in Saudi Arabia and Iran? And where were they when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia tried to censor our Ad that exposed the sad plight of Saudi women? They're busy protesting ethical oil from Canada, like the organization Canadian Voices of Women for Peace.
Every barrel of conflict oil from places like Saudi Arabia and Iran goes to fund medieval, bloody regimes that oppress women and treat them like property. Care about women's rights and social justice? Then support ethical oil from places like Canada, where the highest standards of human rights and equality are upheld.
Follow Kathryn Marshall on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KVMarshall
“Ethical oil” is not anti-free trade
Canadian oil: ethical or dirty?
1) Afghanistan
2) Democratic Republic of Congo
3) Pakistan
4) India
5) Somali
All five of these are very oil POOR nations. Woman's rights in Saudi Arabia are appalling, but oil has very little to do with the problem.
I read her bio - lots of work on political campaigns, but very little concrete work to help disadvantaged women.
Saudi Arabia is a horrible country for women, but buying oil from Canada is not going to make their lives any better. This is such an insulting article in so many ways.
Must I make the observation , once again, that oilsands oil is no more "dirty" than California heavy crude, or Venezuela heavy oil etc. There is no "evil" oil in Canada , only apoplectic environmentalists losing a war against the timely development of Canadian resources.
This argument is pure propaganda, with no basis in reality.
What Canadian women know - the ones who aren't paid to shill for the oil industry - is that tar sands oil is bad news for climate change, for water quality, for the boreal forests and their abundant wildlife, and for Canada's (suffering) reputation as a leader in finding solutions to our oil addiction.
Marshall's conclusion, corrected, would read:
Care about women's rights and social justice? Then work to end the tyranny of oil in our lifetime. Canada, where the highest standards of human rights and equality are upheld, should be a leader on this, rather than an obstructionist.
As DeSmogBlog contributor Emma Pullman wrote to Oprah Winfrey recently, after 'Ethical Oil' ads popped up on the Oprah network:
"There's nothing ethical about oil, no matter where it comes from. If you actually want to take on Saudi sheiks, then support a transition from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy."
http://desmogblog.com/open-letter-oprah-winfrey-ethical-oil-ads
It saddens me that a woman would use Feminist arguments to champion the rape and pillage of Mother Earth.
Nothing could be more opposite from the Feminist viewpoint.
"EthicalOil" is a known lobbying front for the Big Oil interests.
Heres what I think: You have a product which is hard to extract, hard to process, is environmentally dangerous and is costly to get to the pump.
Since you have no other attributes to effectively market the goop you have to play the ethical angle.
Unfortunately your cause is real but your oil marketing is sad.
If we took the money that would be invested in the Keystone pipeline and put it into green energy development and started moving the Nation away from dependency on oil, we could create more jobs, greater opportunities and a healthier environment for all Canadians. THAT is the ONLY ethical choice.
The right of a woman to breathe clean air is more valuable than the right to drive or vote.
If it's ok for a woman to be bought and paid for by the oil industry in the promotion of the laughably mislabelled 'ethical oil'. Shouldn't other forms of dehumanizing prostitution be legalized as well?