How do we rebuild the women of Iraq?

I just read this very provocative piece by Rose Aguilar over at AlterNet titled, A Nation of Widows: Why Any Honest Discussion About Iraq Must Include the Plight of Women.

As the six-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq approaches, the voices of the women who are dealing with growing unemployment, violence, and seclusion are still missing from the conversation about the continued occupation and President Obama's decision to keep 50,000 troops in their country.

A new book attempts to give those women a voice and examine why military intervention and occupation have failed to "liberate" them. In What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq, authors Nadje Al-Ali, Reader in Gender Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Nicola Pratt, Lecturer in Comparative Politics and International Relations at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, write, "Official rhetoric puts women at center stage, but we show that in reality women's rights and women's lives have been exploited in the name of competing political agendas."

I highly recommend reading the rest of this piece for yourself and subsequent interview with Nadje Al-Ali, the founding member of Act Together: Women's Action for Iraq, a UK-based group formed in 2000 to campaign against the economic sanctions on Iraq and since late 2001, the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The piece reminded me that when it comes to bringing gender into consideration - whether it be the U.S. economic stimulus plan or the war in Iraq - how can we ensure that women are part of the equation?

As the United States continues to work to rebuild Iraq, how can we also rebuild the women in the country to make sure they are truly liberated and given positions of authority in the government to include the female point of view?