A Room of One's Own: Women and Power in the New America

A Room of One's Own: Women and Power in the New America (2006) by Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco (born 1960 New York City) is a powerful performance inspired by Virginia Woolf's famous essay, which deals with women and war.

The show begins with the artist wearing the typical U.S. army uniform, and she is on a stage performing the role of an interrogator. The American flag opens behind her and two screens: one projecting the traditional image of the eagle, the emblem of United States, and the sentence: United we stand. The other shows a CCTV live video of a prisoner in an interrogation room of Guantanamo. In this setting, Fusco makes the traditional military salute.

As a whole, the flags, the salute, and the other symbols transmit the same feeling and pride that reigns among the American soldiers, and their belief in a mission of developing civilization and democracy in the name of freedom.

As part of the performance, there is a manual in a PowerPoint presentation entitled, A Field guide for Female Interrogators’ describing the ‘tactics’ of interrogation. The use of this manual is and employs the hegemony of the power. In her speech, she satirically emphasizes the great achievement on the part of women and the use of their femininity in joining the war.

The entire performance addresses the Guantanamo Bay Camp and Abu Ghraib and is focused on the "Arab subject." The manual refers to Arab inhibitions in relation to sexuality, exposure, homosexuality, nudity, shame, and taboo; and arrogant women half-naked making explicit sexual gestures against the prisoners and violating their "religious doctrine." The woman is playing the role of a heroine, who triumphs against evil Muslims.

Through her work, Fusco reminds us that the conquest of sexuality has nothing to do with reversal roles of power and submission, and that it is not a competition of physical attributes.

A Room of One’s Own addresses the theme of military interrogations and demonstrates that the mission of civilization hides a policy of oppression, which leaves very little room for the value of democracy, freedom, and respect of cultural and gender diversities.

Coco Fusco is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Her work combines electronic media and performance in several formats and explores the relationship between women and society, war, politics and race. She is a recipient of a 2003 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. Fusco's performances and videos have been presented in two Whitney Biennials (2008 and 1993), the Sydney Biennale, The Johannesburg Biennial, The Kwangju Biennale, The Shanghai Biennale, InSite O5, Mercosul, Transmediale, The London International Theatre Festival, VideoBrasil, and Performa05. Her works have also been shown at the Tate Liverpool, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona.

Fusco is the author of English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas (1995), The Bodies that Were Not Ours and Other Writings (2001), and A Field Guide for Female Interrogators (2008). She is also the editor of Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas (1999) and Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (2003). Coco Fusco received her B.A. in Semiotics from Brown University (1982), her M.A. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University (1985), and her Ph.D. in Art and Visual Culture from Middlesex University (2007).

Marriage: Which Voice Should a Woman Listen to?

As a woman, one is always told that they should be able to multitask. I must say that I know many women who have been able to carry out this order with no hustle. Sometimes though, there are many voices that keep on talking to women at different stages of life that they cannot seem to balance at the same time. The voices all speak to them in different tones all at once and they never give them peace. Culture, education, and religion all speak to women and give them advice about marriage and sexual reproductive health, but women don’t know which voice to listen to anymore. They are just weary of all these voices.

Image credit: ewehoo.blogspot.com

As young girls, perhaps they were told to be submissive to their husbands. Their aunts and all their female relatives who took on the role of advising them sang the same song to them. Growing up in societies that followed cultural beliefs closely, the girls were trained to be good wives. This was a normal custom in such societies and all girls had to embrace these beliefs and some pre-marriage rituals.

These rituals involved pulling the clitoris to elongate them so that they could satisfy their husbands when they came of marriage age. They were told that a woman’s ability to satisfy her husband in bed would assure her a long and gratifying marriage. Looking back, I think this seems like some absurd custom that young girls were exposed to. How could a tiny part of the woman’s body that the man could not even see when he asked her hand in marriage be the determining factor for a marriage to work? At this age the girls had no right to question their elder’s orders, they just had to obey and wait patiently to reap the results of their obedience in marriage.

Contrary to the lessons of culture, education tells women that they are equal to their male counterparts. They are now enlightened to ask questions like: If I pull my clitoris and elongate them to satisfy my husband in bed, what will my husband do that will change him physically to satisfy me in bed as well. No one from the cultural realm seems to know the answer to this question as they keep on hushing the girl’s questions with the gospel of submission.

Then, there are girls who have been educated that love is shared between two people without the need to change who you are. They have read textbooks and novels all with literature in which women from all walks of life got married and lived happily ever after despite their physical appearance. They have read of the ill effects of female genital mutilation as they have come to know the cultural practices that they were subjected to. They only wish they had not listened to the culture voice as it advised them on marriage.

Education has unshackled these women from the chains of culture and told them to be autonomous. They have gained financial independence that makes them equal partners in marriage. Their husbands are scared of such achievements that they never dreamt to occur to their life partners. When the husbands were boys they were told to take pride in protecting, providing, and professing their love to their wives. One way to profess this love was to beat their wives. Women were also told to take pride in being beaten because they were misled to believe that a beating meant that your husband loved you. The love lay in the fact that he could come back and comfort you after the beating.

Being emancipated by education, some women no longer take any beating as a sign of love. It is an absolute sign of abuse. Most women will not allow any beating to start at all. If ever a beating sees light in a marriage, most women now know legal recourse to take against these marital matters that a husband would have thought to be mightier than a discussion to warrant a beating. Where is the line drawn then between culture and education that will make a woman maintain her marriage?

MIDDLE EAST: Rape is Never Part of the Contract

If you visited the Middle East, you'd no doubt notice that migrant domestic workers--who represent a vulnerable group, whose rights are often ignored, in contravention to international conventions and standards--are incredibly prevalent.

Mainly from Asia and Africa, they comprise nearly 1.5 million of the workforce in Saudi Arabia, 660,000 in Kuwait and more than 200,000 in Lebanon. With hopes of escaping poverty or conflict in their home countries, many travel under false pretense and find themselves hungry, subjected to poor working conditions, unpaid salaries, abuse and conditions akin to slavery.

In response to widespread abuse and mounting reports of withheld salaries, several labour sending countries issued bans restricting female migrants from seeking employment abroad due to the alarming rise in the number of suicides. However, this has only made them more susceptible to traffickers and employment agencies working the black market.

According to the International Labour Union, there are more than 22 million migrant workers--a third of whom are women--currently in the Middle East. Currently the ILO is advocating the drafting of specific labour legislation for domestic workers that extends legal protection in a systematic and comprehensive manner.

Originally from Madagascar, Dima 19, escaped from her employer after being sexually abused several times. She tells her story to Her Blueprint:

"I come from a poor family in Madagascar and before leaving I was told that I would find good employment in Lebanon, and that my situation and that of my family would improve. I wasn’t happy to leave my country and my family but I needed to change our situation so I agreed to take the employment.

The male employer picked me up from the airport and when we arrived to the home he told me to take a bath. He insisted that I leave the door slightly open but I felt uncomfortable about it and pleaded that I close the door but he kept insisting that it was for my own safety just in case something were to happen. So finally I agreed and while I was in the bath he entered and raped me.

While it was happening he kept saying how he had never been with a Black woman and wanted to have a taste. For me, it was humiliating, and I felt empty inside. Afterwards, I was told to get dressed and take care of my household duties, as if nothing had happened. I felt trapped and had no one to help me. When I was able to speak with my family I had to tell them that everything was okay because it would kill them to know that I was suffering.

Some time passed and nothing happened but then one day the Madame said that she was going out and that I should stay but I insisted on not being left in the house with him. Always I tried to make sure I was never left alone with him but she gave me no choice and it happened again. Except this time, he spread my legs apart and tied my hands and legs to the bed and repeatedly raped me. Then he invited two male friends over and they also took turns raping me.

Afterward, I was destroyed and could only think about how I could get away because I couldn’t bear living like this anymore. Luckily I had met another Madagascan woman in the street and she told me the number of the community leader and that if I had any problems, she would help me. So almost a month later, while the family was getting into the car I started running as fast as I could so that they didn’t catch me. Eventually I managed to get far enough that I stopped and went to a pay phone and called the number and the woman told me to take a taxi to the consulate and that they would pay for it once I arrived.

I was told at the consulate that they could help me find new employment but all I wanted to do was leave because maybe I would have the same problems with a new employer and I didn’t want to take the chance. I just wanted to be with my family. I would prefer to live in poverty than to continue suffering in this way."

Cases like Dima are all too common in a labour sector where abuses remain invisible because these women suffer in places that are hidden to the public's eye such as in private homes.

Passport confiscation and the Kafala or sponsorship system, which binds migrant domestic workers to a specific employer excludes them from protection and left in the hands of individuals who have complete control over their lives.

Recently, the ILO set up a website with the aim of promoting decent work for domestic workers and supporting initiatives worldwide by sharing information related to working and living conditions of domestic workers, policy issues and challenges in domestic work, country experiences and knowledge, and practical tools on how decent work may be advanced in domestic work.