Friday Femme Fatale: Remembering 9/11 & What It Means Now

categories: Friday Femme Fatale, News, Politics

Published September 11, 2009 @ 05:29PM PT

Today is a historic anniversary. It is September 11th. And anyone who was alive during the terrorist attacks that happened on this day in 2001 will never forget where they were, what they were doing, or how that one day changed the rest of their lives.

I was 17, just a junior in high school, at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. While it seems like a long time ago - the decisions made after those attacks would change my life forever. For every year after 9/11, I would spend time protesting the Iraq war, thinking critically about U.S. involvement abroad and eventually becoming a volunteer for the Obama campaign to successfully defeat the Republican party and take back the White House. September 11th also meant that I would grow up in a country that has been at war for much of my young adult life, and I have friends who have lost brothers, sisters, husbands and wives fighting abroad. As the process to exit Iraq continues, there are now new challenges: young veterans with severe physical and mental trauma, a huge budget deficit and looming security challenges in Afghanistan.

If I learned one thing from 9/11 it is that the United States is not an island. We are and will be as vulnerable to terrorist threats as everyone else around the world.

Where were you on 9/11 and what does it mean to you today? Share your thoughts in the comments and then enjoy some of the other news in the fem-o-sphere this week:

Tyler Perry's Gender Problem (The Nation)

Study: Parenthood makes moms more liberal, dads more conservative (Physorg.com)

Marrying George Clooney - Beyond the Blurb (Huffington Post)

Guaranteed Health Care In Iraq - But Not For You (Huffington Post)

The NYT Issue on Women: An African Man's Perspective (RH Reality Check)

Anti-Choice Activist Shot, Killed in Owosso, Michigan (RH Reality Check)

Coming NEXT WEEK: "We the Patients" (ACS Law)

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Comments (4)

I remember where I was Jen. Half the world away, my children had already been in bed for some hours and after a typically full single mum type day, I was contemplating if I had the energy to get up and go there myself when breaking news came on TV. I never did get to bed that night.

I had involved myself in Peace Studies for as long as I could have rational thought (after adolescence) and it needs familiarity with it's opposite, war. I recognised this as an entirely new level of non-combatant targeting as a means to effect and/or expediency. This is what I learned from studying war up to that point - after many bloody battles through the centuries, Europe reached an agreement on a code of war conduct (to take prisoners of war for ransom, not for killing) which was first broken on St Crispins Day 25th Oct 1415 at the Battle of Agincourt between the French and the English.

No country has adhered to a code of war since. Gen. Custer went after women and children non-combatants at the Battle of Little Big Horn, on an on it goes. For a full year after 9/11 I contemplated how I personally wanted to express my sorrow at what this line of thinking has led us to.

Now every St Crispins day I put on a sari all day, it doesn't matter what I have to do and I'm glad to explain why, should anyone ask. Wearing draped clothing expresses my solidarity with oppressed women in any war-ravaged country. It doesn't mean I'm Muslim, it means I'm a peacemaker.

Posted by Oceania OZ on 09/11/2009 @ 08:34PM PT
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I made this sari mayself I should add, dying it with colours I chose and I screened the Pax Cultura symbol on it, since that was what it was all about at the bottom line.

Posted by Oceania OZ on 09/11/2009 @ 09:09PM PT
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If any ladies want to join me next month, I could do with some company.

Posted by Oceania OZ on 09/12/2009 @ 03:54PM PT
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I was home sleeping when I got a call to turn on my Tv...

At first, I was for the war, having gotten swept up in the propoganda wake but later, after getting my head out of my ass...I switched to being against it.

Im still convinced that bush and company had a lot to do with it happening in the first place.

Posted by Thomas McHugh on 09/14/2009 @ 03:45AM PT
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Author

Jen Nedeau is a social media consultant, progressive activist, feminist speaker and writer. She currently lives in New York City, where she works full-time as the Director of Digital Strategy at Air America Media. In August 2008, Nedeau was selected to be the Editor of the WomensRights.Change.Org where she facilitates daily discussion about the feminist movement. Additionally, Nedeau volunteers as the Chief Technology Officer for New Leaders Council, a non-profit that offers exclusive training for young leaders. You can follow her on Twitter @HumanFolly or learn more here: www.jennedeau.com.