Stand Up, NOW! The National Organization for Women Refuses to Take a Position on Atrocities Against Women

Gillian Gibbons is a 54 year old British teacher in the worn-torn country of Sudan. She teaches a class of 7 year old children and decided to incorporate a teddy bear into the lesson plan. Each student would take the teddy bear home for a weekend and then write a journal entry about what they did with it. Now Ms. Gibbons faces up to forty lashes as punishment. Her crime? Allowing her students to vote on the name of the teddy bear. They chose to name it Muhammad. And so the government has charged her with insulting Islam and inciting hatred.

Forty lashes is not a small punishment. It is physically brutal and can be fatal. Women should stand up together in outrage over the unjust treatment of this woman who has put her own life in jeopardy to teach children in a region ravaged by human rights atrocities.

But where is the National Organization for Women? Are they leading the charge to free Gibbons? Are they working to bring attention to this horrible situation? Are they demonstrating and protesting and organizing letter writing campaigns? Nope. None of the above. In fact, NOW isn't doing much of anything about this.

A spokesperson for NOW has stated that the organization that is supposed to be "for Women" is, "not putting out a statement or taking a position." They will not even comment on whether or not they think what is happening to Gibbons is bad. Their silence on the fate of Ms. Gibbons is little better than condoning it.

Former president of NOW's Los Angeles chapter and former NOW board member, Tammy Bruce has criticized NOW saying, "The supposed feminist establishment is refusing to take a position in this regard because they have no sensibility of what is right anymore. They're afraid of offending people. They are bound by political correctness."

Unfortunately, this is not new for NOW. They have recently been criticized for ignoring the plight of a Saudi woman who was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being the victim of a gang rape. There is no mention at all of the atrocities this woman is facing on NOW's website, nor has there been any official statement of outrage or call to action.