To Mend the World (Women Reflect on 9/11)

As we watched the horrors wrought on September 11, 2001, unfold, the question on our lips was "Why?" A year after the attack on the United States, women of varied ethnic and religious backgrounds examine this question. Many of these writers grew up outside of the U.S. and bring a world perspective to their responses. Some are U.S.–born but have been shaped by multi-cultural experiences. Consequently, the collection creates a unique mirror that reflects the U.S. from both inside and out, revealing the clash between the economically driven force of globalization embodied by the U.S. and the stateless, transnational terrorist organization that feeds on religious fundamentalism, poverty, and hatred of the United States. It is a multi-faceted image that is created: Margaret Randall posits that "the bully stance is eminently male," and that "feminists, able to deconstruct power, have the potential for developing new grids in a battle that now assumes life and death proportions." Carol Dine speaks of firefighters, the head of Cantor Fitzgerald, and House Majority Leader Dick Armey breaking down in front of the media. "These are men rocked to their core, men no longer able to hide inside their uniforms or three-piece suits, compelled to reveal that they are vulnerable. . . . And I am forced to consider the contradictions of what it means to be male." Claudia Bernhardi states that "no political explanation, any argument ever, could or would satisfy the logic of destruction." What these writers share is the desire to open a world dialogue between cultures, between sexes, so we can prevent anything like the events of 9/11 from happening again anywhere in the world.