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Contention 1: Gender & Literacy 

Illiteracy rates are falling for men in Yemen, but not for women who maintain a more than 60% illiteracy rate
IRIN, 2011 (a humanitarian news outlet ran by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,  “YEMEN: Illiteracy rate is falling, specialists say”, August 18, http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=64511) 

A womyn’s education is given little to no priority making them dependent of their husbands or their male guardians
Wing the Bessie Dutton Murray Professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. Author of over 100 publications Nadimi J.D. University of Iowa College of Law 2010, B.A. University of Minnesota 2011 (Adrien K. and Peter P. “HUMAN RIGHTS & U.S. STANDING UNDER THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Women's Rights in the Muslim World and the Age of Obama” Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems Summer) GG

Illiteracy does not occur at random; it is sign of social inequality
Stromquist, 1990 (Nelly P., Comparative Education Review, “Women and Illiteracy: The Interplay of Gender Subordination and Poverty”, Vol. 34, No. 1, p. 97) 

Preventing women from getting an education is a condition of a deep-seated patriarchal ideology justifying the subordination of women. Preventing education is a way of keeping a stable patriarchal social arrangement
Stromquist, 1990 (Nelly P., Comparative Education Review, “Women and Illiteracy: The Interplay of Gender Subordination and Poverty”, Vol. 34, No. 1, p. 97-99)

Patriarchy results environmental destruction, wars, nuclear proliferation, and will culminate in extinction.
Karen Warren and Duane Cady 94, (Feminism and Peace: Seeing Connections, Hypatia, Vol. 9, No. 2, Spring, p4-20)

Our framework is to prioritize the dismantling of patriarchy. Only by confronting patriarchy can new structures begin to emerge. It’s try or die.  
French 92 (Marilyn, PhD from Harvard, “Beyond Power: On Women, Men, and Morals”, p.494-495) 

Although structures of oppression are interlocking, patriarchy must come 1st because most people are socialized to accept it before they ever experience other forms of oppression
Foss, Foss, & Griffin, 1999 (Karen A., Sonja K., & Cindy L., Feminist Rhetorical Theories, “bell hooks”, p. 76-78)

Plan:
The US Federal Government should substantially increase democracy assistance by fully funding the Poetry for Literacy program in Yemen. 

Contention 2 - Solvency:
Poetry for Literacy provides sustainable, high-interest literacy classes for adult women in Yemen which effectively empowers women.
Adra '04(Najwa, Women’s studies  Quarterly, Literacy Through Poetry: A Pilot Project for Rural Women in the Republic of Yemen, pg 229)

Literacy is critical to challenging patriarchy
Stromquist, 1990 (Nelly P., Comparative Education Review, “Women and Illiteracy: The Interplay of Gender Subordination and Poverty”, Vol. 34, No. 1, p. 107-108)

Poetry is a vital necessity for women. Through poetry we formulate change in the world, a vision that is based in our very humanity.
Lorde, poet activist, 1985 (Audre, Sister Outsider, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”, po. 36)

Contention 3: We Cannot Always Demand Pure Water when Dying of Thirst. 

The aff is not a cultural imposition; it works within Yemeni society by providing a tool for women to exercise their agency to change their lives.
Ahmed-Ghosh, 2008 (Huma, Journal of International Women's Studies, “Dilemmas of Islamic and Secular Feminists and Feminisms”, Volume: 9. Issue: 3. Questia) 

We must not be so concerned with kritiks of Western feminism that we fail to challenge gender hierarchies
Meneley, 2000 (Anne, “Living Hierarchy in Yemen”, Anthropologica, Volume: 42, Issue: 1, questia) 

Postmodern feminism is a narcissistic, personal politics disconnected from the public good that offers false hope and a disempowering quietism
Nussbaum, 1999 (Martha, The New Republic, “The Professor of Parody”, Feb. 22) 

Essentialism, victimization, and identity politics bad arguments represent a false political choice that re-imposes the logic of the patriarch. Feminists are actively shaping the identity of woman which solves a violent singular authentic victimized conception of women.  
PLUMWOOD, 1993 (Val, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, pg 64-65)

Paradox 1: We cannot separate the knower from the knowing 

The hail of resolution asks debaters to confront how the people of the US interact with the people of Yemen in the process of democracy, but no matter how many cards we read we can never be the people of Yemen, we can never with certainty know the people of Yemen. This is our 1st paradoxical position. We must act certain from a place of uncertainty. Our resolve will come from a tenuous relationality with others. We should struggle to listen as the other struggles to be heard. 

As debaters, we think it’s important to acknowledge our subject position as we approach the topic. Even if there is an objective reality, we orient ourselves subjectively to that reality. Therefore, before we begin a discussion to of the resolution we must reflect on our own subject position. Although our reflection cannot be complete, it is a prerequisite to any Response-able relationality with others.
Bleiker, 2K (Roland, Professor of International Relations Harvard and Cambridge, Popular Dissent,Human Agency and Global Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2000. p. 219)

- Discussion of who we are in the world - 

Paradox 2: Knowing Yemen 

- Poem: I need to Write - 

The women of Yemen need to write. Yemeni women have a 60% plus illiteracy rate.
IRIN, 2011 (a humanitarian news outlet ran by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “YEMEN: Illiteracy rate is falling, specialists say”, August 18, http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=64511) 

Keeping a significant section of the population illiterate is violence.  Illiterate Yemeni women are beings for another, dominated peoples. Literacy is one element in a struggle against violent social conditions.
Roberts, 2K (Peter, Education, Literacy, and Humanization: Exploring the Work of Paulo Freire, p. 87-88) 

Epistemic violence is the prerequisite to other impact scenarios
Gur-Ze’ev, professor  Co-chairperson of the Israeli Philosophy of Education Society, 2005 (Ilan, Critical Theory and Critical Pedagogy Today, “Beyond postmodern feminist Critical Pedagogy”, epistemic violence = systematically, regularly and repeatedly denying the alterity and subjectivity of the other in ways that perpetuate the subjugation of their knowledge and that reiterate discourses of domination, http://construct.haifa.ac.il/~ilangz/feministpeda911.pdf)

Paradox 3:  The women of Yemen and the Feminists of the US 

“Answer the one whose heart, feet and ankles are so tired.
If you choose to harm me, whom do I have to help me, except yourself?
Consider with compassion the circumstances of she who complains
I have come with such intent, and wait for your answer and solution” .

In this section, we will attend to the inherent contradiction between the aff’s position as feminists and the position of Yemeni women. The relationship is one we think is important even if complicated. 

Resolving 1st World essentialism, moral superiority, and reproducing inequality requires contextualized, intersectional reflexivity in literacy projects.  Success requires engaging critically in our/their differences and collaborating as active agents.
Sato, 2004 (Chizu, Women's Studies Quarterly, “Rethinking Adult Literacy Training: an Analysis through a Third World Feminist Perspective”, Volume: 32. Issue: ½, questia) 

Even though there is danger is Western feminist relationality, moving into a postfeminist era is worse. Post-feminism tells women they have won, particularly in the West, and discounts the work of women outside the west in an ethnocentric move that rejects connections between women.
BRAIDOTTI, Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Utrecht University and founding Director of the Centre for the Humanities with an emphasis in 20/21st century Western Philosophy & Feminism, 2005 (ROSI, “A Critical Cartography of Feminist Post-postmodernism”, Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 20, No. 47, July, p. 171) 

We need a way out of the duality of 2nd wave feminist modernity & 3rd wave feminist postmodernity. It is time to put the active back in activism by taking accountability for our situation and expressing a sense of social responsibility. The aff’s embraces post-post modernism.
BRAIDOTTI, Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Utrecht University and founding Director of the Centre for the Humanities with an emphasis in 20/21st century Western Philosophy & Feminism, 2005 (ROSI, “A Critical Cartography of Feminist Post-postmodernism”, Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 20, No. 47, July, p. 177-178)

Feminists should support Yemeni women fighting for equality. Androcentrism is a violent episteme and we should not stand by idly.
Latta, Ph.D. in English at Rutgers, April 5, 2011 (Kimberly, Left Hand of Feminism, “Whither the Revolution for Women in Egypt and Yemen?”, http://lefthandofeminism.wordpress.com/tag/yemen/)

Paradox 4: The Poet & the King

The medium is the message. How we communicate is political. Our poetry is an act of solidarity and resistance.
Miller, anthropology prof @ U of Wisconsin, 2002 (W. Flagg, JOURNAL OF WOMEN’S HISTORY, “PUBLIC WORDS AND BODY POLITICS: Reflections on the Strategies of Women Poets in Rural Yemen”, VOL. 14 NO. 1, SPRING,This article is based on fieldwork in Yemen, p. 95) 

Poetry produces a different mindset which is necessary to overcome entrenched political disagreement like the paradoxes noted by the 1AC. Reproducing old thinking patterns cannot have the effect of the aff.   
Bleiker, 1999 (Roland, Third World Quartely, “Pablo Neruda and the struggle for political memory”, Vol 20, No 6, p. 1138-1139)

Poetry is a matter of survival, essential to life. Through poetry we formulate change in the world, a vision that is based in our very humanity.
Lorde, poet activist, 1985 (Audre, Sister Outsider, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”, po. 36)

Paradox 5: The Hail to Activism 

 Poetic call 

Plan: The US Federal Government should substantially increase democracy assistance by fully funding the Poetry for Literacy program in Yemen. 

Poetry through Literacy builds on local knowledge to create literacy. Poetry values women’s self-expression and opinions in an environment where’s women’s voice is endangered. The plan has proven success in Yemen.
Adra, piloted a literacy project for adults in Yemen, 2008 (Najwa, Learning through Heritage, Literacy through Poetry, Number 70,  LITERACY AND EFA,  http://www.iiz-dvv.de/index.php?article_id=731&clang=1)

The ability to write poetry gives Yemeni women a political voice. Writing poetry is a form of resistance to a patriarchal control of knowledge when all other channels are closed.
Miller, anthropology prof @ U of Wisconsin, 2002 (W. Flagg, JOURNAL OF WOMEN’S HISTORY, “PUBLIC WORDS AND BODY POLITICS: Reflections on the Strategies of Women Poets in Rural Yemen”, VOL. 14 NO. 1, SPRING,This article is based on fieldwork in Yemen, p. 105-106)

Poetry for Literacy provides sustainable, high-interest literacy classes for adult women in Yemen which effectively empowers women.
Adra '04(Najwa, Women’s studies  Quarterly, Literacy Through Poetry: A Pilot Project for Rural Women in the Republic of Yemen, pg 229)