Why are feminists blind to the threat of Islamic Supremacism to women?
1683 AD has reviewed all of the sources as cited near the end of this presentation for excerpts which address the rationale which feminists have used to explain their apparent lack of concern or interest with the threat of Islamic Supremacism as it relates to the welfare of women. We have also noted explanations for their behavior which feminists will not confirm, but can either be readily observed or logically deduced. In some cases, 1683 AD has also commented.
A thorough awareness of these rationales/refutations and observations will assist the reader in developing any efforts which involve interactions with feminists as well as women in the general public.
LISTING OF THE SECTION HEADINGS USED BELOW:
PSYCHOLOGY - Psychological basis for feminists knowingly aligning themselves with the enemies of women.
PSYCHOLOGY - A desire for submission among Western women.
PSYCHOLOGY - Self-hatred or death wishes as a motivation for Western feminists to support Islamic Supremacism.
PSYCHOLOGY - Appeasement as a way to acquire an illusion of security.
PSYCHOLOGY - Responding to assaults of Islamic Supremacists with self-blame.
PSYCHOLOGY - Feminist refusal to fight the obvious horrors of Islamic Supremacism because it will cause them to concede that the West is right, thus removing their desired status as "victims".
PSYCHOLOGY - Muslim women defending Islamic Supremacism as a way to safely experience respect and power (without being deemed an apostate).
PSYCHOLOGY - Muslim women internalizing misogynistic religious values.
PSYCHOLOGY - Feminists denying that women under Islamic Supremacism are oppressed, whether they know it or not
PSYCHOLOGY - Feminists who are frustrated in their attempts to halt the mistreatment of women find that America (and the West) is an acceptable target for venting their rage.
FEAR / COWARDICE- An outright fear among feminists of offending Islamic Supremacists.
FEAR / COWARDICE -Refusal to speak against Islamic Supremacists for fear of being called a "racist", "Islamophobe", "neocolonialist", etc. .
FEAR / COWARDICE - Feminist refusal to speak against Islamic Supremacism for they are aware it would shatter their beliefs.
EQUIVALENCY - Claim that the treatment of women under fundamentalist, non-Islamic religions is on the same par as the treatment of women under Islamic Supremacism.
EQUIVALENCY - Claim that women in the West are treated in a manner which is relatively equivalent to how women under Islamic Supremacism are treated.
EQUIVALENCY - Discounting any abusive treatment of women under Islamic Supremacism because Western women supposedly experience similar treatment.
EQUIVALENCY - The claim that any physical abuse experienced by women under Islamic Supremacism's dictates and allowances is comparable to any physical abuse experienced by Western women.
EQUIVALENCY - The claim that oppression regarding the female appearance or body exists among both Western women and women under Islamic Supremacism.
EQUIVALENCY - The claim that various groups in both Western and Islamic Supremacist societies oppress women in a similar manner.
EQUIVALENCY - Feminist claim that a society's solution to the mistreatment of women (or any moral problem) is appropriate, as long as it is appropriate to that society.
EQUIVALENCY - Feminist claim that the culture of Islamic Supremacism is "native" to the people under it, just as Western lifestyles are "native to Westerners; therefore, we are not in a position to criticize the former.
BLAME - Conceding that mistreatment of women exists under Islamic Supremacism, but claiming that the West (U.S.) is the cause, or the West has not done anything to help.
BLAME - Conceding that mistreatment of women exists under Islamic Supremacism, but claiming that it is due to a history of colonialism.
BLAME - Conceding that mistreatment of women exists under Islamic Supremacism, but claiming that it has been worsened by Western "interference".
CULTURE - Feminist claims that Western culture (as opposed to Islamic Supremacist culture) is adverse to women.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that Western culture is ALWAYS wrong or inferior in comparison with non-Western, adversary cultures, such as Islamic Supremacism.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that the West must not criticize other cultures (particularly Islamic Supremacism) and must always defer to them simply because they are not Western.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that the culture of Islamic Supremacism is "native" to the people under it, just as Western lifestyles are "native to Westerners; therefore, we are not in a position to criticize the former.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that Western men (not Islamic Supremacist men) are oppressors of women.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that their philosophy should prevail in Western society.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that human rights vary depending on the culture.
CULTURE: Feminist having a bigoted, elitist mindset which allows them to keep the Western liberties which they enjoy from accruing to women under Islamic Supremacism, because they are of a different culture.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that actions taken by Westerners to help women under Islamic Supremacism are elitist.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that we must celebrate diversity and respect differences
CULTURE - Feminists holding Islam to a lower standard is bigoted.
CULTURE - Feminists are aware that a problem exists with the treatment of women under Islamic Supremacism, but they realize that if they speak up to that effect they will be admitting the Western society is superior in this regard.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that until we resolve problems in our own (Western) culture, we have no right to judge other societies.
CULTURE - Feminists acknowledge the existence of an Islamic Supremacist tactic which harms women, but state that such a practice is cultural based and pre-dated Islam, meaning that Islamic Supremacism cannot be blamed.
CULTURE - Feminist refusal to concede that there should be one standard of human rights which covers all cultures.
CULTURE - Feminist claim that the West cannot impose its cultural standards on others, yet insisting that everyone be entitled to American rights.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists claiming to represent women, but they pursue minor inequities in the West in the face of major ones under Islamic Supremacism.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist say criticism of Islamic Supremacists is off limits, but all other religions are fair game.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist refusal to apply a tactic they favor in the West to fight the mistreatment of women to situations involving mistreated women under Islamic Supremacism.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist fight for Western women to receive certain rights yet refuse to seek the same rights for non-Western women under Islamic Supremacism.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists castigating certain elements in the lives of Western women while praising similar elements in the lives of women under Islamic Supremacism.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Unspoken feminist awareness that the West offers women the most, but they refuse to voice this awareness.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist aware of the mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacism, but they refuse to specifically name the ultimate cause of such mistreatment; namely, Islamic Supremacism.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists castigating Western powers for getting involved in an Islamic Supremacist nation, and once they are in, castigating them for not doing enough to protect women there.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist aware of the mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacism and they say they do not support it (and nothing more).
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists railing against the West, but refusing to acknowledge the mistreatment of women in former colonies.
HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists condemn the West, where their ideas have triumphed, while ignoring the threats of Islamic Supremacism.
COMPLICITY - Lack of feminist action in the West to protect women from Islamic Supremacism helps the mistreatment of the latter to persist.
DELUSION / NAIVITY - Feminist belief that reasoning with Islamic Supremacists for the better treatment of women is possible.
DELUSION / NAIVITY - The feminist belief that Islamic Supremacists will change for the better as a matter of course.
DELUSION / NAIVITY - The feminist belief that if any change is to be effected within the Islamic Supremacist world, it must come from within.
DELUSION / NAIVITY - Western feminists expressing support for Islamic causes in manners which would get them killed in an Islamic Supremacist nation.
COLONIALISM - Feminist claim that the West is not in a position to criticize Islamic Supremacists due to their Colonial history.
COLONIALISM - Feminist awareness of the mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacism but keeping silent to avoid charges of neocolonialism.
COLONIALISM - Feminists railing against the West, but refusing to acknowledge the mistreatment of women in former colonies.
POLITICAL ( U.S. / ISRAEL) - Feminists absolving the Islamic Supremacist world of charges of mistreating women because the Islamic Supremacist world includes Palestinians, and the political concerns of Palestinians trumps everything else.
POLITICAL (U.S. / ISRAEL) - Feminists claim that Palestinian women are the victims of alleged Israel/U.S. aggression and that such aggression supersedes any claims by our side regarding the overall treatment of women by Islamic Supremacists.
POLITICAL (U.S. / ISRAEL) - Feminist belief that there is no place for direct action (including war) against the Islamic Supremacist agenda
MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that Muslims reject cruelty towards women.
MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that Muslim women prefer relinquishing their rights to a "community" over having individual rights, as oppression does not exist.
MISTAKEN - Feminist claims that various acts of cruelty have no connection with Islamic Supremacism.
MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that Islam protects women.
MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that Muslim women do not want equality.
MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that women under Islamic Supremacism themselves claim that they are not oppressed.
MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that any mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacism has arisen from unresolved social and economic conditions.
APPEASEMENT - Feminist insistence that we accommodate Islamic Supremacist expectations
APPEASEMENT - Feminist attempts to put a good face on oppressive Islamic Supremacist actions.
APPEASEMENT - Feminists working hand in hand with the Islamic Supremacist opponents of women's rights, or working to attain the same ends..
ACCUSATION - Claim that opponents to Leftist feminists "use" reports of the mistreatment of women by Islamic Supremacists and do not themselves have a real concern with the welfare of women.
ACCUSATION - Feminist strategy of "Repressive Tolerance", where Western culture is defined as inferior, therefore, since being so accused, they must be denied free speech.
ACCUSATION - Feminist claim that we do not have the "authority" to tell them what to do with regards to Islamic Supremacism.
ACCUSATION - Feminist charge that if we perceive the awakening of feminists as so important, why don't we devote 100% of our effort to it.
EXCUSES - The claim that they are already addressing the issue (primarily in Afghanistan).
EXCUSES - The claim that any dictates in Islam pertaining to the treatment of women are rarely enforced.
EXCUSES - Feminist claim that they do not have the "authority" or "jurisdiction" to challenge Islamic Supremacists regarding the treatment of women.
EXCUSES - Feminist assertion that we are powerless to do anything.
EXCUSES - The solutions a society sees for various problems are appropriate to that society and should be seen in that context. (thus slavery and child prostitution should be ignored).
EXCUSES - Feminist claim that if any action is to be taken, it must be done by the women who are already under Islamic Supremacists.
EXCUSES - The claim that until we resolve the many problems we have in our society which pertain to women (none which are equivalent to stoning, etc.), we cannot judge other societies with an attitude of conceit.
EXCUSES - Nothing can be resolved until societal and economic problems are addressed.
EXCUSES - Western feminist claim that they have traditionally only addressed issues that they have experienced first-hand; therefore, the treatment of women under Islamic Supremacism is out of their purview.
EXCUSES - Claim that the West cannot become involved because it has not perfected its own society.
EXCUSES - Western feminists failing to aid women under Islamic Supremacism because they do not see Muslim women complaining.
DEFERRENCE / INGRATIATION - Feminists placing the needs of Islamic Supremacists over the needs of women.
GENDER FEMINISM - Feminist claim that Western and Islamic Supremacist men are basically evil and that efforts to free women under Islamic Supremacist control would make things worse.
EXCERPTS WHICH ADDRESS THE FEMINIST RELATIONSHIP WITH ISLAMIC SUPREMACISM
Please note that the notation"*****" means that the excerpt which precedes it is used in at least one other section.
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PSYCHOLOGY - Psychological basis for feminists knowingly aligning themselves with the enemies of women.
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(1) "There is something very mind-boggling here, and it is connected to the radical feminist who shows up almost nude at an anti-war demonstration taking the side of militant Islam, when the fact is that if she even showed her face under some of the regimes she supports she would be mutilated or raped or killed or burned alive. What is behind this dementia? Is it a death wish? Burkett: Dementia and death wishes can be cured, or at least treated, with therapy and the right drugs. A puerile understanding of oppression and history cannot. And I fear that's what we're dealing with. You're talking about people blinded by their own need to define themselves according to their own perceived oppression. They look around the world seeking "victims" to identify with to reinforce their own sense of victimization, to afford themselves the psychological and moral satisfaction of joining hands with the world's other oppressed. Unfortunately, since they're ultimately acting out of narcissism, they blunder into the most embarrassing possible contradictions without even seeing them. Then, when they're called on their inconsistency, they get the added benefit of feeling misunderstood and persecuted yet again. FP: Dr. Chesler, welcome. I would like to zero in for a moment on Ms. Burkett's point about these radicals acting out of narcissism and needing to feel like they are victims. You are a psychologist. Could you zero in on this dynamic for us? Chesler: I agree with some of Elinor’s and Tricia’s points. ... But, people who are themselves both privileged and aware of the world’s enormous suffering may fend off feeling guilty about their freedom, status, education, health, etc. by viewing themselves as “oppressed;” they may hope to both elevate and (secretly) redeem themselves by battling for the “oppressed” and by presenting themselves as “oppressed” too. People who are not fighting for themselves but on behalf of persecuted others, altruistically, self-righteously, can be exceptionally fierce. There is something excessive, almost pathological about the established left feminist obsession with Israel as the source of the world’s every evil and with the Palestinians as the noblest of victims. 2. NOTE: We need s brief, easily understood term to describe this pathology so that it can be dispensed when necessary. 1683 AD
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PSYCHOLOGY - A desire for submission among Western women.
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(1) "Writer Lars Hedegaard in Denmark does not buy into the theory that women approve of Muslim immigration out of irrational naivety or ideological conviction. He thinks they simply want it, as he writes in a column entitled “The dream of submission.” ... And Hedegaard asks a provocative question: Are women more stupid and less enlightened than men, since they in such great numbers are paving the way for their own submission? He comes up with an equally provocative answer: “When women are paving the way for sharia, this is presumably because women want sharia.” They don’t want freedom because they feel attracted to subservience and subjugation. The English author Fay Weldon has noted that “For women, there is something sexually very alluring about submission.” And as Hedegaard dryly notes, if submission is what many women seek, the feminized Danish men are boring compared to desert sheikhs who won’t allow you to go outside without permission. Muslims like to point out that there are more women than men in the West who convert to Islam, and this is in fact partly true. Islam means “submission.” Is there something about submission that is more appealing to some women than it is to most men? Do women yield more easily to power? 10. NOTE: "Outing" feminists who essentially advocate submission through all of their talk of appeasement should prove quite embarrassing to them and force them to carefully re-evaluate who they are. 1683 AD
(2) "Joseph asserted that Arab women are the “most relationship-driven” of any with which she has worked. She described Americans, in contrast, as less “relationship-driven” and American women as having fewer expectations than their Arab counterparts. Joseph offered no factual evidence for either of these preposterous claims. Given the grave circumstances under which many Arab women live, one would think it is they who are forced to have fewer expectations and not, as Joseph contended, Western women. Incredibly, Joseph theorized that Arab women want to be claimed by men, and therefore have no objection to being subjects of a patriarchal and theocratic society in which their individual rights are abridged. The audience, which appeared to consist mostly of Center for Near Eastern Studies and Women’s Studies faculty, nodded their heads in agreement with this troubling statement. In fact, those gathered reacted favorably to the lecture overall and asked no challenging questions of the speaker. Overwhelming (if understated) evidence of the systematic and institutionalized abuse of Middle Eastern women didn’t seem to factor into the equation. ... Therefore, I find it extremely difficult to come to terms with the theory that Middle Eastern women are a different breed who welcome abuse for some twisted concept of maintaining a “relationship-driven” society. If one believes, as I do, in fundamental human rights, there are moral principles that define our basic freedoms. Middle Eastern women’s rights activists such as Shirin Ebadi and Ayaan Hirsi Ali do not excuse the misogynistic and theocratic elements in their native countries. Instead, they demand freedom, even in the face of their abusers and of Western apologists". 11.
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PSYCHOLOGY - Self-hatred or death wishes as a motivation for Western feminists to support Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "Ms. Roth, in terms of the feminists who are anti-Semitic and romanticize Islam and the Arabs, do you think there is some kind of deeper pathological impulse, perhaps something close to a death wish or some kind of yearning to have one’s own being eliminated? For instance, at one time we had Western leftist intellectuals who championed communist regimes where intellectuals were imprisoned or simply just executed. Many of these intellectuals clearly dreamed of being in a despotic society where their own role would be eliminated. Many leftist feminists I know who argue for the burqa and make all kinds of excuses for it and other forms of oppression of women under Islam are usually not the joyful, cheerful and beautiful sort of women you meet in life, if you know what I mean. They are usually the kind of women who have defeminized themselves to a large degree and are very very angry. These individuals are the ones who are usually all upset about the BET awards and the sexy dress that J. Lo or Toni Braxton wore, and they go on and on about how this is the objectification and dehumanization of women and the exploitation of the woman’s body etc. And one key reality in this is that even the idea of these particular individuals wearing the dress that they are angry about is such an impossible – and often horrifying – notion that one doesn’t entertain it too long. And I think this truth and the radical feminist’s disposition to the dress itself, have a solid relationship. These individuals, in turn, are in love with the idea of the burqa, and of putting women out of sound and sight, which large segments of the Islamic-Arab world does. They champion a society where the 'objectification' of women’s bodies cannot occur. In other words, they promote a society where their own freedoms – and female identity – will also be extinguished and mutilated. My point is that they themselves have already started the process on themselves as well. Do you think the leftist feminists’ promotion of militant Islam is, like Western intellectuals before them, just an extension of their impulse to have someone else finish the job off for them? And by the job, I mean, in some sense, the extinction of their own selves and female identity, since certain forms of self-hate are clearly at play here? 2. NOTE: We need a brief term to describe this pathology. 1683 AD
(2) "In addition, another way that white-skinned feminists could properly atone for their culture's racism was to savage Israel and America. Even as feminists tried to focus on the abysmal plight of women in the Third World, they simultaneously felt they had to 'earn' the right to do so by condemning America". 54.
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PSYCHOLOGY - Appeasement as a way to acquire an illusion of security.
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(1) "But I also think we need to note that part of this phenomenon stems from the fear that 9/11 implanted in Americans and the connection that leftists are making between their fears and Israel. It still isn’t fashionable to admit what we all know: that hatred of Muslim fundamentalists for the United States is, in large measure, a reflection of their hatred of Israel. Certainly, one way the United States could reduce its susceptibility to attack is to sell out our only reliable ally in the Middle East. I’m sure not advocating such a position. But I think that a desire to return to the illusion of safety feeds the hostility to Israel since blaming Israel and the Jews provides a morally convenient route to security. 2. *****
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PSYCHOLOGY - Responding to assaults of Islamic Supremacists with self-blame.
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(1) "In psychiatry, female patients are seen more frequently with self-inflicted wounds or self-destructive behaviour than men, who tend to direct their aggression outwards. It is also a well-known fact that many women blame themselves for abusive husbands, and make excuses for their abusers’ behavior. Has the West adopted some of the negative traits of the female psyche? The newly feminized West gets attacked and assaulted by the Arab and Islamic world, and continues to blame itself, while at the same time be fascinated by its abusers. It is thus behaving in the same way as a self-loathing woman towards an abusive man" 10.
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PSYCHOLOGY - Feminist refusal to fight the obvious horrors of Islamic Supremacism because it will cause them to concede that the West is right, thus removing their desired status as "victims".
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(1) "In terms of the “oppression” of women, the little girl in an Arabic-Muslim society that has her clitoris mutilated when she is eight years old, is then forced into an arranged marriage, and is then killed by an honor killing etc., that is the female I am concerned about. That is the female I think we should be fighting for. That is the culture that we can say is dysfunctional and pathological, especially when the oppression of that culture is institutionalized and legitimized by the authorities themselves. That is the society that we can say we are better than. And a radical feminist would rather die than to ever utter such words, because her greatest nightmare is to ever admit that there is anything better in our capitalist democratic world than in non-Western and, especially, adversary cultures. Because then she will lose her self-appointed status of being a victim". 2. *****
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PSYCHOLOGY - Muslim women defending Islamic Supremacism as a way to safely experience respect and power (without being deemed an apostate).
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(1) "The problem in my opinion is that Western campuses are full of Muslim militant women who found their form of feminism not in standing against Sharia, but in supporting it. That is one safe coping mechanism within Sharia that some Muslim women have found to be helpful to them and it gives them respect and power. ... Muslim women have been trained for centuries to never complain. Complaining especially to non-Muslim infidels is actually a sign of the rebellious Muslim woman and we all know what is the penalty for rebelling against Sharia. It is literally death. ... Rebelling against Islamic law is considered apostasy and because of that women who love their religion must never try to change or criticize it. A feminist movement within Islam is always considered an apostasy movement and that is why many Muslim women try to solve their problem of oppression by becoming as radical, if not more radical, than men. Thus if you cannot beat them, join them. Thus you see that some of the fiercest defenders of Islamic Sharia are women. They even defend polygamy and are the ones who report other misbehaving women. Sharia has turned women against each other and made them guards of their own prison. .". 44. ***** NOTE: Bringing this insight out into the open and confronting Islamic Supremacist women with it might be worthwhile. Further research into this, including the proper psychological terms for this pathology, is suggested. Might it be "displaced anger"? 1683 AD
(2) "They seem to live in denial and have allied themselves with and support the views of elitist and intellectual college type Muslim women who defend Islam, sharia and ignore the reality of women in the Muslim world. The problem in my opinion is that Western campuses are full of Muslim militant women who found their form of feminism not in standing against Sharia, but in supporting it. That is one safe coping mechanism within Sharia that some Muslim women have found to be helpful to them and it gives them respect and power. Consequently, since there is no Muslim feminist movement to talk about, Western feminists found that staying quiet was the best policy. If the victim is not complaining, why would anyone else come to her aid?". 44. *****
(3) "Carmen Bin Laden found herself increasingly 'frustrated, as a woman, to be surrounded by women who simply did not have the courage to resist the system'. However, she saw how such women 'threw all their courage' into religion. They were not submissive when it came to enforcing Islam. Bin Laden writes: 'I think that was simpler for them than fighting for their rights as human beings. Piety gave them the illusion that they had power. I think they believed that if they were strictly religious, then the men - like the other women - would respect that. It seemed to work. Religious women did get much more respect than the Westernized (women)'". 54.
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PSYCHOLOGY - Muslim women internalizing misogynistic religious values.
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(1) "Gabriel confirms that most Arab and Muslim women strongly support the very culture that demeans them, Like women everywhere, they, too, have internalized patriarchal, misogynistic cultural and religious values. She says: (quoting Gabriel) 'Even if they are doctors and lawyers, so many Muslim women actually support an anti-woman Islam with such passion and think we [westerners or Christians] are the ones who have it wrong. Fascinating! This is typical of so many Middle Eastern women. The biggest challenge is the brainwashed Arab and Muslim women. Most don't have a problem with the status quo and think we are all sluts and that we need to be more like them to be respected. It's really sad. Women are the ones who actually support and enforce brutal anti-woman treatment and traditions. It's like the mothers who insist on their daughter's circumcision much more than the fathers". 54. *****
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PSYCHOLOGY - Feminists denying that women under Islamic Supremacism are oppressed, whether they know it or not
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(1) "She's arguing in defense of women's individual experiences of veiling. Much like any decent anthropology 101 professor, Wolf is trying to force a shift in the perspective of her Western readers so that we might seriously consider the possibility that some Muslim women truly and legitimately see dressing scantily in public as repressive and experience covering up outside of their home as freeing....To this Jamie Glazov replies trenchantly: "Ms. Clark-Flory, do you really still not get it? Muslim women don't get to 'truly and legitimately see' anything in an environment where seeing something the way they want to, and acting on it, will get them stigmatized at best and executed at worst." 32.
(2) "“If one says they are examples of male oppression, does that mean that most or all the women in these societies are not only victims but agents in their own victimization?” Cutting through the undergrowth of femspeak, that’s exactly what it means! How hard is this phenomenon to understand? Traumatize a five year old and she’ll do whatever she has to do as she grows up to remain a member of the group". 50.
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PSYCHOLOGY - Feminists who are frustrated in their attempts to halt the mistreatment of women find that America (and the West) is an acceptable target for venting their rage. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Perhaps feminists are (unconsciously) ashamed that they have been so ineffective in stopping the larger, more horrifying sexual abuse of girls and women; perhaps we are seeing a 'scapegoat' phenomena: Feminists can't eliminate rapists, gender cleansing, or gender apartheid, but can vent their frustrated rage on a far more acceptable, symbolic target, namely America. Even feminists will be listened to respectfully in most academic and media circles when and if they attack America or Israel. Less attention is paid to feminist statements about women's freedom". 54.
FEAR / COWARDICE- An outright fear among feminists of offending Islamic Supremacists.
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(1) "But I also think we need to note that part of this phenomenon stems from the fear that 9/11 implanted in Americans and the connection that leftists are making between their fears and Israel. It still isn’t fashionable to admit what we all know: that hatred of Muslim fundamentalists for the United States is, in large measure, a reflection of their hatred of Israel. Certainly, one way the United States could reduce its susceptibility to attack is to sell out our only reliable ally in the Middle East. I’m sure not advocating such a position. But I think that a desire to return to the illusion of safety feeds the hostility to Israel since blaming Israel and the Jews provides a morally convenient route to security. 2.
(2) "For at the root of the weird twists in liberal opinion I have been arguing against lies physical fear: the fear of provoking accusation of racial or religious prejudice; the fear of provoking trouble; the fear of provoking violent retribution. Generally, people do not own up to cowardice. They prefer to dress up it up in fine clothes and call it "respect for difference" or 'a celebration of diversity'". 5. *****
(3) "I don't think either feminism or political correctness does show much respect to faith generally, but rather to Islam, presumably out of fear? Christian denominations who, for example, argue against homosexuality or the more extreme forms of feminism for example, are dismissed in the Western media as fanatical, and their leaders/spokesmen denounced as 'ayatollahs' and sectarian. As your article rightly points out, criticism of Islamic oppression of women is much more muted and 'respectful'. Or (thinking of your article about the Koran) in the case of people like Tony Blair, downright dishonest and wilfully blind, perhaps?" 15.
(4) "Perhaps multi-culturally correct feminists are ambivalent about challenging Islamist misogyny—lest they too be censured as “racists” or threatened with death". 30.
(5) (Post by "kat26") - "Another reason feminists are mute on Muslim issues? Fear. It's easy to criticize the Christian church, it's easy to criticize Judaism, it's easy to criticize the secular institutions of the west, because those targets don't kill women who speak out against them". 40.
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FEAR / COWARDICE -Refusal to speak against Islamic Supremacists for fear of being called a "racist", "Islamophobe", "neocolonialist", etc. .
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(1) "She has noticed that today’s feminists are inclined to keep quiet about the march of radical Islam. “There’s a great fear of tackling the subject because of cultural relativism. People are scared of being called racist,” Cochrane observes". 4.
(2) "Now they (police) say it is racist to intervene. They're so frightened of being called an Islamophobe, they will defend the right of men to force women to be shackled. They smugly declare that ‘we haven't got the right to impose our values on another culture' and think themselves liberal when they do it." 5.
(3) "Under the guise of avoiding neocolonialism and treating the Middle Eastern women as backward and over oppressed, many feminist - academics keep silent about the brutality committed against women. In this way, they apologise for 'their own culture', 'their own religion', 'their own community' and 'their own state'. These feminists academics keep silent about FGM, forced marriage, honour killing, mandatory veiling, sexual apartheid, stoning and many other cruelty of the Shari'a and the Islamic traditions against women. They call such brutality and cruelty 'sensitive issues'. This is simply a cover up and no way can it be considered advocacy for justice, human rights and women's rights. This is rather a dismal and cowardly apology for tribal and Islamic misogyny". 37. *****
(4) "Thus, in the Islamic context, for instance, it is clear that someone like Wolf will never act, because protecting little girls’ genitals is less important for her than protecting herself from the charge of being Islamophobic. Her anti-Americanism, ultimately, has to be prioritized in a sacred and protected place". 53
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FEAR / COWARDICE - Feminist refusal to speak against Islamic Supremacism for they are aware it would shatter their beliefs.
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(1) "So can leftist feminists say, flat out, that Bush represents and wants a better future for women than our enemy in the War on Terror? This is the problem: radical feminists cannot mouth such words, let alone even contemplate such a horrifying notion. Once they accept this reality, they would have to admit that some foreign and adversary cultures are backward and inferior, and this would shatter the entire foundation of their ideological framework and very reason for existence". 2. *****
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EQUIVALENCY - Claim that the treatment of women under fundamentalist, non-Islamic religions is on the same par as the treatment of women under Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "Frequently, when I speak about Islamic fundamentalism, someone suggests that Muslims may have Islamic fundamentalism, but the U.S. has Christian fundamentalists. The implication being that they are the same. This equivalency is flawed thinking. The U.S. is a democracy that guarantees fundamental freedoms and rights. The Christian Right is a political movement of conservative Christians. They may have political and social views and goals that you may not agree with but they operate within a democratic framework. To influence policy and laws, they use their rights as citizens to form advocacy organizations, lobby, and vote. When adherents to these views resort to violence, such as the bombing of abortion clinics, it is treated as an act of violence, and the perpetrators are arrested and punished. And most leaders of Christian Right organizations condemn these acts of political violence. I’ve never heard a Christian fundamentalist call for the take over of the U.S. government by radical preachers or priests, or have Christian or Biblical law replace the U.S. Constitution. That’s the difference between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism: One respects democracy, fundamental rights and freedoms, and the democratic process, the other doesn’t, and its goal is to destroy democracy, freedom, and the democratic process. 21.
(2) "The religious right in America would, if it could, wind back access to abortion and some other women's rights. But as far as I am aware, no Christian fundamentalist in the US has suggested banning women from driving cars, or travelling without their husbands' permission, or forcing them to cover their faces. Contrary to popular opinion, one is not the same as the other" 22.
(3) "My dear colleague, former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky, has it right. In his and Ron Dermer's book, The Case for Democracy, Sharansky writes about the 'failure of people who live in free societies to distinguish between religious fundamentalists in democratic states and religious terrorists in fundamentalist states". 54.
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EQUIVALENCY - Claim that women in the West are treated in a manner which is relatively equivalent to how women under Islamic Supremacism are treated.
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(1) "The primary focus is on the "terror" at home. Katha Pollitt, a columnist at The Nation, talks of "the common thread of misogyny" connecting Christian Evangelicals to the Taliban: 'It is important to remember just how barbarous and cruel the Taliban were. Yet it is also important not to use their example to obscure or deny the common thread of misogyny that connects them with Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition. . . '". 1. NOTE: The truth is that the Taliban are among the worst thing that have happened to women in recent times. Those who imply that Christian Evangelicals are in the same class cannot provide supporting evidence. Feminists use this tactic when they cannot deny the evidence against Islamic Supremacists. They will admit the evidence against Islamic Supremacists is strong, but minimize the importance of such a conclusion by claiming there is something equivalent in the West. 1683 AD
(2) "The inability to make simple distinctions shows up everywhere in contemporary feminist thinking. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, edited by geographer Joni Seager, is a staple in women's studies classes in universities. ... Her atlas, a series of color-coded maps and charts, documents the status of women, highlighting the countries where women are most at risk for poverty, illiteracy, and oppression. One map shows how women are kept "in their place" by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Uganda: ... Seager explains that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman for his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same rating because, Seager says, 'state legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001.' Never mind that the Ugandan practice is barbaric, while the activism surrounding abortion in the United States is a sign of a contentious and free democracy working out its disagreements. Besides which, Seager's categories obscure the fact that in Uganda, abortion is illegal and 'unsafe abortion is the leading cause of maternal mortality' (so states a 2005 report by the Guttmacher Institute), while American abortion law, even after the recent adoption of state regulations, is generally considered among the most liberal of any nation". .1.
(3) "The women who constitute the American feminist establishment today are destined to play little role in the battle for Muslim women's rights. Preoccupied with their own imagined oppression, they can be of little help to others--especially family-centered Islamic feminists. The Katha Pollitts and Eve Enslers, the vagina warriors and university gender theorists--these are women who cannot distinguish between free and unfree societies, between the Taliban and the Promise Keepers, between being forced to wear a veil and being socially pressured to be slender and fit. Their moral obtuseness leads many of them to regard helping Muslim women as 'colonialist' or as part of a 'hegemonic' 'civilizing mission.' It disqualifies them as participants in this moral fight". 1. *****
(4) "When feminists are less hesitant to criticize the oppression of women in non-Western cultures, they often fall back on the kind of moral equivalence (exemplified by Ehrenreich's column), that lumbs together famale genital mutilation in Africa and attempted rollbacks of affirmative action in the United States. This approach makes it possible to take a critical position toward their own society even when they note with seeming detachment horrendous practices (such as genital mutilation) widespread in others. Consider a feminist response to the deadly riots in Nigeria in November 2002, when Muslim extremists rampaged in protest against the Miss World beauty pagent being hosted in that African country's capital. The same groups that rioted against the pagent, forcing its relocation to London, , had also imposed in parts of Negeria strict Islamic codes that were especially oppressive to women -- resulting, for instance, in female rape victims being sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Commenting on these events on the msnbc.com website, journalist Jill Nelson wrote, "As far as I'm concerned, it's equally disrespectful and abusive to have women prancing around a stage in bathing suits for cash or walking the streets shrouded in burkas in order to survive". (She failed to note that women have not been forced to participate in beauty pagents in the West, but are forced to wear burkas in Muslim societies)". 48.
(5) "Unfortunately, there are male academics willing to climb aboard her absurd train of thought. And journalism students who are willing to report enthusiastically on the results. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Patchwork, a “Social Activism Magazine” described a lecture given by Professor Robert Daniels, a supporter of Njambi’s monumental ignorance (or denial, perhaps, given that she herself had to undergo this barbarous “ritual”). As you read his ideas, realize that we have reached, finally, the demonic convergence, we have come to the dark side - Feminislam. It took long enough, but here it is. The fems won’t be standing up for their oppressed sisters after all. Instead they’re rooting for the oppressors. It would be funny were the gropings of these strange bedfellows not so horrifying: “Female Genital Mutilation is a prejudicial term,” he said. “To speak of these practices only as operations or mutilations is like speaking of making the sign of the cross on someone’s forehead on Ash Wednesday as ‘soiling the face’ or speaking of a fraternity branding as ‘mutilating the upper arm,’” said Daniels. How’s that for an evil reductio ad absurdum? Ashes on the forehead don’t leave in their wake ruined bodies, fistulas, urinary incontinence, and all the other miseries that result from an extremely painful, germ-laden procedure done on a five year old without benefit of anesthesia". 50.
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EQUIVALENCY - Discounting any abusive treatment of women under Islamic Supremacism because Western women supposedly experience similar treatment.
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(1) "My critics who seek to delegitimize my main point have now come forward and think they are scoring a powerful blow against me by, typically, pointing out that FGM is not exclusively Muslim. This is a key traditional tactic of the Left. In order to whitewash the barbarity of adversary cultures, they consistently exonerate it by equivocating about how some kind of injustice exists somewhere else — and, especially, of course, how it exists in our own society and civilization. Thus, some of the critics revel in how Lucy Semiyan Mashua, who is leading the new campaign against FGM, is from Kenya and comes from the Massai, a Christian African tribe. This is how their mental gymnastics work: FGM is not just an Islamic practice, so we can’t say anything critical about Islam when it is connected to FGM. This way we can’t say that anything is really better than anything else, and we especially can’t say that our civilization is better than Islam’s or that we have anything to teach Islamic societies. This kind of thinking deliberately incapacitates any action that could be implemented on behalf of Islam’s victims. If you try to do something on behalf of the victims, which begins with honesty about who is perpetrating the crime and why, the critics come forward and say: “Hey, but it isn’t just Muslims that do it.” Then the critics feel really good about themselves for pointing this out and, yes, go home and do nothing about the subject at hand. So in the case of FGM, the leftist feels self-satisfied that he’s pointed out that it’s not just Islam that does it, he engages in no action to help the victims and the mutilation of girls under Islam continues. Naturally Muslims are not the only ones who perpetrate FGM. Of course, FGM is practised outside of Islam, including under non-Islamic African tribal cultures. I never said anywhere that FGM is only practised by Muslims. But the key issue here is that Muslims are the principle religious group that practices this sexual violence against women. And the reality is that if you are a victim of FGM, then the chances are very high that you live in a Muslim household and in a Muslim culture.Now within the context of Islamic FGM, the barbarity is kept alive and legitimized by Islamic theology. This is the case in Egypt, where this crime against girls is waged on a massive level. The Egyptian government banned FGM in 1996, but an Egyptian court overturned the ban in July 1997 because of the ferocious uprising of the Islamic clerics, who fervently pointed to Islamic teachings to re-implement this war against women’s sexuality. The Muslim mutilators pointed to traditional Islamic teachings that sanction FGM, which include the Prophet Muhammad’s instruction that circumcising girls is “a preservation of honor for women.” Also, a legal manual of the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence, ‘Umdat al-Salik, which is endorsed by Al-Azhar University of Cairo — the oldest and most prestigious university in the Islamic world — states that circumcision is obligatory for both boys and girls. Keeping FGM institutionalized also helps the Islamic mutilators keep the structure of Islamic gender apartheid in place. Keeping FGM legitimized and at work is one of the most effective means to keeping women subjugated and caged. After all, the strategy behind amputating the clitoris is clearly to kill the woman’s sexual desire and pleasure, which, in this diseased misogynist mindset, reduces the chances that she will ever toy with the notions of autonomy, equality and self-determination. ... Question: How can we possibly help Egyptian girls, and other girls who are targeted for FGM under Islam, if we do not confront the philosophy behind the institutionalization of this violence? You cannot save Muslim girls from FGM without crystallizing what it is within the religion that gives fertile soil and legitimation to FGM. The way to save human beings from this violence is to isolate those teachings and to have them nullified – and this involves confronting certain Islamic teachings. Nowhere am I saying that we don’t work against FGM in non-Muslim environments. We do that too. We do it all. But we can’t save the victims of Islamic mutilation if we are not honest about the Islamic impulses for that mutilation. That’s why the leftist forces in our society do their best to excuse FGM with the tired old mantra: it’s not only Muslims that do it – as if inaction to save human beings from evil is somehow justified because a sin might exist somewhere else.What a revolting image: the smug leftist turning his back on the victims of Islamic FGM because a non-Muslim somewhere perpetrated FGM. How does this self-satisfied inhumanity save the Muslim girls who will be mutilated in the future? How does it help the non-Muslim girls? Hypothetical question: if we could have saved the Jewish inmates from Auschwitz before they were murdered, would it have been right to abort the rescue operation (which would have involved an honesty about Nazi doctrine) upon discovering that someone, somewhere, in some other place, said or did something anti-Semitic? Hey, it’s not just the Nazis that do it. Would that have sufficed to justify not lifting a hand to rescue Auschwitz’s inmates?" 53.
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EQUIVALENCY - The claim that any physical abuse experienced by women under Islamic Supremacism's dictates and allowances is comparable to any physical abuse experienced by Western women.
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(1) "Shall we just ignore the United Nations Population Fund’s estimate that 5,000 women a year die in honour killings, to avoid casting aspersions on any culture? Shall we pretend it’s not happening in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco and Pakistan, to name just a few countries? There seems to be no problem with denouncing Christian culture for decorating trees at Christmastime, or displaying crosses on Remembrance Day, but when members of another culture engage in actual evildoing, we’re supposed to pretend it all just falls under the rubric of domestic violence. Since domestic violence occurs in all cultures, honour killings can be conveniently lumped into that category and we can keep pretending it’s not particular to certain cultures". 18.
(2) "Q. In your book you say that there's an epidemic of men sexually abusing boys in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, and you imply that domestic violence is higher in Muslim and Arab countries than it is in other places. Do you have statistics to support that? Would it even be possible to have statistics to support that? A. It's not possible to have the kind of statistics that we have in the West. ... In a culture where some of my interviewees described how, if they argued against wife-beating, they would be beaten twice as hard, I doubt that it would be easy to do a study, to come in with a tape recorder and a pen and a pad of paper and say, OK, we'd like to find out how many of you are [having sex with] your male children. Uh, any hands? Q. I would think that probably one of the worst things you could say to a man in any culture is, you sexually abused your son or you beat your wife. Do you have any reluctance to make that accusation about hundreds of millions of people without statistics to back you up? A. Sometimes when you can't get the statistics, [you] begin to do [what] an anthropologist would. [They would] go into the field and they would not only observe, or have their own experiences, they would talk to informants. So I read everything I could get my hands on ... written by women and men about the treatment of women under Islam, and then I interviewed both Arab and Muslim women, and I'm relying upon what they're telling me. And then I also drew conclusions from my own experience, what I observed. And no, I don't think that 100 million or a billion Muslims all engage in high-heinous practices 24 hours a day. I think, rather, that many do some of the time and many do most of the time, depending on the practice". 27.
(3) "While murderers have repeatedly and openly defend their act by referring to Islam and the Koran in justification, many feminists, the mainstream media and western intellectuals largely try to explain these murders as part of the prevalent patterns of domestic violence against women in western societies. While the murderers, whether in the Middle Eastern countries or within the Muslim communities in the West, openly state that their act of murder are "crimes of honour", and that they are merely following the directions set down in their religious beliefs, the apologetic 'Western' intellectuals repeatedly assure us that it is not Islam and backward traditions that are to blame, but that these murders are part and parcel of the common pattern of violence that is happening to Western women too". 37.
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EQUIVALENCY - The claim that oppression regarding the female appearance or body exists among both Western women and women under Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "Eve Ensler, lionized author of The Vagina Monologues, makes the same point somewhat differently in her popular lecture 'Afghanistan is Everywhere': 'We all have different forms of enforced burqas. Every culture has it. Whether it's an idea or a fascist tyranny of what women are supposed to look like--so that women go to the extremes of liposuction, anorexia and bulimia to achieve it--or whether it's being covered in a burqa, we all have deep, profound, ongoing daily forms of oppression'". 1.
(2) "But her (Eve Ensler's) 1feminist theory1 obliterates distinctions between what goes on in Afghanistan and what goes on in Beverly Hills: 'I went from Beverly Hills where women were getting vaginal laser rejuvenation surgery--paying four thousand dollars to get their labias trimmed to make them symmetrical because they didn't like the imbalance. And I flew to Kenya where [women were working to stop] the practice of female genital mutilation. And I said to myself, "'hat is wrong with this picture?''. A better question is: What is wrong with Eve Ensler? These two surgical phenomena are completely different in both scale and purpose. The number of American women who undergo "vaginal labial rejuvenation" is minuscule: There were 793 such procedures in 2005, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. By contrast, a World Health Organization 2000 fact sheet reports: 1Today, the number of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation is estimated at between 100 and 140 million. It is estimated that each year, a further 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM'". The women who elect laser surgery, moreover, are voluntarily seeking relief from physical irregularities that cause them embarrassment or inhibit their sexual enjoyment. The practitioners of genital mutilation, in countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia, believe that removing sensitive parts of the anatomy is the best way to control young women's sexual urges and assure chastity. Genital cutting causes great pain and suffering and often permanently impairs a female's capacity for sexual pleasure. Thus, the intentions of the handful of American adults who choose labial surgery for themselves are exactly the opposite of those of the African parents and elders who insist on cutting the genitals of millions of girls". 1.
(3) "Their bad faith is evidenced by their palming of the moral-equivalence card from the bottom of the deck. I first saw it being waved in triumph in 1993 when Germaine Greer declared that attempts to outlaw female circumcision were "an attack on cultural identity". In her mind, there was no difference between religious traditionalists forcing an eight-year-old to submit to the removal of her clitoris and labia, and an American teenager voluntarily trying out body piercing. "If an Ohio punk has the right to have her genitalia operated on, why has not the Somali woman the same right?" asked the author of The Female Eunuch as she excused clitoral castration". 5.
(4) "A rich Western woman can choose the lengths to which she will go to make herself attractive to men (or to herself); a child in a poor, backward county cannot" 22.
(5) "Ridley also uses the old saw of how “oppressed” Western women are because they have to wear short skirts and skimpy bathings suits. What she neglects to note, as do all who use that argument, is that I am not bound by law to wear a bikini on the beach. I am not bound by law to wear my skirts a certain length or suffer beatings by the religious police. I can pretty much wear anything I like, at any length I like, as long as I’m not breaking any indecency laws. Custom isn’t law. Tradition isn’t law. And peer pressure isn’t law. However, I wouldn’t want to be a Saudi woman who walks out of her house without her veil". 35.
(6) " In The Beauty Myth, for instance, Wolf makes a critique of FGM only in passing, with a “everyone is guilty” theme that ends up comparing FGM with modern day breast surgery". 53.
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EQUIVALENCY - The claim that various groups in both Western and Islamic Supremacist societies oppress women in a similar manner.
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(1) "Soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Katha Pollitt wrote the introduction to a book called Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror. It aimed to show that reactionary religious movements everywhere are targeting women. Says Pollitt: 'In Bangladesh, Muslim fanatics throw acid in the faces of unveiled women; in Nigeria, newly established shariah courts condemn women to death by stoning for having sex outside of wedlock. . . . In the United States, Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists have forged a powerful right-wing political movement focused on banning abortion, stigmatizing homosexuality and limiting young people's access to accurate information about sex'. Pollitt casually places 'limiting young people's access to accurate information about sex' and opposing abortion on the same plane as throwing acid in women's faces and stoning them to death. Her hostility to the United States renders her incapable of distinguishing between private American groups that stigmatize gays and foreign governments that hang them. She has embraced a feminist philosophy that collapses moral categories in ways that defy logic, common sense, and basic decency". 1.
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EQUIVALENCY - Feminist claim that a society's solution to the mistreatment of women (or any moral problem) is appropriate, as long as it is appropriate to that society.
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(Post by "freebel") - "...step back and look at society as a whole, and you'll see how controlled or liberal it is, be it Singapore or Holland - each will respond to its own problems its own way, you can accept or reject those solutions, but they are 'appropriate' to that society's condition and should be seen in its own context". (Reply by GeeM") - "Freebel as I understand you, a society's solution to its moral problems are appropriate, as long as it is appropriate to that society. When you say that they should be seen in their own context, are you suggesting that they should not be addressed (?) Such issues which would include slavery and child prostitution should be ignored as long as they are appropriate for that society. These issues can then only be addressed through moral education and discipline. Who is going to decide what is moral if it is appropriate to that society?" 40.
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EQUIVALENCY - Feminist claim that the culture of Islamic Supremacism is "native" to the people under it, just as Western lifestyles are "native to Westerners; therefore, we are not in a position to criticize the former.
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(Post by "freebel") - "The party who decides change should preferably come from within. ... Westerners can offer alternatives, but should refrain from meddling in other's cultural mores, no matter how 'disagreeable' they may find it - after all, a topless lady in the French Riviera is as native to a burka attired one in the Middle East. My suggestion to any serious critic is to live there for the purpose of anthropology - otherwise, we're merely being hypocritical in demeaning other cultures as barbaric, etc.". (Reply by "Sassylassie") - I have every intention of meddling Freebel, I shall never remain silent while inferior cultural practices allow women and children to be abused in the name of some gawd or because it's tolerant to tolerate the intolerable. This is Canada not some medieval nation that is willing to watch men treat women like animals and property". (Additional reply by "kat26") - "freebel -- yes, we should allow slavery, rape, beatings, beheadings, female circumcision, stonings, etc. etc. because that is their culture and they demand to practice it here. How dare we criticize. You, frebel, are a dingdong, a muslim apologist who enables what happened in Kingston". (Additional reply by "Keaner10") - "freebel - I find your post to be incredibly ignorant. So at what point are we allowed to say blatant violations are wrong? When we achieve western utopia? While different cultures have different traditions and values, all people have basic rights and killing and abusing women MUST be condemned no matter who is doing it in the name of what religion. Give your head a shake". 40. *****
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BLAME - Conceding that mistreatment of women exists under Islamic Supremacism, but claiming that the West (U.S.) is the cause, or the West has not done anything to help.
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(1) "But under this administration, the United States government has, for the first time, taken serious measures against international trafficking in women, has spent serious money to promote education of girls in the Muslim world, has created dozens of programs to help women in Arab countries establish small businesses and has supported the growth of female political power. Why can't NOW and the Feminist Majority celebrate those programs?" 2.
(2) "Ms. Roth, you say that Afghan women still face 'severe repression.' Yes they do. Your tone suggests that America is somehow to blame for this. Sorry, it is Islamic extremists who terrorized – and continue to terrorize – Afghan women. Are you ready to denounce the religion and culture that produces these misogynist tyrants? Or let me guess, the U.S. is supposed to take, as you say feminist groups support, more 'action'? It is fascinating how these feminist groups denounce any kind of American involvement anywhere as 'American imperialism', but when America finally goes in and liberates women from a fascist regime, it is criticized for not taking enough 'action' to achieve full liberation overnight, while it is simultaneously denounced by the same groups for having taken the action in the first place. Anti-Americanism is truly a wonder. 2. *****
(3) "Some commentators such as Sun Media columnist Licia Corbella called Thobani's comments a disgrace to feminism, pointing out that Western countries were the source of women's emancipation. "Let me get this straight: the western world -- where women enjoy more freedom and power than anywhere else -- must disappear before women can be free?" 48.
(4) "Steinem, Walker, and Ensler had earlier opposed the U.S. war in Afghanistan on the ground that it would do nothing to liberate that country's women from oppression by the Taliban. The sight of Afghan women and girls celebrating their liberation and attending school for the first time in years had not chenged their minds". 48.
(5) "Calling attention to abuse, violence and oppression is something the left claims it does, but these days they’re more than willing to throw those who need our voices under the bus. Their obsession is to make sure the leftist false construct of an evil George Bush and oppressive United States won’t be eclipsed by the truth — the truth of a world where our enemy targets women on a daily basis for terror, torture, oppression and murder as our troops risk and give their lives to banish that horror from the lives of tens of millions. ... There have also been a few organizations since 2003 that have done astounding authentic feminist work for women and children around the world, and in Afghanistan and Iraq specifically. The American military, without even a passing "thank you" from so-called feminist leaders Smeal or Steinem or Gandy, have liberated over 53 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq, with a good 25 million of those being women and children". 49.
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BLAME - Conceding that mistreatment of women exists under Islamic Supremacism, but claiming that it is due to a history of colonialism.
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(1) "Afghanistan had never been colonised. My Afghan relatives were very proud of this fact. ‘Not even the British could occupy us’, they told me, not once but many times. “I was ultimately forced to conclude that Afghan barbarism, tyranny and misogyny were entirely of their own making and not attributable to colonialism or imperialism. It is what they themselves would say"." 4.
(2) The second variety of feminism, seemingly more sophisticated and especially prevalent on college campuses, is multiculturalism and its twin, postcolonialism. The postcolonial feminist ... She believes that the Western world is so sullied by its legacy of imperialism that no Westerner, man or woman, can utter a word of judgment against former colonial peoples. Worse, she is not so sure that radical Islam isn’t an authentic, indigenous—and therefore appropriate—expression of Arab and Middle Eastern identity. The postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault, one of the intellectual godfathers of multiculturalism and postcolonialism, first set the tone in 1978 when an Italian newspaper sent him to Teheran to cover the Iranian revolution. ... Even after the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power and reintroduced polygamy and divorce on the husband’s demand with automatic custody to fathers, reduced the official female age of marriage from 18 to 13, fired all female judges, and ordered compulsory veiling, whose transgression was to be punished by public flogging, Foucault saw no reason to temper his enthusiasm. What was a small matter like women’s basic rights, when a struggle against “the planetary system” was at hand? Postcolonialists, then, have their own binary system, somewhat at odds with gender feminism—not to mention with women’s rights. It is not men who are the sinners; it is the West. It is not women who are victimized innocents; it is the people who suffered under Western colonialism, or the descendants of those people, to be more exact. Caught between the rock of patriarchy and the hard place of imperialism, the postcolonial feminist scholar gingerly tiptoes her way around the subject of Islamic fundamentalism and does the only thing she can do: she focuses her ire on Western men. To this end, the postcolonialist eagerly dips into the inkwell of gender feminism. She ties colonialist exploitation and domination to maleness; she might refer to Israel’s “masculinist military culture”—Israel being white and Western—though she would never dream of pointing out the “masculinist military culture” of the jihadi. And she expends a good deal of energy condemning Western men for wanting to improve the lives of Eastern women. At the turn of the twentieth century Lord Cromer, the British vice consul of Egypt and a pet target of postcolonial feminists, argued that the “degradation” of women under Islam had a harmful effect on society. Rubbish, according to the postcolonialist feminist. His words are simply part of “the Western narrative of the quintessential otherness and inferiority of Islam,” as Harvard professor Leila Ahmed puts it in Women and Gender in Islam. The same goes for American concern about Afghan women; it is merely a “device for ranking the ‘other’ men as inferior or as ‘uncivilized,’ ” according to Nira Yuval-Davis, professor of gender and ethnic studies at the University of Greenwich, England. These are all examples of what renowned Columbia professor Gayatri Spivak called “white men saving brown women from brown men.” Spivak’s phrase, a great favorite on campus, points to the postcolonial notion that brown men, having been victimized by the West, can never be oppressors in their own right. If they give the appearance of treating women badly, the oppression they have suffered at the hands of Western colonial masters is to blame. In fact, the worse they treat women, the more they are expressing their own justifiable outrage. “When men are traumatized [by colonial rule], they tend to traumatize their own women,” Miriam Cooke, a Duke professor and head of the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies, told me. And today, Cooke asserts, brown men are subjected to a new form of imperialism. “Now there is a return of colonialism that we saw in the nineteenth century in the context of globalization,” she says. “What is driving Islamist men is globalization.” It would be difficult to exaggerate the through-the-looking-glass quality of postcolonialist theory when it comes to the subject of women. Female suicide bombers are a good thing, because they are strong women demonstrating “agency” against colonial powers. Polygamy too must be shown due consideration. “Polygamy can be liberating and empowering,” Cooke answered sunnily when I asked her about it. “Our norm is the Western, heterosexual, single couple. If we can imagine different forms that would allow us to be something other than a heterosexual couple, we might imagine polygamy working,” she explained murkily. Some women, she continued, are relieved when their husbands take a new wife: they won’t have to service him so often. Or they might find they now have the freedom to take a lover. But, I ask, wouldn’t that be dangerous in places where adulteresses can be stoned to death? At any rate, how common is that? “I don’t know,” Cooke answers, “I’m interested in discourse.” The irony couldn’t be darker: the very people protesting the imperialist exploitation of the “Other” endorse that Other’s repressive customs as a means of promoting their own uniquely Western agenda—subverting the heterosexual patriarchy. 8. NOTE: The feminists are saying that Islamic Supremacist men in former colonies of the West get a free ride when it comes to the mistreatment of women. Let's presume, just for the sake of argument, that they are correct. In such a case, one would wonder how they could deflect criticism from people in nations which did not have colonies in the Islamic Supremacist world, such as: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Ireland, Switzerland, the Baltic states, etc. What would they say if people in numerous Asian nations were to condemn these acts? We would ask the same question with respect to all of the nations of Central and South America. Do they realize that some Western nations were colonies of another nation at one time (the U.S., Australia, New Zealand)? One also wonders how someone can "suffer" from colonialism when most everyone who had lived under it is now dead. 1683 AD
(3) "The postcolonial feminist has even more reason to shy away from the predicament of women under radical Islam than her maternally thinking sister. She believes that the Western world is so sullied by its legacy of imperialism that no Westerner, man or woman, can utter a word of judgment against former colonial peoples. Worse, she is not so sure that radical Islam isn't an authentic, indigenous - and therefore appropriate - expression of Arab and Middle Eastern identity. It is not men who are the sinners; it is the West. It is not women who are victimized innocents; it is the people who suffered under Western colonialism, or the descendants of those people, to be more exact. Caught between the rock of patriarchy and the hard place of imperialism, the postcolonial feminist scholar gingerly tiptoes her way around the subject of Islamic fundamentalism and does the only thing she can do: She focuses her ire on Western men. SHE ties colonialist exploitation and domination to maleness; she might refer to Israel's "masculinist military culture" - Israel being white and Western - though she would never dream of pointing out the "masculinist military culture" of the jihadi. American concern about Afghan women? Merely a "device for ranking the 'other' men as inferior or as 'uncivilized,' " according to Nira Yuval-Davis, professor of gender and ethnic studies at the University of Greenwich, England. An example of what renowned Columbia professor Gayatri Spivak called "white men saving brown women from brown men." Brown men, having been victimized by the West, can never be oppressors in their own right. If they give the appearance of treating women badly, the oppression they have suffered at the hands of Western colonial masters is to blame". 43.
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BLAME - Conceding that mistreatment of women exists under Islamic Supremacism, but claiming that it has been worsened by Western "interferrnce".
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(1) "Paradoxically, although such feminists have condemned the plight of women under Islam, once President Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq they have maintained an eerie silence about women under Islamism--except to blame American Empire for causing or worsening their condition". 2.
(2) "It is certainly plausible, as Pettitt claims, that Bush’s actions have “accelerated the radicalisation of the Islamic world tremendously”, although this popular view conveniently downplays the growing Islamic fundamentalist movement before the September 11 attacks and the huge psychological boost that it received from Al-Qaeda’s strike on America". 4.
(3) "Thus, according to their report (of Amnesty International), if Palestinian men beat or kill their wives and daughters - it's because Israel is occupying Palestinian lands, not because they are following their own Arab and Muslim codes of shame, honor, and misogyny. (Isreael is not 'occupying' Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan, yet crimes against women there are epidemic.)". 54.
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CULTURE - Feminist claims that Western culture (as opposed to Islamic Supremacist culture) is adverse to women.
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(1) "One reason is that many feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism and find it very hard to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. They are far more comfortable finding fault with American society for minor inequities (the exclusion of women from the Augusta National Golf Club, the "underrepresentation" of women on faculties of engineering) than criticizing heinous practices beyond our shores". 1. *****
(2) "On most American campuses there are small coteries of self-described 'vagina warriors' looking for ways to expose and make much of the ravages of patriarchy. Feminists like Pollitt, Ehrenreich, and Ensler can cite several decades of women's studies research supporting the charge that our culture is ruinous for women. Many scholars--including Camille Paglia, Daphne Patai, Noretta Koertge, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Christine Rosen, and myself--have questioned the quality of the findings and warned that the studies are twisted and unreliable". 1.
(3) "Like many academic feminists, she is eager to show that American women live under an intimidating system of 'patriarchal authority' that is comparable to those found in many less developed countries. Never mind that this is wildly false". 1.
(4) "In terms of the “oppression” of women, the little girl in an Arabic-Muslim society that has her clitoris mutilated when she is eight years old, is then forced into an arranged marriage, and is then killed by an honor killing etc., that is the female I am concerned about. That is the female I think we should be fighting for. That is the culture that we can say is dysfunctional and pathological, especially when the oppression of that culture is institutionalized and legitimized by the authorities themselves. That is the society that we can say we are better than. And a radical feminist would rather die than to ever utter such words, because her greatest nightmare is to ever admit that there is anything better in our capitalist democratic world than in non-Western and, especially, adversary cultures. Because then she will lose her self-appointed status of being a victim". 2. *****
(5) "So can leftist feminists say, flat out, that Bush represents and wants a better future for women than our enemy in the War on Terror? This is the problem: radical feminists cannot mouth such words, let alone even contemplate such a horrifying notion. Once they accept this reality, they would have to admit that some foreign and adversary cultures are backward and inferior, and this would shatter the entire foundation of their ideological framework and very reason for existence". 2. *****
(6) "I think it is vital to counter by saying that there is no feminist paradise on this earth, or any other kind of paradise for that matter. And to blame Israel or America for that is ludicrous, but the Left does it all the time. And that is exactly the point. Leftists consistently hold up the freest societies to a utopian ideal and find them wanting. The "problems" you pinpoint in Israel (i.e. women do not earn such and such, etc.) are not problems exclusive to Israel, but problems worldwide that have no easy and perfect solutions. The "problems" in Israel are ones that no society can perfectly mend. I think this is essential to state, since we have to delegitimize any premise that assumes that a perfect "equality" can be found among human beings, or genders, anywhere. If we do not negate that premise, then more Stalins, Maos, and Pol Pots are always on the potential horizon. Chesler: You are so right. Neither Israel nor America have to be “better” than other societies but the truth is that, imperfect as we may be, we are actually further evolved along democratic and humanitarian lines than most other cultures". 2.
(7) "Greer said: "I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?" When Bone responded that the situation for such women in Darfur was worse than in the West, Greer tried to hedge the issue. She said: "Who says it is?" When Bone said that she had been to Darfur, Greer argued that changing another culture was hard. "We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast." Greer said that she cared, and was wearing a white ribbon to show she cared". 7. *****NOTE: Greer tries to disqualify Western involvement because its society is not perfect (in her belief). Thus, on that ludicrous foundation, she asserts the West should not become involved". 1683 AD
(8) "Mahmood, said Briggs, “confronted one of the legacies of a long history of orientalism and the recent wars in the Middle East: the way we are invited to see Muslim women as hopelessly, painfully oppressed, without their own autonomy, will, or individual rights.” So apparently the oppression of Muslim women has nothing to do with Islamic law or culture; it is merely a byproduct of “orientalism and the recent wars in the Middle East” – in other words, it is the West’s fault". 17.
(9) "In her Calgary Sun column defending Sunera Thobani's anti-U.S. diatribe, Brenda Wadelt writes, "I have been hearing that liberal democracy created feminism and we need to thank that system for our rights and privilege. Wrong! Feminism happened in spite of liberal democracy, not because of it ... It has been liberal democratic systems that feminist movements -- suffragette movements before them -- fought against to gain the rights women have". This claims overlook that fact that it was only under liberal democracies that feminist movements had a chance to succeed, thanks precisely to values such as individual rights and freedom of speech and association". 48.
(10) "If feminism is to regain its relevance, it must also acknowledge the role Western and specifically American democracy has played in its successes. However much we would like to regard women's liberation as a natural right, it has been the product and achievement of a complex, advanced civilization. Recent events remind us that this civilization is fragile and that its enemies are hostile to freedom for anyone -- especially women. Feminists, perhaps more than anyone else, should realize that Western values and institutions are worth defending". 48.
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that Western culture is ALWAYS wrong or inferior in comparison with non-Western, adversary cultures, such as Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "Of all the liberal democracies, Australia is the one where the idea is most firmly entrenched among the local intelligentsia that the culture of the West is the only criminal, all other cultures being victims no matter what atrocities they might condone even within their own families". 9.
(2) "At one point our feminists, getting frustrated as the pace slowed down in the home stretch to utopia, started telling us that other cultures (cultures practising clitoridectomy, for example) were more "authentic" in the respect of female sexual identity. A woman in Somalia, we were told, at least knows she is a woman". 9.
(3) "The other crucial requirement, surely, is for the pampered intelligentsia of the West to give up finally and forever on any notion that the Third World — for all its deprivations and perhaps because of them — is some kind of Eden in which countervailing values against the excesses of the West may be found. What may be found is more often a heap of dead bodies. Most of those get blamed on the West, too, but when half of the population of Rwanda sets out to murder the other half, with no recourse to Western technology except the metal to make machetes, the explanation starts looking thin". 9.
(4) "She has been widely quoted as viewing western feminists as no different than white men who are saving brown women from brown men, and views doing so as a racist and colonial enterprise. Perhaps Spivak might view British attempts to end the practice of suttee (Hindu wives being forced to throw themselves on their dead husband's funeral pyres) as similarly racist". 54.
(5) "Why do feminists and progressives accept and even respect the fact that other people are loyal to their tribes and nation-states but despise such feelings among Americans as backward and dangerous? Why do they criticize America so obsessively for its failure to perfectionistically live up to our own high standards and yet remain so quiet about the absence of any standards and about the systematic violation of human rights in non-western countries? Why are so many American feminists so understanding about why Muslim women might 'choose' to veil themselves, accept arranged and polygamous marriages or undergo genital mutilation - but denigrate American women who 'choose' to be stay-at-home mothers or who become soldiers whose bravery and self-sacrifice may lead to greater freedom for women and men elsewhere? Why do many American feminists view America's freedoms as sometimes meant for Americans only ('We can't impose our cultural standards on others') and at other times, insist those whom we have captured in a jihadic and terrorist war they have declared against us?" 54. *****
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that the West must not criticize other cultures (particularly Islamic Supremacism) and must always defer to them simply because they are not Western.
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(1) "Second, the notion that so-called feminist leaders shy away from criticizing Muslim fundamentalists out of allegiance to the concept of multi-cultural sensitivity is mind-boggling. Is Roth really suggesting that giving Islamic leaders a pass on their persecution of women is multi-culturally sensitive? Gee, by that logic I guess we should stay mum while the Arabs of the Sudan or Mauritania enslave Africans, or the Chinese commit female infanticide. Is that what being multi-culturally sensitive demands?" 2.
(2) "They (Feminists and Leftists) justify the most horrendous behavior and goals in the name of respect for cultural difference or defending poor, innocent Third World peoples being vilified by mean Republicans. Instead, the Left should be rallying to the aid of Muslims being cowed into submission by fundamentalists in the same way it rallied around Spain. (Can you imagine the Left of the 1930s defending Franco because he had a right to be a Catholic fundamentalist?) By refusing to address the basic question - Who is the GREATER enemy - the Left instead is feeding the modern fascists". 2.
(3) "For all the qualifications, the stubborn fact remains that mainstream opinion does not consider the oppression of women a pressing concern when it is done in the name of culture or religion, particularly in the name of once-subordinate cultures and religions. The misogyny they generate does not move hearts or stir passions. Governments that stifle half their populations do not face boycotts or demonstrations outside their embassies, motions of condemnation at international conferences or opprobrium in everyday political discourse. 5.
(4) "Their bad faith is evidenced by their palming of the moral-equivalence card from the bottom of the deck. I first saw it being waved in triumph in 1993 when Germaine Greer declared that attempts to outlaw female circumcision were "an attack on cultural identity". In her mind, there was no difference between religious traditionalists forcing an eight-year-old to submit to the removal of her clitoris and labia, and an American teenager voluntarily trying out body piercing. "If an Ohio punk has the right to have her genitalia operated on, why has not the Somali woman the same right?" asked the author of The Female Eunuch as she excused clitoral castration". 5.
(5) "I very much resent it in the West when people — maybe with all the good intentions or from a progressive point of view — keep telling me, ‘It's their culture.' It's like saying, the culture of Massachusetts is burning witches. First, there are aspects of culture which are really reprehensible, and we should fight against it. Second, women in Iran and in Saudi Arabia don't like to be stoned to death." 5.
(6) "In 1999, Greer published The Whole Woman. Here, she attempted to compare FGM - which is forced upon young girls who have no rights of refusal - with breast enhancement, which is an adult woman's choice. For Greer, an operation that robs a woman of the right to enjoy sex is justifiable as it is a part of "culture". 7.
(7) " In asserting that Westerners shouldn’t assume women in the Middle East wish to imitate secular, Westernized women, she encapsulated the ideology widespread on college campuses: multiculturalism, a form of cultural relativism that denies the ability to judge non-Western cultures on their merits, and which, in practice, judges all non-Western cultures as superior". 11.
(8) "Today, advocacy for multiculturalism has replaced support for universalism. Universalism is based universal principles of human rights, equality, freedom, and democracy, as laid out in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and before that the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Other democracies have their own constitutions and founding sets of documents. Today, these visions and commitments to universal equality among people have become secondary to advocacy for multiculturalism. Embedded in multicultural ideology is cultural relativism, the principle that all cultures are equal, must be respected, and cannot be criticized. Or if one does criticize another culture or religious practice, the speaker must immediately point out deficiencies in other cultures and religious practices, or at least those of his or her own, in this case, the U.S. One cannot advocate for relative rights and freedoms without rejecting universal principles of freedom and rights. If you unconditionally accept and respect other cultural and religious practices, the first group that always loses is women. Most discriminatory attitudes and practices are based on culture, tradition, and religion. Women’s greatest hope for freedom and rights comes with the promotion of universal principles of freedom and rights; then women can claim their equality. Today, I see students in class being fearful of discussing types of violence against women or the oppression of women. Although they may be horrified by honor killings or female genital mutilation, they feel they have to accept it because it’s someone else’s culture or religion. They think it is unacceptable to advocate for other women’s freedom and rights because it might violate another cultures or religions, and that would be imposing their view on another culture or religion. While at first glance this may sound respectful, it translated into remaining silent and accepting some of the worst human rights violations against women. Following acceptance of multiculturalism, they withdraw into isolationism. If we must respect all other cultures and religious practices, then there is nothing to do about violations of women’s rights around the world. They often oppose any efforts to improve the lives of women in other countries. They justify this isolationism by saying they have enough work on women’s issues here at home and they should concentrate on that. 21.NOTE: Excellent explanation! 1683 AD
(9) "It does not take a lot of courage for people living in Western democracies to criticise aspects of their culture that need criticising (indeed, it sometimes takes more courage to defend the culture). It takes a great deal of courage for people living in totalitarian states to speak out against the injustices done in the name of their religion or culture. The problem with politely ignoring abuses of human rights because "it's their culture" is that it lets down the brave liberals and democrats and human rights defenders who are trying to change things that so badly need to change for the welfare of women and men in their own communities and in the world" 22. *****
(10) "First, we must recognize that Islam is the largest and most systematic practioner of both gender and religious Apartheid on earth. The multi-culturalists refuse to see what is staring them in the face and civilians may not truly comprehend how ruthlessly circumscribed and endangered the lives of girls, women, and non-Muslim minorities are under jihadic Islam". 26.
(11) "It's all very much understandable and expected, of course: it is politically correct and cutting-edge to scream with moral indignation about a woman's right to an abortion in the West, but to actually care for - and come to the public defense of - the female victim of a gang-rape committed by Muslims is unthinkable. This is so because admitting the Muslim rape epidemic, and the theology and institutions on which it is based, and denouncing it, would violate the central code of the "progressive" leftist faith: anti-Americanism and cultural relativism. No culture can be said to be better than any other - unless it is American culture, which is always fair game for derision and ridicule. But to criticize any Third World culture in general - and an adversary culture in particular - is to surrender the political cause and faith. And that's why leftist feminists are also completely mum on the horrors of forced marriages, honor killings and female genital mutilation within the Islamic world". 31.
(12) "In many of the sizable Muslim immigrant communities in Europe, brutality against women is justified in the name of respecting 'other's' culture and religion. How can we respect any culture or religion that endorses violence and terrorism against women? Over the past twenty years cultural relativism has led to a culture of tolerating intolerance. Criticising these unacceptable traditions, cultures and religious beliefs and practices has been labeled racism and Islamophobia. Human beings are worthy of respect but not all beliefs can or should be respected. It is perfectly feasible to love the believer but hate the belief. Relativism and respect for misogynism is no shield against racism. Quite the opposite. It promotes racism by depriving women and girls living in European and Middle Eastern countries of their universal rights and civil liberties". 37.
(13) "But more typical is the feminist blog of Deborah Kate, who acknowledges that feminists have been accused of ignoring Muslim women. Kate comes out against stoning, enforced marriage, female circumcision, etc., and wonders idly whether countries guilty of crimes against women deserve sanctions like those levelled at South Africa in its apartheid days. No, she decides, exhibiting the fondness for fashionable moral relativism that is now epidemic in feminist circles, 'I realize I cannot force my version of feminism upon non-Western women.'". 40.
(14) "It is amazing how the Western feminist movement doesn’t want to touch Islam or Islamic Law. The same Western Feminists who revolted against and never forgave their own culture, religion or society for discrimination against women in the past, suddenly have developed great respect for religious, cultural and social customs that oppress and discriminate against women in other cultures. They suddenly say, this is their tradition and culture and we must respect them". 44.
(15) "Like other academics, feminists will not characterize a culture as "barbaric" if it is an Arab or Muslim country—not even if that culture or country is perpetrating genocidal violence against Muslims and what I call gender-cleansing—as is the case in the Sudan. Western feminists and leftists do not feel it is their right to condemn Muslim-on-Muslim violence". 46.
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that the culture of Islamic Supremacism is "native" to the people under it, just as Western lifestyles are "native to Westerners; therefore, we are not in a position to criticize the former.
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(1) (Post by "freebel") - "The party who decides change should preferably come from within. ... Westerners can offer alternatives, but should refrain from meddling in other's cultural mores, no matter how 'disagreeable' they may find it - after all, a topless lady in the French Riviera is as native to a burka attired one in the Middle East. My suggestion to any serious critic is to live there for the purpose of anthropology - otherwise, we're merely being hypocritical in demeaning other cultures as barbaric, etc.". (Reply by "Sassylassie") - I have every intention of meddling Freebel, I shall never remain silent while inferior cultural practices allow women and children to be abused in the name of some gawd or because it's tolerant to tolerate the intolerable. This is Canada not some medieval nation that is willing to watch men treat women like animals and property". (Additional reply by "kat26") - "freebel -- yes, we should allow slavery, rape, beatings, beheadings, female circumcision, stonings, etc. etc. because that is their culture and they demand to practice it here. How dare we criticize. You, frebel, are a dingdong, a muslim apologist who enables what happened in Kingston". (Additional reply by "Keaner10") - "freebel - I find your post to be incredibly ignorant. So at what point are we allowed to say blatant violations are wrong? When we achieve western utopia? While different cultures have different traditions and values, all people have basic rights and killing and abusing women MUST be condemned no matter who is doing it in the name of what religion. Give your head a shake". 40. *****
(2) "(Quoting of author Taslima Nasrin) Some authors in the West are coming forward in support of fundamentalists. They are trying to argue that not all customs in vogue in the third world countries are harmful for women. They find a sort of stability and social peace in the oriental world. They think that even the harems are not necessarily bad for women, because they provide a degree of autonomy and independence! May I humbly observe that all this is a plain hoax. In fact the fight is more urgent in the East, because most of the women have neither any education nor any economic independence. If modern secular education is good for western women why should the eastern women be deprived of it? The peace that some authors visualize in the Eastern countries is, clearly, the peace of the grave". 54.
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that Western men (not Islamic Supremacist men) are oppressors of women.
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(1) "Chesler has a point. Judging from the rhetoric of many feminists, all the oppression in the world comes from Western men, who are oppressing both women and non-Western men. Muslim immigrants are “fellow victims” of this bias. At best, they may be patriarchal pigs, but no worse than Western men". 10.
(2) "Misandry, the hatred of men, isn’t necessarily less prevalent than misogyny, the hatred of women. The difference is that the former is much more socially acceptable. If all oppression comes from Western men, it becomes logical to try weakening them as much as possible. If you do, a paradise of peace and equality awaits us at the other side of the rainbow. Well congratulations to Western European women. You’ve succeeded in harassing and ridiculing your own sons into suppressing many of their masculine instincts. To your surprise, you didn’t enter a feminist Nirvana, but paved the way for an unfolding Islamic hell". 10.
(3) " Feminism isn't about promoting the interests of women, but about neutering Western men so that they can be overrun by non-Western men". 23.
(4) " If Western men are pigs and “just like the Taliban” no matter what we do, why bother? Western women will then be squashed by more aggressive men from other cultures, which is exactly what is happening in Western Europe now. The irony is that when women launched the Second Wave of Feminism in the 1960s and 70s, they were reasonably safe and, in my view, not very oppressed. When the long-term effects of feminism finally set in, Western women may very well end up being genuinely oppressed under the boot of Islam. Radical feminism thus leads to oppression of women". 51.
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that their philosophy should prevail in Western society.
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(1) "It is correct, as feminists claim, that a hyper-feminine society is not as destructive as a hyper-masculine society. The catch with a too soft society is that it is unsustainable. It will get squashed as soon as it is confronted by more traditional, aggressive ones. Instead of “having it all,” Western women risk losing everything. What are liberal feminists going to do when faced with aggressive gang of Muslim youngsters? Burn their bras and throw the pocket edition of the Vagina Monologues at them? Perhaps women can succeed in turning their men into doormats, but it will be on the cost of doing so to their nation and to their civilization as well. According to Italian American feminist Camille Paglia, “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.” That may be an exaggeration, but male energy is definitely a driving force in any dynamic culture". 10.
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that human rights vary depending on the culture.
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(1) "Equally worrying is the tendency among political leaders, academics and feminists, to reject the application of human rights discourse to personal matters, describing human rights as a purely western concept foisted on the more traditional societies of the east without adequate debate. And as far as European governments are concerned, there shouldn't be different bases for peoples rights in European countries. All should be considered as citizens and equal before the law. Society is duty bound to safe guard and protect the rights of women and girls from Muslim origin. This could be done only by abolishing all the respective discriminatory laws and regulations against these girls and women. This could be done only when there is no respect, excuse and legal justification for the misogynist Islamic and traditional beliefs and practices". 37.
(2) "Except. of course, the western feminists are perpetually 'guilty' and wish to atone for colonial and racist crimes and the eastern feminists are perpetually outraged and aggressive about the colonial racism. It's almost an @ & M relationship. But the uniformity of the feminist vision and voice represents a great loss especially because so few feminists, whether eastern or western, uphold a single standard of human rights for all. Thus, everyone is speaking the same politically correct universal language - from which a universal concept of human rights, even for women, has been utterly banished". 54. *****
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CULTURE: Feminist having a bigoted, elitist mindset which allows them to keep the Western liberties which they enjoy from accruing to women under Islamic Supremacism, because they are of a different culture.
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(1) People on the receiving end of repression notice the air of moral superiority as soon as Western liberals refuse them their support out of "respect" for the culture which intimidates them. Liberal relativists are in this respect the true successors of their imperialist ancestors. Where once Westerners denied rights to lesser breeds without the law who were racially unsuited to enjoy liberty, now they deny them to diverse breeds without the culture who are unsuited by accidents of history and geography to exercise the freedoms white Westerners take for granted or handle the complex arguments white Westerners take in their stride". 5.
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that actions taken by Westerners to help women under Islamic Supremacism are elitist.
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(1) "Ann Russo, director of women's and gender studies at Chicago's DePaul University (writing in the International Feminist Journal of Politics), accused the FMF of practicing a kind of 'imperial feminism'. Said Russo: 'The FMF's campaign narrative is one of colonialist protection rather than of solidarity. . . . [It] capitalizes on the images of prominent white Western women, like Mavis Leno, Eleanor Smeal and other women politicians and celebrity figures, who construct themselves as 'free' and 'liberated' and thus in the best position to 'save1 Afghan women". 1.
(2) "The women who constitute the American feminist establishment today are destined to play little role in the battle for Muslim women's rights. Preoccupied with their own imagined oppression, they can be of little help to others--especially family-centered Islamic feminists. The Katha Pollitts and Eve Enslers, the vagina warriors and university gender theorists--these are women who cannot distinguish between free and unfree societies, between the Taliban and the Promise Keepers, between being forced to wear a veil and being socially pressured to be slender and fit. Their moral obtuseness leads many of them to regard helping Muslim women as 'colonialist' or as part of a 'hegemonic' 'civilizing mission.' It disqualifies them as participants in this moral fight". 1. *****
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that we must celebrate diversity and respect differences
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(1) "For at the root of the weird twists in liberal opinion I have been arguing against lies physical fear: the fear of provoking accusation of racial or religious prejudice; the fear of provoking trouble; the fear of provoking violent retribution. Generally, people do not own up to cowardice. They prefer to dress up it up in fine clothes and call it "respect for difference" or 'a celebration of diversity'". 5. *****
(2) "The multicultural feminist canon has not led to independent, tolerant, diverse or objective ways of thinking. On the contrary. It has led to conformity, totalitarian thinking, and political passivity". 54.
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CULTURE - Feminists holding Islam to a lower standard is bigoted.
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(1) "Finally, she made a point that I have made many times -- and which has gotten me demonized as a “racist” -- namely, that so-called western "anti-racists" are really acting as "racists" when they hold Muslims to lower standards out of some misguided notion of respect". 45.
(2) "But even as western feminists decry sexist oppression everywhere (and they do, they do), their own doctrine of multi-cultural relativism allows them to have one standard for western women and another, much lower, standard for women who live under Islam. In my view, such multicultural relativism is an ingeniously disguised form of racism and sexism". 54.
(3) "Shahrzad Mobab, writing for the Association for Middle East Studies, asks: 'On what grounds can Europe respect a culture that endorses extreme violence against girls and women? To do so is to exert another form of racism'". 54.
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CULTURE - Feminists are aware that a problem exists with the treatment of women under Islamic Supremacism, but they realize that if they speak up to that effect they will be admitting the Western society is superior in this regard.
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(1) Why shouldn’t feminists want to shout out their own profound discovery for the world to hear? Perhaps, finally, because to do so would be to acknowledge the freedom they themselves enjoy, thanks to Western ideals and institutions. Not only would such an admission force them to give up their own simmering resentments; it would be bad for business. The truth is that the free institutions—an independent judiciary, a free press, open elections—that protect the rights of women are the same ones that protect the rights of men. The separation of church and state that would allow women to escape the burqa would also free men from having their hands amputated for theft. The education system that would teach girls to read would also empower millions of illiterate boys. The capitalist economies that bring clean water, cheap clothes, and washing machines that change the lives of women are the same ones that lead to healthier, freer men. In other words, to address the problems of Muslim women honestly, feminists would have to recognize that free men and women need the same things—and that those are things that they themselves already have. And recognizing that would mean an end to feminism as we know it. 8. *****
(2) "The issue at stake here is that leftist feminists pretend they care about women but when it comes to women who suffer under adversary cultures, they refuse to act, since doing so will legitimize their own societies which they despise and work to destroy. Thus, millions of women under Islamic gender apartheid have been abandoned by leftist feminists, whose devotions lie with their anti-Western and anti-American faiths. ...So the main point of my Newsreal blog, where I asked whether Naomi Wolf would join the battle against FGM, was to point out the hypocrisy of the Left’s silence on this matter. It’s a silence that stems from the fact that leftists like Wolf know that admitting the inferiority of an adversarial culture will legitimize Western civilization, a recognition that they cannot make without risking their entire identities and social belongings. ... The issue is whether she has condemned the societies and cultures within which they are practised and done so on the premise that our society is more humane and has something to teach those societies and cultures. She has not.". 53. *****
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that until we resolve problems in our own (Western) culture, we have no right to judge other societies.
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(1) (Post by "freebel") - "Single motherhood. teen pregnancy, school discipline, drugs, criminality, lack or moral upbringing. These are but a few prevailing social problems troubling OUR society. Until we resolve such basic issues, we cannot judge other societies with saintly conceit". (reply by Rule Me Like You Mean It") - "That's retarded, freebel. Teen pregnancy is not in the same league as honour killing. Get a grip". 40. *****NOTE: Frebel's philosophy is that unless a society's problems in a specific area are "resolved", they have no right to criticize anyone else. Who decides what is "resolved"? What societies have ever attained such perfection?. This philosophy essentially stifles anyone from saying anything - ever. 1683 AD
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CULTURE - Feminists acknowledge the existence of an Islamic Supremacist tactic which harms women, but state that such a practice is cultural based and pre-dated Islam, meaning that Islamic Supremacism cannot be blamed.
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Regarding this issue, it is irrelevant if a practice pre-dated Islam. The important point is that Islam has either done nothing to prohibit certain practices or they have mandated certain practices. 1683 AD
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CULTURE - Feminist refusal to concede that there should be one standard of human rights which covers all cultures.
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(1) "Except. of course, the western feminists are perpetually 'guilty' and wish to atone for colonial and racist crimes and the eastern feminists are perpetually outraged and aggressive about the colonial racism. It's almost an @ & M relationship. But the uniformity of the feminist vision and voice represents a great loss especially because so few feminists, whether eastern or western, uphold a single standard of human rights for all. Thus, everyone is speaking the same politically correct universal language - from which a universal concept of human rights, even for women, has been utterly banished". 54. *****
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CULTURE - Feminist claim that the West cannot impose its cultural standards on others, yet insisting that everyone be entitled to American rights.
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Why do many American feminists view America's freedoms as sometimes meant for Americans only ('We can't impose our cultural standards on others') and at other times, insist those whom we have captured in a jihadic and terrorist war they have declared against us?" 54. *****
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist actions are in support of Islamic Supremacism and are counter to the feminist movement's founding principles.
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(1) "But at the moment, it is being reignited by a particularly curious and - to me - terrifying - meshing of the movement (feminism) I long counted on to defend freedom and to denounce bigotry and a movement (Islamic Supremacism) which has as its clear, openly-stated goal the denial of freedom and the promotion of bigotry. While these movements might not work in concert - and while they clearly do not ultimately have the same aims - they are clearly reinforcing one another". 2.
(2) “I fear that the ‘peace and love’ crowd in the West refuses to understand how Islamism endangers our values and our lives, beginning with our commitment to women’s rights and human rights.” Women’s studies programmes should have been the first to sound the alarm, she points out: “They did not.” 4.
(3) "But I am surprised, all the same, by the persistence of the ideological blind spot that has led women who are so quick to condemn the failings of the West to make transparent excuses for the behaviour of some of the world’s most anti-feminist regimes". 4.
(4) ""Many American intellectuals, including academic feminists, are actively propagandizing students against America and against Israel - which means that in reality they are choosing tyranny and gender apartheid over democracy and human rights for women. This is quite dangerous. In the rush to be multiculturally correct, western feminists have betrayed their own founding principles. Many feminists who have tenure and leadership positions in women's studies programs either tend to be culturalists who are uninterested in foreign policy or they are leftists. As such, they have adopted a pro-PLO and pro-terrorist line of thinking without realizing that such positions have little to do with feminist agency". 54.
(5) "But, according to Diana Nammi, who runs the International Campaign Against Honour Killings, excessive tolerance for peculiar minority practices is tantamount to putting culture ahead of women's lives". 54.
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists claiming to represent women, but they pursue minor inequities in the West in the face of major ones under Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "One reason is that many feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism and find it very hard to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. They are far more comfortable finding fault with American society for minor inequities (the exclusion of women from the Augusta National Golf Club, the "underrepresentation" of women on faculties of engineering) than criticizing heinous practices beyond our shores". 1. *****
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist say criticism of Islamic Supremacists is off limits, but all other religions are fair game.
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(1) "Finally, Roth is being disingenuous when she argues that feminist leaders don't single out 'any religion, fanatic or not.' They don't hesitate to call Christian fundamentalists on the carpet for anti-women policies. They don't shy away from criticizing Israel. So why not apply the same standards to Muslim fundamentalists? And that's the salient question". 2.
(2) "Clark-Flory goes on to excoriate Chesler, Horowitz and Glazov for their assorted sins against multiculturalist orthodoxy, and then concludes: You might notice that as this conflagration spreads, more and more conservatives -- many of whom do not identify as feminists -- are rushing in to stoke the fire. As they do, the discussion becomes less about defending women's rights and more about supporting their ongoing culture war. That reminds me of a line from Wolf's essay: "Ideological battles are often waged with women's bodies as their emblems, and Western Islamophobia is no exception." Yep. That's what it's all about: "Islamophobia." This calls for a Thought Experiment! Imagine a book of the Bible. Let's call it the Book of Naomi. And imagine that the Book of Naomi ... (a list of various actions which subjugate women is put forth; they are not listed here, for brevity). If such a book of the Bible existed, do you think Naomi Wolf would be wringing her hands about "Christianophobia"? Of course she wouldn't. She would be on the front lines denouncing this terrible misogynist book and calling upon those who believe in it to reform. But of course the quotations above are all from the Qur'an. And that changes everything for Naomi Wolf". 32
(3) "She also raised the issue of double standards among Western liberals: "Why does the legitimate questioning of some people (Muslims, for instance) carry the charge of being racist while legitimate questioning of other people (say, non-Muslim Americans) doesn't?"" 33.
(4) "Another asked: "Where are the feminists? Where is the outrage? If this was some conservative Christian sect that beat their women for wearing pants can you imagine the coverage this type of thing would get?"" 34.
(5) "It is amazing how the Western feminist movement doesn’t want to touch Islam or Islamic Law. The same Western Feminists who revolted against and never forgave their own culture, religion or society for discrimination against women in the past, suddenly have developed great respect for religious, cultural and social customs that oppress and discriminate against women in other cultures. They suddenly say, this is their tradition and culture and we must respect them". 44.
(6) " Those same feminists who condemn Christianity and Judaism for more minor (but still serious) misogynist practices only whisper about major Islamic misogyny—lest it be viewed as politically incorrect criticism of a formerly colonized culture". 46.
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist refusal to apply a tactic they favor in the West to fight the mistreatment of women to situations involving mistreated women under Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "Let me suggest that American feminists who have, correctly, demanded police intervention for battered women and criminal penalties for those who batter them may have failed to grasp the importance of military intervention when terrorism becomes battery writ large. Feminists know that you can't reason with or appease a batterer. Feminists may need to apply this way of thinking to Islamo-fascist terrorists who are not freedom fighters seeking justice for their people". 2. ***** NOTE: A very important concept here, one which should be built upon. Feminists will not deny the need (at least in Western society) to apply the force of law to punish or otherwise inhibit men who abuse and mistreat women. If they acknowledge this reality, then they will have no logical basis to defend Islamic Supremacism, under which such adverse treatment flourishes without impediment. 1683 AD
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist fight for Western women to receive certain rights yet refuse to seek the same rights for non-Western women under Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "The emancipation of women is necessary and essential for white-skinned women in London but not for brown-skinned women in Lahore. Or, to move from the global to the local, the emancipation of women is necessary and essential for white-skinned women in Hampstead and Highgate but not for brown-skinned women in Bethnal Green and Bow.When pressed, the characteristic response to accusations of indifference is for hypocritical Westerners to protest that of course they do not support the imprisonment of rape victims. True, but they do not oppose it either". 5.
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Faminists castigating certain elements in the lives of Western women while praising similar elements in the lives of women under Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "She observes, "It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling -- toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home." There was "demureness and propriety" outside of the home, "but inside, women were as interested in allure, seduction and pleasure as women anywhere in the world." How interesting that the same things that Western feminists have scoffed at for decades -- "marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home" -- become warmly appealing when they see them in the Islamic world". 32.
(2) "Incredibly, those same Western feminists who condemn as patriarchal Western institutions of marriage, biological motherhood, heterosexuality, and religion now view Islamic veiling, the hijab (head scarf), purdah (seclusion of women), arranged marriage, and polygamy as sacred religious rights". 46.
(3) "Why are so many American feminists so understanding about why Muslim women might 'choose' to veil themselves, accept arranged and polygamous marriages or undergo genital mutilation - but denigrate American women who 'choose' to be stay-at-home mothers or who become soldiers whose bravery and self-sacrifice may lead to greater freedom for women and men elsewhere?" 54. *****
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Unspoken feminist awareness that the West offers women the most, but they refuse to voice this awareness.
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(1) "So can leftist feminists say, flat out, that Bush represents and wants a better future for women than our enemy in the War on Terror? This is the problem: radical feminists cannot mouth such words, let alone even contemplate such a horrifying notion. Once they accept this reality, they would have to admit that some foreign and adversary cultures are backward and inferior, and this would shatter the entire foundation of their ideological framework and very reason for existence". 2. *****
(2) Why shouldn’t feminists want to shout out their own profound discovery for the world to hear? Perhaps, finally, because to do so would be to acknowledge the freedom they themselves enjoy, thanks to Western ideals and institutions. Not only would such an admission force them to give up their own simmering resentments; it would be bad for business. The truth is that the free institutions—an independent judiciary, a free press, open elections—that protect the rights of women are the same ones that protect the rights of men. The separation of church and state that would allow women to escape the burqa would also free men from having their hands amputated for theft. The education system that would teach girls to read would also empower millions of illiterate boys. The capitalist economies that bring clean water, cheap clothes, and washing machines that change the lives of women are the same ones that lead to healthier, freer men. In other words, to address the problems of Muslim women honestly, feminists would have to recognize that free men and women need the same things—and that those are things that they themselves already have. And recognizing that would mean an end to feminism as we know it. 8. *****
(3) "The issue at stake here is that leftist feminists pretend they care about women but when it comes to women who suffer under adversary cultures, they refuse to act, since doing so will legitimize their own societies which they despise and work to destroy. Thus, millions of women under Islamic gender apartheid have been abandoned by leftist feminists, whose devotions lie with their anti-Western and anti-American faiths. ...So the main point of my Newsreal blog, where I asked whether Naomi Wolf would join the battle against FGM, was to point out the hypocrisy of the Left’s silence on this matter. It’s a silence that stems from the fact that leftists like Wolf know that admitting the inferiority of an adversarial culture will legitimize Western civilization, a recognition that they cannot make without risking their entire identities and social belongings. ... The issue is whether she has condemned the societies and cultures within which they are practised and done so on the premise that our society is more humane and has something to teach those societies and cultures. She has not.". 53. *****
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist aware of the mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacism, but they refuse to specifically name the ultimate cause of such mistreatment; namely, Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "It’s not that these groups have overlooked women living under Islamist rule, but they have not credited the oppressor by name -- instead they’ve addressed the individual policies or incidents. They’ve not identified the agenda of any religion, fanatic or not -- for many of them embody anti-woman policies". 2.
(2) NOTE: This is a central problem which we have with feminism. Some feminist-related groups actually address the effects of Islamic Supremacism in an impressive manner, but from a long-term perspective, this comes across as a waste of energy if no attention is ever paid to the ultimate cause. This would apply to any problem where the cause is not addressed. 1683 AD
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists castigating Western powers for getting involved in an Islamic Supremacist nation, and once they are in, castigating them for not doing enough to protect women there.
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(1) "Ms. Roth, you say that Afghan women still face 'severe repression.' Yes they do. Your tone suggests that America is somehow to blame for this. Sorry, it is Islamic extremists who terrorized – and continue to terrorize – Afghan women. Are you ready to denounce the religion and culture that produces these misogynist tyrants? Or let me guess, the U.S. is supposed to take, as you say feminist groups support, more 'action'? It is fascinating how these feminist groups denounce any kind of American involvement anywhere as 'American imperialism', but when America finally goes in and liberates women from a fascist regime, it is criticized for not taking enough 'action' to achieve full liberation overnight, while it is simultaneously denounced by the same groups for having taken the action in the first place. Anti-Americanism is truly a wonder. 2. *****
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist aware of the mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacism and they say they do not support it (and nothing more).
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(1) Feminists claim that they are against an Islamic Supremacist practice, and nothing more. In such a situation, they refuse to condemn the practice. And that is the same as actually supporting it in the first place. 1683 AD.
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists railing against the West, but refusing to acknowledge the mistreatment of women in former colonies.
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(1) "But mainly, an increasing number of feminists were leftists and left-dominated liberals. As such, they would happily and repeatedly talk (and scream) about going up against America as an oppressor, but they would not even whisper words that opposed any (brown-skinned, formerly colonized) Third World Muslim tyrant - not even when he was systematically terrorizing and slaughtering equally brown-skinned and formerly colonized women, children, men - and Muslim feminists, both male and female". 54. *****
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminists condemn the West, where their ideas have triumphed, while ignoring the threats of Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) Many feminists are out of touch with the realities of the war that has been declared against the secular, Judeo-Christian, modern West. many feminists continue to condemn the United States, a country in which for the most part, their ideas have triumphed. Human rights work is not the province of any one ideology. Saving lives and defending freedom are more important than loyalty to an outdated and too-limited feminist sisterhood ... Twenty-first-century feminists need to reassess the global threats to women and men, rethink their vision, rekindle their passion and work in solidarity with pro-democracy forces around the world to liberate humanity from all forms of tyranny and slavery". 54. (quoting Donna Hughes in "Feminism in the 21st Century", in the Washington Post)
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HYPOCRISY / DUPLICITY - Feminist claim that the West cannot impose its cultural standards on others, yet insisting that everyone be entitled to American rights.
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Why do many American feminists view America's freedoms as sometimes meant for Americans only ('We can't impose our cultural standards on others') and at other times, insist those whom we have captured in a jihadic and terrorist war they have declared against us?" 54. *****
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COMPLICITY - Lack of feminist action in the West to protect women from Islamic Supremacism helps the mistreatment of the latter to persist.
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(1) "But there are men all over the world who really do want to kill women on a point of honour. What kind of honour is that? When are these dreadful men, and all who encourage and "understand" them, to be condemned as the homicidal maniacs they are? It could be said that there is not much point in condemning what we can't change, but in our own countries, where it could be changed if the will existed, condemnation would surely be a useful first step, and it might help some of the countries of origin to at least see the point". 9. *****
(2) "It does not take a lot of courage for people living in Western democracies to criticise aspects of their culture that need criticising (indeed, it sometimes takes more courage to defend the culture). It takes a great deal of courage for people living in totalitarian states to speak out against the injustices done in the name of their religion or culture. The problem with politely ignoring abuses of human rights because "it's their culture" is that it lets down the brave liberals and democrats and human rights defenders who are trying to change things that so badly need to change for the welfare of women and men in their own communities and in the world" 22. *****
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DELUSION / NAIVITY - Feminist belief that reasoning with Islamic Supremacists for the better treatment of women is possible.
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(1) "Feminists know that you can't reason with or appease a batterer. Feminists may need to apply this way of thinking to Islamo-fascist terrorists who are not freedom fighters seeking justice for their people. The other day, an Iranian judge hung a sixteen year old girl for having addressed the court with "a sharp tongue." Although America can't intervene everywhere, do feminists believe that such state-sanctioned extremist misogyny can be reasoned with or should be appeased?" 2.
(2) " ... but we can be sure that any monolithic state which resists the very idea of educating women has no intention of liberalising itself. This principle holds true all the way up to — or down to, if you like — the level of Saudi Arabia, which even the West's most ardently anti-Western feminists are ready to concede is an organised insult to their gender. (They would probably be less ready to concede this if Saudi Arabia were a declared enemy of the United States, but that's by the way.) Where women are concerned — and where women are concerned we are all concerned, or should be — Saudi Arabia is such a horror show that it would constitute all on its own sufficient reason for the West to wean itself off oil, ... Countries in receipt of free money are under no compulsion to develop a real economy, and are thus less likely than ever to see even the material benefits, let alone the moral ones, of setting women free". 9.
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DELUSION / NAIVITY - The feminist belief that Islamic Supremacists will change for the better as a matter of course.
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(1) Democracy is the best chance for women. Or if that sounds too naive, too pro-western perhaps, then let's put it this way. The absence of democracy is seldom good news for women. Or, to get down to bedrock, if women can't vote for women, then they haven't got many weapons to fight with when they seek justice. My own view, which I'm ready to hear contested, is that this is the main reason why some feminists in the west have been so slow to get behind those women in the world's all too numerous tyrannies who have to risk their lives to say anything. It's just too clear a proof that men have a natural advantage when it comes to the application of violence. When you say that women have little chance against men if it comes to a physical battle, you are conceding that there really might be an intractable difference between the genders after all. Ideological feminists in the West were for a long time reluctant to concede this, because they preferred to believe that there was no real difference, and that all female handicaps were imposed by social stereotyping that could be reversed by argument. But this belief was really possible only in a society where the powers of argument had a preponderance over the powers of violence. And since many western feminists are still convinced that the social stereotyping of the West is the product of fundamental flaws within liberal democracy itself, they have a tendency to believe that undemocratic societies are somehow valuable in the opposition they offer to the free countries which the feminists are so keen to characterise as not free enough. I have to pick my words carefully here, because this is the touchiest theme I have ever tackled in these broadcasts, but I do think it's high time to say that if feminist ideologists find liberal democracy unfriendly, they might consider that the absence of liberal democracy is a lot less friendly still". 52
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DELUSION / NAIVITY - The feminist belief that if any change is to be effected within the Islamic Supremacist world, it must come from within.
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(1) Some feminists may concede that Islamic Supremacism leads to the mistreatment of women in many non-Western nations, or within the Islamic Supremacist enclaves of Western nations, but they assert that any change must be generated from within. In addressing this belief, we will of course recognize the usual "cultural" theme. However, it reflects complete ignorance of the realities that if women dare to speak up, or even dress in a Western manner in many of these nations, they will literally be shot down by Islamic Supremacists via government, community or family. They have no ability to join together and establish any form of power base. 1683 AD. *****
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DELUSION / NAIVITY - Western feminists expressing support for Islamic causes in manners which would get them killed in an Islamic Supremacist nation.
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(1) "For the last five years, many feminists and lesbian-feminist demonstrators (in anti-globalization and anti-war marches) have waved the Palestinian flag and worn Arab headdress. In the Arab world, they would not have that right, because they are wearing Arab male kaffiyehs. Were they marching anywhere in the Islamic world, they'd be wearing chadaris, burqas, head scarves, and veils. And if they weren't, they would be beaten, jailed, raped, possibly flogged, perhaps even stoned to death. A willful blindness to the reality of the Islamic world seems to go hand-in-hand with support for Palestine". 54.
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COLONIALISM - Feminist claim that the West is not in a position to criticize Islamic Supremacists due to their Colonial history.
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(1) "...hard left thinking which, by definition, idealizes internationalism but romanticizes all tribal and ethnic identities as anti-colonialist liberation movements save one: that of the Jews. Thus, dangerously reactionary regimes such as exist in the Islamic/Islamist world are, paradoxically, seen as forms of resistance, liberatory or otherwise. Zionism, which is the liberation movement of the Jewish people is seen as colonialist, and illegitimate. Also, feminists who believe that there is always a victim and therefore always a victimizer and that both America and Israel are illegitimate powers have, simplistically, without context or fact, decided that America and Israel are the victimizers (even in the matter of 9/11), and that Arafat and bin Laden and their gangs of masked mass murderers are the noble and innocent victims. 2.
(2) "What is striking is their capacity, once they run out of injustices in liberal democracy that they can blame on capitalism, to look for injustices in the rest of the world that they can blame on liberal democracy. In sub-Saharan Africa, especially, criminal states are regarded as victim states even when their sole concern is the victimisation of their own people". 9.
(3) "When Muslims, who above all else like to present themselves as victims, enter Western nations, they find that much of their work has already been done for them. They can use a pre-established tradition of claiming to be victims, demanding state intervention and maybe quotas to address this, as well as a complete re-writing of history and public campaigns against bigotry and hate speech. Western feminists have thus paved the way for the forces that will dismantle Western feminism, and end up in bed, sometimes quite literally, with the people who want to enslave them". 10.
(4) "Both conservatives and feminists need to support western democracy since democracy cannot exist without women's full civil participation. If feminists are serious about anti-colonialism then surely they must oppose Arab jihadic colonialism, not glorify it. If they are serious about anti-racism, they must oppose Jew-hatred by any other name". 26
(5) "Unfortunately, the good Professor isn’t quite done: Daniels referred to a feminist critique by Wairimu Njambi, a circumcised woman, to support his argument. “Anti-FGM discourse perpetuates a colonialist assumption by universalizing a particular western image of a ‘normal’ body and sexuality,” Njambi wrote. “This discourse includes not only a missionizing Christian bias, but also a Western sexist bias by considering women’s issues as separable from men’s,” Daniels said. Daniels critiqued the common feminist notion that the rituals are an extreme form of male oppression. “If one says they are examples of male oppression, does that mean that most or all the women in these societies are not only victims but agents in their own victimization?” Cutting through the undergrowth of femspeak, that’s exactly what it means! How hard is this phenomenon to understand? Traumatize a five year old and she’ll do whatever she has to do as she grows up to remain a member of the group. 50. NOTE: Yes, they are agents in their own victimization. These women are so controlled that they risk severe punishment if they do not fulfill the Islamic Supremacist expectations. Doesn't a simple understanding of people make you think that if the perpetrators were allowed a choice on whether or not to inflict such trauma on their daughters that most would choose not to? Of course they would, if they had a choice. 1683 AD
(6) "Abu-Lughod, like her Columbia University colleague, Gayatri Spivak, views a western-style fight for women's rights in the Muslim world as a dangerous diversion. She recommends that we continue to focus mainly on the 'colonial enterprise'. Why? Perhaps as a way of reminding western thinkers - heirs to the colonial adventure - that, given their ancestor's past crimes, they dare not feel 'superior' to the Islamic world and above all, they dare not intervene to free Muslim prisoners from Muslim jailors, or African slaves and female sex slaves from their tormentors". 54.
(7) "Except. of course, the western feminists are perpetually 'guilty' and wish to atone for colonial and racist crimes and the eastern feminists are perpetually outraged and aggressive about the colonial racism. It's almost an @ & M relationship. But the uniformity of the feminist vision and voice represents a great loss especially because so few feminists, whether eastern or western, uphold a single standard of human rights for all. Thus, everyone is speaking the same politically correct universal language - from which a universal concept of human rights, even for women, has been utterly banished". 54. *****
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COLONIALISM - Feminist awareness of the mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacism but keeping silent to avoid charges of neocolonialism.
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(1) "Under the guise of avoiding neocolonialism and treating the Middle Eastern women as backward and over oppressed, many feminist - academics keep silent about the brutality committed against women. In this way, they apologise for 'their own culture', 'their own religion', 'their own community' and 'their own state'. These feminists academics keep silent about FGM, forced marriage, honour killing, mandatory veiling, sexual apartheid, stoning and many other cruelty of the Shari'a and the Islamic traditions against women. They call such brutality and cruelty 'sensitive issues'. This is simply a cover up and no way can it be considered advocacy for justice, human rights and women's rights. This is rather a dismal and cowardly apology for tribal and Islamic misogyny. These feminists and intellectuals repeatedly tell us that these topics are not specifically Middle Eastern but also found in the West. In this discourse, any criticism of Islamic and traditional values is labeled as "West's Orientalist obsession with women's sexuality in the Arab world and the tendency to use crimes of honour as an example of Arab male oppression of women". (Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, New Haven, Yale University Press). By emphasising religious and tribal dimensions, I do not intend to picture Middle Eastern culture as a homogeneous misogynist culture and therefore overshadow or ignore the egalitarian and progressive component of this culture. A component which due to political position is largely ignored, or is less known and affirmed". 37. *****
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COLONIALISM - Feminists railing against the West, but refusing to acknowledge the mistreatment of women in former colonies.
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(1) "But mainly, an increasing number of feminists were leftists and left-dominated liberals. As such, they would happily and repeatedly talk (and scream) about going up against America as an oppressor, but they would not even whisper words that opposed any (brown-skinned, formerly colonized) Third World Muslim tyrant - not even when he was systematically terrorizing and slaughtering equally brown-skinned and formerly colonized women, children, men - and Muslim feminists, both male and female". 54. *****
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POLITICAL ( U.S. / ISRAEL) - Feminists absolving the Islamic Supremacist world of charges of mistreating women because the Islamic Supremacist world includes Palestinians, and the political concerns of Palestinians trumps everything else.
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(1) "Take psychology professor Phyllis Chesler. ...In a recent book, The Death of Feminism, she attributes the feminist establishment's unwillingness to take on Islamic sexism to its support of 'an isolationist and America-blaming position.' She faults it for 'embracing an anti-Americanism that is toxic, heartless, mindless and suicidal.'". 1.
(2) "On the other hand, after 9/11, many feminists became very protective of Muslims and Arabs, fearing a backlash against these groups. But in their attempt to address injustice, some have made the rights of Palestinians (their uber-underdog) their dominant concern. When this is done, the rights of women, particularly those living in Arab countries, tend to get ignored. To do otherwise would challenge a precarious and rigid ideology – an ideology based on absolutes". 2.
(3) "Everywhere I went, Muslims insisted that the Jews had staged the World Trade Center attacks in order to turn Americans against Arabs. Ironically, when the attacks seemed to have that effect on conservatives, so-called leftists then felt a need to take the opposite position. In American these days, everything seems to reduce to being against what your perceived enemy supports. Bush attacks an Arab country, so that means that Arabs must be great". 2.
(4) "Instead, feminist leaders are either silent on the dangers of Islamist jihadic terrorism, or blame America or the Israelis for it". 2.
(5) "Burkett is right on target when she says that (liberal, left, gender-neutral and institutionalized) feminists have given a savagely murderous, terrorist, anti-infidel, and anti-woman Islam a generous "pass" and are more obsessed with hating and/or defeating President Bush (and America) than with anything else". 2.
(6) "Dislike of George Bush's foreign policy has led to an automatic support of those perceived to be his enemies. Paradoxically, this leaves the left defending people who hold beliefs that condone what the left has long fought against: misogyny, homophobia, capital punishment, suppression of freedom of speech. The recent reaffirmation by Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie has been met by virtual silence; as has the torture and murder in Iraq of a man who would be presumed to be one of the left's own - Hadi Salih, the international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. The hard left these days is soft on fascism, or at least Islamofascism". 22
(7) "Someone recently asked me: "As a feminist, how can you justify your being pro-American and pro-Israel?" I answered: "Because I oppose totalitarianism and gender and religious apartheid. Although both Israel and America are far from perfect, what we have here would constitute a revolution in any Islamic country." 26.
(8) "Many feminists are now more concerned with the alleged “occupation” of Palestine than with the occupation of women’s bodies under Islam, and they tend to blame America and Israel for the sins of Islam". 30.
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POLITICAL (U.S. / ISRAEL) - Feminists claim that Palestinian women are the victims of alleged Israel/U.S. aggression and that such aggression supersedes any claims by our side regarding the overall treatment of women by Islamic Supremacists.
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(1) Feminists will focus on Palestinians and say that Israel and/or U.S. actions have an adverse impact on women in Palestinian areas which are far worse than any of the forms of mistreatment which our side has put forth as being products of Islamic Supremacism. The problem with their approach is that they are blaming something (war/conflict) which is not "women exclusive". (Note: We do not accept their argument that Israel or the U.S. are wrong in their actions). They cannot point to any type of action which has specifically and intentionally targeted Palestinian women to the exclusion of Palestinian men. Therefore, they create a convoluted, Rube Goldberg path to arrive at such a conclusion. For example. they might say that Israeli or U.S. actions have interfered with the transport of construction materials, which has caused women problems in obtaining shelter. Still, in this example, they cannot say that women would be the sole target and that men would not be affected in the same manner. If one uses the opposition's rationale, one could claim that virtually any outside force could "affect" women when, in reality, men would also be affected. Examples of broad issues that are blind to sex include: pollution; lack of housing; infectious diseases; famine; lack of mass transport; bad weather: anything. Furthermore, no one can show an intentional targeting of women alone in any of these randomly examples. As for our claims of the Islamic Supremacist mistreatment of women by men, we can easily point to an intention. And such mistreatment being confined to women alone is as clear as day. Have you heard of any dictates in Islam for wives to beat their husbands? The only way in which individual feminists can be intellectually honest if they oppose any Israeli / U.S. actions is to simply remove themselves from feminist settings and forums when voicing their position. If individuals were to join in efforts which are strictly pro-Palestinian and voice concerns regarding any perceived injustices which they believe are affecting Palestinians as a whole, that would be logically valid. As for feminist organizations, unless they can prove a direct effect on women (and women alone) of any Israeli / U.S. actions or any intent by these nations to conduct acts which would affect women alone, they have no logical basis for even getting involved in the issue. In view of their current involvement despite not meeting these two qualifiers, it seems reasonable to conclude they are involved solely to keep in good graces with their fellow Leftists. 1683 AD
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POLITICAL (U.S. / ISRAEL) - Feminist belief that there is no place for direct action (including war) against the Islamic Supremacist agenda
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(1) "Let me suggest that American feminists who have, correctly, demanded police intervention for battered women and criminal penalties for those who batter them may have failed to grasp the importance of military intervention when terrorism becomes battery writ large. Feminists know that you can't reason with or appease a batterer. Feminists may need to apply this way of thinking to Islamo-fascist terrorists who are not freedom fighters seeking justice for their people". 2. ***** NOTE: A very important concept here, one which should be built upon. Feminists will not deny the need (at least in Western society) to apply the force of law to punish or otherwise inhibit men who abuse and mistreat women. If they acknowledge this reality, then they will have no logical basis to defend Islamic Supremacism, under which such adverse treatment flourishes without impediment. 1683 AD
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MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that Muslims reject cruelty towards women.
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(1) "But if the non-fanatical majority can't find a voice to condemn the few among their fellows who see nothing wrong with killing their own women for imaginary crimes, then they either condone that attitude or are afraid of those who hold it: either way, not a very encouraging start towards the more liberal Muslim future that we have been promised". 9.
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MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that Muslim women prefer relinquishing their rights to a "community" over having individual rights, as oppression does not exist.
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(1). "Briggs has good news: Mahmood spent two years – two years! – in Egypt and discovered that that oppression is just a mirage: “But after two years of fieldwork in the women’s mosque movement in Egypt, Mahmood asks us to consider a new question: what if community, as much as or more than the notions of individual rights, is a route to living meaningfully? Perhaps we ought to rethink the idea that women’s agency and personhood spring from resistance to subjection, and attend to the ways that in conservative religious communities, the cultivation of virtue and of closeness to God, of certain emotions and of forms of embodiment, are challenging but hardly one-dimensional ways of producing the self.” Clearing away the pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook, Briggs is apparently saying that if women feel fulfilled in being subjugated as inferiors under Sharia law, then their good feelings outweigh their oppression and subjection. One wonders what Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem might have said in the 1960s if this same argument-from-fulfillment had been posed to them regarding American women. But aside from being inconsistent with what has been the feminist view of women’s oppression for decades, Briggs’s words also represent a betrayal of the Muslim women whose suffering is objective, ongoing, and largely unnoticed. To take just one of many available examples, wife-beating is largely tolerated, and even encouraged, in many Muslim cultures ... Dominating their women by violence is a prerogative Muslim men cling to tenaciously. ... But to this – and to genital mutilation, honor killing, polygamy, and so much more that is sanctioned or tolerated by Islamic law – Briggs and Mahmood would apparently turn a blind eye, as long as the women involved were “living meaningfully.” And our concern for them? “Orientalism”!" 17.
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MISTAKEN - Feminist claims that various acts of cruelty have no connection with Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) "It is frequently argued that honor-killings, like female genital mutilation(FGM) have nothing to do with Islam. This does not explain why such abuses of women take place predominantly in Muslim societies". 7.
(2) "The Daily Kos was not moved. It devoted one of its two posts on the killing of Aqsa Parvez to asking, "Why, why, WHY is it that whenever someone who is Muslim, or has a Muslim-sounding name, does something... it's automatically blamed on Islam?" Of course, the answer to this is that Muslims who commit acts of violence so often explain those actions by reference to Islam, but that possibility isn't part of the Left's worldview".
(3). "In Australia, Lebanese Christians have assimilated and become a respected part of our community. The Premier of Victoria is a Lebanese Christian as is the Governor Of New South Wales. However, Lebanese Muslims have encountered serious problems because of their refusal to accept our right to live our way of life. Nothing so clearly demonstrates that it is not an issue of race — but of culture". 25.
(4) "Ridley can go on for pages about how the Saudis are not following the Koran, but they are far from the only nation to have such restrictive laws on women. As Ridley knows first-hand, the Taliban did it in Afghanistan, and Muslim nations throughout the world are using the Koran to oppress and subjugate women. In fact, Somalia has just forbidden women to swim in public, even fully clothed in those nineteenth-century swimsuits they’re forced to wear". 35.
(5) "The core issue is that Wolf does not voice her moral indignation against Islamic FGM and the Islamic theology that serves as its fertile soil. She does not condemn African tribal FGM for its African tribal roots, but in the context of how a universal misogyny is somehow guilty or responsible". 53.
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MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that Islam protects women.
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(1) "Their literature stated that they would advance women’s right by protecting them from the kind of harassment and violence that western women are subjected to. Wearing the veil or hijab would protect them from sexual harassment and sexual assault. The political tracts stated that they respected women and would allow women to stay in the home and take care of their families where they would be protected by their fathers, brothers, and husbands. These were not presented as choices for women, but their roles and destinies under Islamic rule". 21.
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MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that Muslim women do not want equality.
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(1) "Q. You say in your book that Muslim women need to be "deprogrammed" in order to obtain freedom. Are you saying they don't know what's best for themselves? A. Women, to survive, will do anything. They're human beings, like men. ... When I was working on my second book, "Women, Money and Power," in the early 1970s, I would ask women, do you feel discriminated against on the job? And, pretty much, they would say not at all. And when I would say, well, do you know that your male colleague in the next cubbyhole is earning almost twice what you're earning or your male boss is earning six times what you're earning, the response was, well, you know, they have families to support. So women in America, before their consciousness was raised and before it was safe for them to recognize discrimination, failed to do so. So, likewise, women in the Arab and Muslim world -- it's not safe for them, most of them, to demand their rights and to protest their limitations.Q. I understand what you're saying about consciousness-raising in the U.S. and that feminists have often thought that women didn't fully understand their situation and would do well to be educated. There's still a difference between being educated and deprogrammed. Deprogrammed sounds like you're coming out of a cult. A. You're right. But to the extent that Islam has not evolved as a theology and given that it's been hijacked by the most reactionary of fundamentalists with little resistance from the moderate Muslims so far, it is a closed system. There is a xenophobic and jihadic element to it, and anyone who lives inside it and has been subjected to it round the clock, 24/7 -- for example, propaganda against the Jews and against America -- is no longer thinking, "Well, I've read 20 different newspapers today, I've seen one contradict another, I have access to a variety of opinions, and here's what I think." They only get one opinion, and they get pretty much molded to obey authority and not depart from what is the conformist or authority opinion. So it is like a cult, and deprogramming only means opening up information so that there's diversity, both of opinion as well as fact". 27.
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MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that women under Islamic Supremacism themselves claim that they are not oppressed.
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(1) "It is not surprising that oppressed people may have a hard time even realizing that they are oppressed, so thoroughly brainwashed they have been since birth (just think of those women in some African countries who actually practice genital mutilation on their own daughters). But for people outside the immediate cultural influence of conservative Islam, it is a no brainer that completely covering the body of a woman is a straightforward way to deny her personality and to limit her social interactions. In other words, she is being oppressed, whether she realizes it or not". 39. *****
(2) "The problem in my opinion is that Western campuses are full of Muslim militant women who found their form of feminism not in standing against Sharia, but in supporting it. That is one safe coping mechanism within Sharia that some Muslim women have found to be helpful to them and it gives them respect and power. ... Muslim women have been trained for centuries to never complain. Complaining especially to non-Muslim infidels is actually a sign of the rebellious Muslim woman and we all know what is the penalty for rebelling against Sharia. It is literally death. ... Rebelling against Islamic law is considered apostasy and because of that women who love their religion must never try to change or criticize it. A feminist movement within Islam is always considered an apostasy movement and that is why many Muslim women try to solve their problem of oppression by becoming as radical, if not more radical, than men. Thus if you cannot beat them, join them. Thus you see that some of the fiercest defenders of Islamic Sharia are women. They even defend polygamy and are the ones who report other misbehaving women. Sharia has turned women against each other and made them guards of their own prison. .". 44. ***** NOTE: Bringing this insight out into the open and confronting Islamic Supremacist women with it might be worthwhile. Further research into this, including the proper psychological terms for this pathology, is suggested. Might it be "displaced anger"? 1683 AD
(3) "They seem to live in denial and have allied themselves with and support the views of elitist and intellectual college type Muslim women who defend Islam, sharia and ignore the reality of women in the Muslim world. The problem in my opinion is that Western campuses are full of Muslim militant women who found their form of feminism not in standing against Sharia, but in supporting it. That is one safe coping mechanism within Sharia that some Muslim women have found to be helpful to them and it gives them respect and power. Consequently, since there is no Muslim feminist movement to talk about, Western feminists found that staying quiet was the best policy. If the victim is not complaining, why would anyone else come to her aid?". 44. *****
(4) "As an Arab Muslim female intellectual, Sabbagh finds herself in a bind. If she criticizes Arab misogyny, she fears her work will be used by the 'Arab-bashing camp' against Arabs. If she minimizes Arab female suffering, she will be seen as too 'complacent'". 54.
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MISTAKEN - Feminist claim that any mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacism has arisen from unresolved social and economic conditions.
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(1) We should note that there are many nations around the world which are not under Islamic Supremacist control and have "unresolved social and economic conditions". It would be an extreme rarity if any of these nations were to authorize, approve or endorse the mistreatment of women through their governments or non-Islamic Supremacist religious institutions. Furthermore, the women in wealthy Islamic Supremacist families generally do not have the freedom to do as they please. 1683 AD *****
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APPEASEMENT - Feminist insistence that we accommodate Islamic Supremacist expectations
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(1) "The worldview of Oslo Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Unni Wikan, is perfect in representing leftist feminists' stand on Muslim rape and Islamic gender apartheid. Wikan's solution for the high incidence of Muslims raping Norwegian women stresses neither the punishment of the perpetrators nor the repudiation of the Islamic theology that legitimizes such abuse of women. Instead, Wikan recommends that Norwegian women veil themselves. This is because, in Wikan's view, Western women must take their share of responsibility for the rapes, since they are not dressing and behaving according to Muslim understanding. The Norwegian women, in her view, are to realize that they live in a multicultural society and should, therefore, adapt themselves to it. Sheikhs Taj al-Din al-Hilali and Shahid Mehdi would be proud. 31.
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APPEASEMENT - Feminist attempts to put a good face on oppressive Islanic Supremacist actions.
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(1) "Now watch Ridley use some sleight-of-hand: 'Some young Muslim feminists consider the hijab and the nikab political symbols, too, a way of rejecting Western excesses such as binge drinking, casual sex and drug use. What is more liberating: being judged on the length of your skirt and the size of your surgically enhanced breasts, or being judged on your character and intelligence? In Islam, superiority is achieved through piety — not beauty, wealth, power, position or sex'. None of the arguments she raises here have anything to do with feminism. In fact, she is making good use of a few logical fallacies here in her inept attempt to conflate Western feminism with wearing the veil. Ridley has built a straw man argument and uses it to bash Western society and feminism. I don’t believe we’ve ever heard any of the major feminist spokeswomen urging Western women to get breast enhancements as a mark of liberation. Ridley is using false arguments to distract from the point. The point, of course, is that the Koran most assuredly does not give women the same rights that modern feminists fought for in the 1970s. The point is almost exactly the opposite of that: The Koran today is being used by millions of Muslims to take away women’s rights—the right to education, to work outside the home, to wear what she chooses to wear when she chooses to wear it, to be around men who are not members of her family, to choose her own husband (or none at all!), to divorce her husband if she so desires, to seek redress in a court of law—all of these rights have been or are being taken away from millions of Muslim women". 35.
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APPEASEMENT - Feminists working hand in hand with the Islamic Supremacist opponents of women's rights, or working to attain the same ends..
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(1) "Women pushing their children in buggies bearing the familiar symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marched last weekend alongside banners proclaiming 'We are all Hezbollah now' and Muslim extremists chanting 'Oh Jew, the army of Muhammad will return.' For Linda Grant, the novelist, who says that 'feminism' is the one 'ism' she has not given up on, it was a shocking sight: 'What you’re seeing is an alliance of what used to be the far left with various Muslim groups and that poses real problems. Saturday’s march was not a peace march in the way that the Ban the Bomb marches were. Seeing young and old white women holding Hezbollah placards showed that it’s a very different anti-war movement to Greenham. Part of it feels the wrong side is winning.' As a supporter of the peace movement in the 1980s, I could never have imagined that many of the same crowd I hung out with then would today be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with militantly anti-feminist Islamic fundamentalist groups, whose views on women make western patriarchy look like a Greenham peace picnic. Nor would I have predicted that today’s feminists would be so indulgent towards Iran, a theocratic nation where it is an act of resistance to show an inch or two of female hair beneath the veil and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not joking about his murderous intentions towards Israel and the Jews". 4.
(1) "Senior Western institutions for higher education such as Harvard are thus simultaneously serving as outlets for Saudi Islamic propaganda and for left-wing radical feminists. This may on the surface look like quite a paradox, but in different ways both groups discredit traditional Western culture by highlighting its “history of oppression and injustice,” and they both stifle ideological dissent and suppress criticism of their holy doctrines". 51.
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ACCUSATION - Claim that opponents to Leftist feminists "use" reports of the mistreatment of women by Islamic Supremacists and do not themselves have a real concern with the welfare of women.
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(1) Rather than making the hijab murder a cause celebre the way it did, for instance, with the Matthew Shepherd murder, the Left has, moreover, attacked Horowitz and Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week for raising concerns about Muslim women in the first place. "The Islamofascist Awareness people aren't interested in what's actually going on in the Muslim world. They just use the woman question as an easy way to target Muslims." So said Columbia University anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod over the phone to Pollitt, who highlighted the quote in an attack on Horowitz in The Nation. Pollitt airily dismissed the central charge of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week organizers--that the academic Left was ignoring the plight of women in the Muslim world--with a flick of the wrist: "And how likely is it that women's studies professors think female genital mutilation is great and honor killing is 'just their culture'?" Abu-Lughod also told her that Columbia's women's studies department was offering three courses on women in the Islamic world, "none of which paints a rosy picture." But if this is the case, why is every Islamic crime of violence against Muslim women--and the Parvez case is just the most recent in a long line--met with silence? Why hasn't Katha Pollit been using her bully pulpit to make this murder a major story? Because she is more interested in protecting "the Muslim world" than its victims. The silence extends also to Noorjehan Barmania, who took up Pollitt's criticism of Horowitz in The Guardian. "It was Katha Pollitt," she declared, "who made me see it....She speculated that by focusing on the oppression of women, Horowitz had found an easy way to target the Muslim world." Well, then, why doesn't Barmania offer an alternative from the Left? Why doesn't she outdo Horowitz in championing the rights of women in the Islamic world? Why doesn't she demand justice in the Aqsa Parvez case and eloquently, more eloquently than David Horowitz, decry this barbaric murder? Because to do so would be to break ranks with the Left's vision of an America that is inauthentic in everything except its Islamophobia. Barmania and Pollitt seem impervious to the irony: although they attack Horowitz for allegedly being a faux feminist, his FrontPage magazine is one of the few places that is actually standing up for this poor girl, and calling for an end to the conditions that led to her murder in the first place". 13.
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ACCUSATION - Feminist strategy of "Repressive Tolerance", where Western culture is defined as inferior, therefore, since being so accused, they must be denied free speech.
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(1) "Feminism has hurt us by encouraging public accept for intellectual hypocrisy, which later paved the way for Islamic infiltration. The official mantra is that men and women are not just equal but identical, but at the same time that women are also somehow superior. Both of these claims cannot, logically speaking, be true at the same time, yet both are being made simultaneously. This gross double standard closely mirrors that of Multiculturalism, where all cultures are equal but Western culture is inferior and evil. This is a technique labeled Repressive Tolerance by the cultural Marxist Herbert Marcuse in 1965. Briefly speaking, those who are deemed to belong to “dominant” groups of society should have their freedom of speech suppressed by progressives and radicals, and simply be denied access to discussion forums, in order to rectify the “institutional oppression” in society. Marcuse's ideas had a huge impact in the 1960s and 70s. He also advocated free sex without any constraints as a method of freeing people from religious morality". 51.
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ACCUSATION - Feminist claim that we do not have the "authority" to tell them what to do with regards to Islamic Supremacism.
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(1) (Adapted from earlier text.) Many feminist leaders can be expected to ask what gives us the right to proclaim what they should be addressing (particularly if a man brings up the issue), as if they themselves have been granted the sole authority to speak for all women. The answer is simple: we see this as a matter of human rights, of which the rights of women are obviously a major component. We should add that we similarly seek to counter the threats which Islamic Supremacism poses to gays, members of all non-Islamic religions, artists, writers, consumers of alcohol, Muslim apostates and yes, even Leftists. We essentially have a very broad umbrella of concerns. In our review of things as they stand, we do not see Leftist feminists as being representative of the views of the silent majority of truly informed women in the general population regarding the severity and anti-woman nature of the Islamic Supremacist threat which is on the horizon. . When all of the information is put out on the table with respect to the horrendous lives which women under Islamic Supremacism suffer and the pandering to Islamic Supremacists which Leftist feminists offer in reply, only a fool would assert that feminists honestly speak for the majority of women in Western societies, at least on this issue. Yet, with the assistance of the Leftist media and other Leftist controlled institutions, these feminists continue to hold a position of great prestige and deference within society. If one were to we perceive that an influential group or movement (such as feminism) which professes to have the protection of a specific portion of society as its mission or focus either unknowingly or intentionally neglecting concerns which can adversely affect the basic human rights of those in their stated societal sector of interest, that would be enough of a justification for an outside person who advances human rights to speak his mind. In the situation at hand, our side has concluded that Islamic Supremacism is the paramount threat to human rights (which includes the rights of women) in this century and beyond. This is our focus. We challenge any feminist to put forth a greater global danger which affects women and women alone for consideration; not a canard like something in which a whole society would actually be affected. A "whole society" option should be addressed by groups which want to resolve a whole society's problem; pollution is an example. In light of our conclusion as to the dangers facing women, our side cannot afford to dilute its resources and energy by addressing any other matters involving feminism which are unrelated to Islamic Supremacism which might affect also the human rights of women (i.e., equal pay). If the threat of Islamic Supremacism is eliminated, we will not only save countless women, but also save people in the groups listed in the preceding paragraph. A parallel to our approach to this line of reasoning can be found in the following. Let's say that you live in a new community which has been built on an island which is prone to receiving hurricane hits. You have just discovered that the houses were not built to code and are therefore subject to being completely blown away in the next storm unless certain adaptations are made to the houses. You can't get anywhere with the Town Council, as they are in collusion with the builders. Meanwhile, the deficiencies in the houses are known to the local Neighborhood Group (which has considerable influence with the Town Council), but all they want to discuss is the planning of celebrations, community lighting and water services. You have talked to neighbors and despite their sharing concerns with you, they feel powerless to act. In view of all of this, wouldn't you feel justified in trying to get people to assist you in waking up the Neighborhood Group as to the danger and have them, in turn, exert their influence? After all, a hurricane hit would make all of the plans for celebrations, lighting, etc. irrelevant, as the community would no longer exist, at all. 1683 AD
(2) Feminists will likely claim that since they represent women (according to themselves), no one else has any authority to tell them what to do regarding Islamic Supremacism. Of course, organizations have the complete right to do whatever they choose to do. However, they must acknowledge that until Islamic Supremacism takes over, we have the right to voice our opinions and urge them to carefully reconsider their stance. Furthermore, when we see a looming threat which stands to imprison all of humanity, with special cruelty authorized to be meted out to one sex by the other, we have the moral right to pursue our efforts and awaken those who could assist in forestalling this fate. 1683 AD
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ACCUSATION - Feminist charge that if we perceive the awakening of feminists as so important, why don't we devote 100% of our effort to it.
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(1) Feminists may question our devotion to protecting women if we do not direct 100% of our collective efforts to awakening them to the danger at hand. This charge fails to take into account that the treatment of women is just one of many areas of concerns and worries which Islamic Supremacism brings. We must understand that this is a multi-front battle. Consequently, need to alert the public to all of the dangers at hand and also pay attention to other groups which will be targeted when Islamic Supremacists rule. We do not believe that any targeted group deserves greater attention than the other, since they are all in the same boat. 1683 AD
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EXCUSES - The claim that they are already addressing the issue (primarily in Afghanistan).
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(1) "Neil Robertson claims that western feminists are, in fact, engaged in work with women in Muslim countries, and with Muslim women in the West: For this characterisation to be true, we would have to ignore the western feminists who run Women for Women International, the Feminist Majority Foundation, or the Global Fund for Women, and ignore all the work they do in Muslim countries. Similarly, we would have to ignore the feminists who’ve campaigned to help the women of Afghanistan, support those protesting for democracy in Iran and end the practices of stoning & ‘honour’ killing. I wouldn't deny that for some feminists the suffering of the women of Afghanistan is an important issue. It's not that feminists never talk about these issues. It's just that I seriously wonder why they ever talk about anything else. Some, influenced by a pernicious relativism, appear to think that to acknowledge the vast gulf between the status of women in countries like Saudi Arabia and those in the West would somehow let Western society off the hook; that since Europe is not a feminist utopia, concentrating on conditions elsewhere is an "excuse for complacency" or a means of distracting attention from the real issues that Western women still face. 15.
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EXCUSES - The claim that any dictates in Islam pertaining to the treatment of women are rarely enforced.
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(1) "In Sharia, four witnesses have to catch a pair of illicit lovers in flagrante before they can both be killed. We are supposed to be reassured by these rigorous requirements of sufficient evidence, and are thought to be niggling if we question the assumption that the death penalty is mandatory if the case is proved. The requirement that the culprits should be killed goes unexamined". 9.
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EXCUSES - Feminist claim that they do not have the "authority" or "jurisdiction" to challenge Islamic Supremacists regarding the treatment of women.
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(1) "Do feminist rights stop at our own national doors or do feminists have a responsibility to at least conceive of such rights as global?" 2. *****
(2) " The amoral individuals who complain that Saudi punishments have nothing to do with them should think each time they fill their cars with gasoline about how they financially support such injustice". 7. *****
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EXCUSES - Feminist assertion that we are powerless to do anything.
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(1) "But there are men all over the world who really do want to kill women on a point of honour. What kind of honour is that? When are these dreadful men, and all who encourage and "understand" them, to be condemned as the homicidal maniacs they are? It could be said that there is not much point in condemning what we can't change, but in our own countries, where it could be changed if the will existed, condemnation would surely be a useful first step, and it might help some of the countries of origin to at least see the point". 9. *****
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EXCUSES - The solutions a society sees for various problems are appropriate to that society and should be seen in that context. (thus slavery and child prostitution should be ignored).
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(1) If we agree that any society has the right to approach any issue in a manner it sees fit (through government or other institutions) without honoring mankind's unalienable rights, then we would be allowing in the Islamic Supremacist world slavery, pedophilia, disfigurement, etc.. Since such acts are violations of our unalienable rights as human beings, we would obviously be discarding that concept. And with it, we would be signing the death warrant for civilization. 1683 AD
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EXCUSES - Feminist claim that if any action is to be taken, it must be done by the women who are already under Islamic Supremacists.
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(1) "Do feminist rights stop at our own national doors or do feminists have a responsibility to at least conceive of such rights as global?" 2. *****
(2) " The amoral individuals who complain that Saudi punishments have nothing to do with them should think each time they fill their cars with gasoline about how they financially support such injustice". 7. *****
(3) Some feminists may concede that Islamic Supremacism leads to the mistreatment of women in many non-Western nations, or within the Islamic Supremacist enclaves of Western nations, but they assert that any change must be generated from within. In addressing this belief, we will of course recognize the usual "cultural" theme. However, it reflects complete ignorance of the realities that if women dare to speak up, or even dress in a Western manner in many of these nations, they will literally be shot down by Islamic Supremacists via government, community or family. They have no ability to join together and establish any form of power base. 1683 AD. *****
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EXCUSES - The claim that until we resolve the many problems we have in our society which pertain to women (none which are equivalent to stoning, etc.), we cannot judge other societies with an attitude of conceit.
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(1) (Post by "freebel") - "Single motherhood. teen pregnancy, school discipline, drugs, criminality, lack or moral upbringing. These are but a few prevailing social problems troubling OUR society. Until we resolve such basic issues, we cannot judge other societies with saintly conceit". (reply by Rule Me Like You Mean It") - "That's retarded, freebel. Teen pregnancy is not in the same league as honour killing. Get a grip". 40. *****NOTE: Frebel's philosophy is that unless a society's problems in a specific area are "resolved", they have no right to criticize anyone else. Who decides what is "resolved"? What societies have ever attained such perfection?. This philosophy essentially stifles anyone from saying anything - ever. 1683 AD
(2) "Why do they criticize America so obsessively for its failure to perfectionistically live up to our own high standards and yet remain so quiet about the absence of any standards and about the systematic violation of human rights in non-western countries?" 54. *****
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EXCUSES - Nothing can be resolved until societal and economic problems are addressed.
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(1) We should note that there are many nations around the world which are not under Islamic Supremacist control and have "unresolved social and economic conditions". It would be an extreme rarity if any of these nations were to authorize, approve or endorse the mistreatment of women through their governments or non-Islamic Supremacist religious institutions. Furthermore, the women in wealthy Islamic Supremacist families generally do not have the freedom to do as they please. *****
(2) Since we can show that social and economic concerns are not the causes of the mistreatment of women under Islamic Supremacist control, then any attempts at resolving such issues would have no effect on the treatment of women. 1683 AD.
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EXCUSES - Western feminist claim that they have traditionally only addressed issues that they have experienced first-hand; therefore, the treatment of women under Islamic Supremacism is out of their purview.
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(1) Any assertion of the Islamic Supremacist treatment of women being out of the purview or area of interest of feminists raises come concerns. First in line: If that is the case, then please explain he feminist involvement in the Palestinian cause. Explain the partnership with other Leftist causes. Also, feminists cannot deny that many of the women-treatment issues arising from Islamic Supremacism have already reared their ugly heads in Western nations, placing them clearly under their "jurisdiction". 1683 AD
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EXCUSES - Claim that the West cannot become involved because it has not perfected its own society.
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(1) "Greer said: "I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?" When Bone responded that the situation for such women in Darfur was worse than in the West, Greer tried to hedge the issue. She said: "Who says it is?" When Bone said that she had been to Darfur, Greer argued that changing another culture was hard. "We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast." Greer said that she cared, and was wearing a white ribbon to show she cared". 7. *****NOTE: Greer tries to disqualify Western involvement because its society is not perfect (in her belief). Thus, on that ludicrous foundation, she asserts the West should not become involved". 1683 AD
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EXCUSES - Western feminists failing to aid women under Islamic Supremacism because they do not see Muslim women complaining.
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(1) "It is not surprising that oppressed people may have a hard time even realizing that they are oppressed, so thoroughly brainwashed they have been since birth (just think of those women in some African countries who actually practice genital mutilation on their own daughters). But for people outside the immediate cultural influence of conservative Islam, it is a no brainer that completely covering the body of a woman is a straightforward way to deny her personality and to limit her social interactions. In other words, she is being oppressed, whether she realizes it or not". 39. *****
(2) "The problem in my opinion is that Western campuses are full of Muslim militant women who found their form of feminism not in standing against Sharia, but in supporting it. That is one safe coping mechanism within Sharia that some Muslim women have found to be helpful to them and it gives them respect and power. ... Muslim women have been trained for centuries to never complain. Complaining especially to non-Muslim infidels is actually a sign of the rebellious Muslim woman and we all know what is the penalty for rebelling against Sharia. It is literally death. ... Rebelling against Islamic law is considered apostasy and because of that women who love their religion must never try to change or criticize it. A feminist movement within Islam is always considered an apostasy movement and that is why many Muslim women try to solve their problem of oppression by becoming as radical, if not more radical, than men. Thus if you cannot beat them, join them. Thus you see that some of the fiercest defenders of Islamic Sharia are women. They even defend polygamy and are the ones who report other misbehaving women. Sharia has turned women against each other and made them guards of their own prison. .". 44. ***** NOTE: Bringing this insight out into the open and confronting Islamic Supremacist women with it might be worthwhile. Further research into this, including the proper psychological terms for this pathology, is suggested. Might it be "displaced anger"? 1683 AD
(3) "They seem to live in denial and have allied themselves with and support the views of elitist and intellectual college type Muslim women who defend Islam, sharia and ignore the reality of women in the Muslim world. The problem in my opinion is that Western campuses are full of Muslim militant women who found their form of feminism not in standing against Sharia, but in supporting it. That is one safe coping mechanism within Sharia that some Muslim women have found to be helpful to them and it gives them respect and power. Consequently, since there is no Muslim feminist movement to talk about, Western feminists found that staying quiet was the best policy. If the victim is not complaining, why would anyone else come to her aid?". 44. *****
(4) "Gabriel confirms that most Arab and Muslim women strongly support the very culture that demeans them, Like women everywhere, they, too, have internalized patriarchal, misogynistic cultural and religious values. She says: (quoting Gabriel) 'Even if they are doctors and lawyers, so many Muslim women actually support an anti-woman Islam with such passion and think we [westerners or Christians] are the ones who have it wrong. Fascinating! This is typical of so many Middle Eastern women. The biggest challenge is the brainwashed Arab and Muslim women. Most don't have a problem with the status quo and think we are all sluts and that we need to be more like them to be respected. It's really sad. Women are the ones who actually support and enforce brutal anti-woman treatment and traditions. It's like the mothers who insist on their daughter's circumcision much more than the fathers". 54. *****
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DEFERRENCE / INGRATIATION - Feminists placing the needs of Islamic Supremacists over the needs of women.
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(1) "The topic of the Fawcett debate (which featured, among others Madeleine Bunting, Joan Smith and Respect's Salma Yacoob) was defined as "how do we ensure that the womens' rights agenda reflects the needs of Muslim women?" It's telling in itself that such a broad topic was entirely restricted to the one issue of the veil - but equally, notice how that formulation acknowledges the superiority of the religious claim. Why should the womens' agenda reflect the needs of Muslims, rather than Islam better reflect the needs of women? Why this automatic genuflection towards faith? Why are only Muslim voices respected when they state that a woman's place is in the home?" 15.
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GENDER FEMINISM - Feminist claim that Western and Islamic Supremacist men are basically evil and that efforts to free women under Islamic Supremacist control would make things worse.
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(1) The first variety—radical feminism (or gender feminism, in Christina Hoff Sommers’s term)—starts with the insight that men are, not to put too fine a point upon it, brutes. Radical feminists do not simply subscribe to the reasonable-enough notion that men are naturally more prone to aggression than women. They believe that maleness is a kind of original sin. Gender feminists are little interested in fine distinctions between radical Muslim men who slam commercial airliners into office buildings and soldiers who want to stop radical Muslim men from slamming commercial airliners into office buildings. They are both examples of generic male violence—and specifically, male violence against women. ...(A)ccording to Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, who teaches “The Sexuality of Terrorism” at California State University in Hayward. ... The war in Afghanistan could not possibly offer a chance to liberate women from their oppressors, since it would simply expose women to yet another set of oppressors, in the gender feminists’ view.... If guys are brutes, girls are their opposite: peace-loving, tolerant, conciliatory, and reasonabl... Real women, they believe, would never justify war. ... Gender feminism’s tendency to reduce foreign affairs to a Lifetime Channel movie may make it seem too silly to bear mentioning, but its kitschy naiveté hasn’t stopped it from being widespread among elites. ... Too busy celebrating their own virtue and contemplating their own victimhood, gender feminists cannot address the suffering of their Muslim sisters realistically, as light years worse than their own petulant grievances. They are too intent on hating war to ask if unleashing its horrors might be worth it to overturn a brutal tyranny that, among its manifold inhumanities, treats women like animals. ...Yet the gender feminist idea of superior feminine virtue is becoming an increasingly tough sell for anyone actually keeping up with world events. ... Now it’s clearer than ever that the dream of worldwide sisterhood is no more realistic than worldwide brotherhood; culture trumps gender any day. Mothers all over the Muslim world are naming their babies Usama or praising Allah for their sons’ efforts to kill crusading infidels. ... Maternal thinking, indeed. 8.
(2) "Why the sisterly silence? It is helpful to think of feminisms - plural rather than singular. Though not entirely discrete philosophies, each of three different feminisms has its own distinct reasons for causing activists to "lose their voice" in the face of women's oppression. The first variety - radical feminism (or gender feminism, in Christina Hoff Sommers' term) - starts with the insight that men are, not to put too fine a point upon it, brutes. Radical feminists believe that maleness is a kind of original sin. Masculinity explains child abuse, marital strife, high defense spending, every war from Troy to Afghanistan, as well as Hitler, Franco and Pinochet. Thus, the war in Afghanistan could not possibly liberate women from their oppressors: It would simply expose women to yet another set of oppressors, in gender feminists' view.If guys are brutes, girls are their opposite: peace-loving, tolerant, conciliatory and reasonable - "Antiwar and Pro-Feminist," as the popular peace-rally sign goes. Real women, gender feminists believe, would never justify war.Yet this idea of superior feminine virtue is becoming an increasingly tough sell for anyone actually keeping up with world events. Mothers all over the Muslim world are naming their babies Osama or praising Allah for their sons' efforts to kill crusading infidels. Last February, 28-year-old Wafa Idris became the first female Palestinian suicide bomber to strike in Israel, killing an elderly man and wounding scores of women and children. And in April, Israeli soldiers discovered under the maternity clothes of 26-year-old Shifa Adnan Kodsi a bomb rather than a baby. Maternal thinking, indeed". 48.
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