Why is Feminism AWOL on Islam?

[december]

This article first points out that feminism is by-and-large ignoring the horrendous treatment of women in many Islamic countries.

…the Feminist Majority, to its credit, had been publicizing since the mid-90s how Afghan girls were barred from school, how women were stoned for adultery or beaten for showing an ankle or wearing high-heeled shoes, how they were prohibited from leaving the house unless accompanied by a male relative, how they were denied medical help because the only doctors around were male.

But the rest is feminist silence. You haven’t heard a peep from feminists as it has grown clear that the Taliban were exceptional not in their extreme views about women but in their success at embodying those views in law and practice. In the United Arab Emirates, husbands have the right to beat their wives in order to discipline them—“provided that the beating is not so severe as to damage her bones or deform her body,” in the words of the Gulf News. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot vote, drive, or show their faces or talk with male non-relatives in public…

You didn’t hear much from feminists when in the northern Nigerian province of Katsina a Muslim court sentenced a woman to death by stoning for having a child outside of marriage. The case might not have earned much attention—stonings are common in parts of the Muslim world—except that the young woman, who had been married off at 14 to a husband who ultimately divorced her when she lost her virginal allure, was still nursing a baby at the time of sentencing. During her trial she had no lawyer, although the court did see fit to delay her execution until she weans her infant.

You didn’t hear much from feminists as it emerged that honor killings by relatives, often either ignored or only lightly punished by authorities, are also commonplace in the Muslim world…

Where are the demonstrations, the articles, the petitions, the resolutions, the vindications of the rights of Islamic women by American feminists? The weird fact is that, even after the excesses of the Taliban did more to forge an American consensus about women’s rights than 30 years of speeches by Gloria Steinem, feminists refused to touch this subject.

After providing several more horrible samples, the author answers the question

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…

The second variety of feminism, seemingly more sophisticated and especially prevalent on college campuses, is multiculturalism and its twin, postcolonialism. 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.

I’d give a simpler answer. Feminism (as is exists today) is a nutty fad, divorced from reality, which unfortunately holds significant power in our universities and among our elites.

Can any poster defend feminism’s lack of response to Muslim atrocities against women?

[Siege]

december, I’ve been reading Ms. Magazine for years, and mainstream feminism is not AWOL on Islam. They were talking about the appalling conditions women face in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and other countries in which a more fundamentalist form of Islam prevails long before September 11th and continue to do so.

As to feminism being a “a silly fad”, I don’t see what is silly about the notion that women are competent human beings who are not inherently inferior to men. Yes, the movement has its odd ducks on the fringes. So does every movement.

CJ

[Tamerlane]

Can any poster defend feminism’s lack of response to Muslim atrocities against women?

How about that feminism isn’t a cult that issues singular pronouncements on any given subject. I’d be inclined to say that I would consider the overwhelming majority of women in the U.S. and Europe today to be either consciously or de facto, feminists. And I would be inclined to think that that same overwhelming majoritry is not particularly pleased with the anti-female behavior of many of the world’s religions at their extremes - This group almost certainly includes many Muslim women.

People who rail against “feminism not speaking up” on this or that seem to miss the point. Since feminism is not an entity and since feminism is at best a very loose ideology that can encompass most political spectrums except the most reactionary, “it” is quite incapable of issuing unified statements about anything.

It is only a “nutty fad” and “divorced from reality” if you start equating feminism with a tiny minority of extremist ideologues at it’s fringe. All feminism is, at base, is the concept that men and women should be treated eq.

• Tamerlane

[Tamerlane]

Damn! Got cut off, there. I was going to say “…equitably, to the extent it is possible.”

• Tamerlane

[Tamerlane]

And since that still is a little unclear as a definition ( except in my own hazy mind, where everything I say makes perfect sense ), substitue cjhoworth’s definition. With the caveat of course being that obviously men and women aren’t supposed to be identical.

• Tamerlane

[CarnalK]

Wow, december you must have been reading this columnist for some time and built up some trust of her to take such easily refutable charges at face value.

From Feminist Majority Foundation(mentioned in your quote) link “Protest of Nigerian Woman’s Death Sentence”:

Join the National Organization for Women to protest a Nigerian woman’s sentence of death by stoning for having sex outside wedlock.

and:

Please urge Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerian Consul-General Tafiq O. Oseni, and Nigerian Ambassador to the US Professor Mohammad Aminu to prevent the killing of Amina Lawal Kumari. While emails do help, we also recommend contacting Nigerian officials by as many means as possible (our action center also allows you to print letters for mailing) to make a difference in this woman’s life

I’m sure you can peruse a few feminist sites for yourself to see their actual stance and actions concerning Islam. I think someone might be confusing not getting news coverage with not actually doing anything.

BTW, what are “Gender feminists”?

[squeegee]

I think the columnist is off her rocker. I’ve heard noise from women’s groups about oppression of women in muslim countries for many years. You really need to broaden your reading, December.

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Um–Kay?

You haven’t heard a peep from feminists as it has grown clear that the Taliban were exceptional not in their extreme views about women but in their success at embodying those views in law and practice.

Maybe because the American Feminist movement realizes that it’s simply not feasible to single-handedly try to change an entire world religion? Maybe because they prefer to pick specific battles they can win, like Afghan burkas, rather than try to revamp “Islam” worldwide?

And, sorry, honey, but this is just silly:

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.

Obviously Kay S. Hymowitz doesn’t think much of the American Feminist movement.

Kay S. Hymowitz

Kay S. Hymowitz is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She writes extensively on education and childhood in America.

Hymowitz is the author of Ready or Not: Why Treating our Children as Small Adults Endangers Their Future and Ours, which was featured on the Dr. Laura Schlessinger program. In Ready or Not, she offers a startling new interpretation of what makes our children tick and where the moral anomie of today’s children comes from. She reveals how our ideas about child-rearing have been transformed in response to the theories of various “experts”—educators, psychologists, lawyers, media executives—who believe that children should be treated as small adults, autonomous actors who know what is best for themselves and who have no need for adult instruction or supervision. Hymowitz is a principal contributor to Modern Sex: Liberation and Its Discontents, and is the author of the forthcoming Liberation’s Children: Parents and Kids in a Postmodern Age, a collection of her City Journal essays.

So, she’s a conservative “parenting” commentator, a la John Rosemond.

Second the motion that December broaden his reading…

[CarnalK]

It should be noted as well that the article is misleading by focussing on Islam when many of the problems it describes in Pakistan are mirrored in Hindu(i ?) India. I believe that it’s once again a case of religion being used to justify a cultural artifact.

[Biggirl]

The main reason why US feminist groups are AWOL on Islam is because feminist groups do not fight against a religion. The second reason why US feminst groups are AWOL on Islam is because most US feminist groups focus on domestic policy.

That being said, here are some positions, papers, speeches and reports by US feminist groups on global gender inequalities (with an emphasis on Islamic nations).
[ul]
[li]NOW[]AAUW[]EqualityNow[]Women for Afghan Women[/ul][/li]
US Feminist organizations also realize that in order to act internationally, you must organize internationally. To that end many organizations belong to international organizations such as [ul][li] Witness []CEDAWThe Global Sisterhood Network[/ul][/li]
There are many, many more local, national and international-- I just grew tired of looking for them.

[december]

Thank you for all the responses. First of all, I appreciate your finding the many exceptions to Hymowitz’s claim that we “…haven’t heard a peep” about certain misdeeds. Obviously, Hymowitz exaggerated or was flat-out wrong. OTOH she seems to be right that there wasn’t much in the way of demonstrations, articles, petitions, and resolutions form the feminists.

The word “feminism” has two meanings. As cjhoworth points out, it represents “the notion that women are competent human beings who are not inherently inferior to men.” By that definition, I am an ardent feminist.

The “feminism” I am denigrating is what cjhoworth calls the “fringes”. But, what do college courses in feminism cover? They don’t spend an entire semester simply repeating that women are equal to men. Feminism on campus has an entire literature, theory, etc. Hymowitz names various authors and speakers – Sharon Lerner, Fadia Faqir, Sara Ruddick, Barbara Kingsolver, Maureen Dowd, Alice Walker, Michel Foucault, and others. Foucault is IMHO a total phony. Walker is a brilliant writer, although I don’t agree with her philosophical ideas. Dowd is a talented and witty writer, whose columns are so silly and unserious that my liberal wife refuses to read them.

If you disagree with Hymowitz’s version, please tell us what you think is contained within “feminism,” beyond equality of the sexes.

[even_sven]

Maybe these wacky post-colonial feminists actually pay attention to what Muslim women think.

For example, for many women, wearing a veil is considered a subversive and revolutionary act. They are no longer going to present themselves as sex objects for the males of their world to ogle and harrass. They are instead taking steps to show themselves as a serious and dedicated to a radical identity movement. It’s the Muslim equivelent of wearing an afro in 60s- but with the added implications that you mean to do business without letting your sexuality keep you from being kept seriously.

The Isalamic way of life can lead to a sense of sisterhood that feminists have long sought to bring into the West. Women often gather together in their homes to talk and work. There is less competition about looks to keep women distracted. There is more frank talk about sex. There is a greater sense of both family and community. The Western way of doing things can be increadably cold and lonely when viewed from the comfortable, non-competative women’s quarters.

Women live pretty full lives in a women’s world instead of half-assed lives in a world set up for and by men. In a way, it acheives much of the same goals as a women’s college.

The value of children and family is cherished, not dismissed. There are signifigantly fewer rapes (althought there are still some, and the rape laws can get pretty ugly). The old are revered, not just abandoned. Widows, divorcees and the poor have support systems. There are a lot of things that feminists can like about Islam.

I’m not saying that I’d want to live under Islam, or that all Muslim women like it. But Islam has plenty of female supporters and while I might not agree with them, I have to admit that the system I live under is pretty bad at produceing healthy happy women. I don’t think it is my place to tell them what they do or do not like.

[furt]

*Originally posted by Biggirl *
The main reason why US feminist groups are AWOL on Islam is because feminist groups do not fight against a religion.

Poppycock.

Intellectual feminist theorists, who december is referring to (as opposed to rank-and-file NOW members) have no hesitation to explicitly blame some or all of western sexism on Christianity. I work in the humanities, and I hear this all the time.

[Biggirl]

*Originally posted by furt *

*Originally posted by Biggirl *
**The main reason why US feminist groups are AWOL on Islam is because feminist groups do not fight against a religion.

**
**Poppycock.

Intellectual feminist theorists, who december is referring to (as opposed to rank-and-file NOW members) have no hesitation to explicitly blame some or all of western sexism on Christianity. I work in the humanities, and I hear this all the time. **

Ah, intellectual feminist theorist are now feminist organizations, you say? I say, well, poppycock to you!

Activists are issue oriented. If the issue is abortion, you bet you bottom dollar the activists will be against the Catholic church. It is because of the opposing viewpoints and not because they oppose Catholicism.

Theorists talk. Organizations do.

[Eonwe]

I’d just like to nitpick this bit here (a minor hijack, I know):

…[feminism] holds significant power in our universities and among our elites.

I see/hear this all the time, and at least in regards to universities, it’s basically an imaginary belief that John Leo likes to throw out there when he writes his column.

I attend a public university, and know many others currently or until recently enrolled in school, both public and private. Not once have I witnessed, or heard anyone talk about how their school has been co-opted by the feminists. Perhaps the departments are one sided, but hey, that’s what you’ll get when you have a politically-motivated course of study. I know, as I said before, this is kind of a hijack, but I’d like a cite showing that feminists hold some sort of significant power in schools, that is more than that of any other political group.

[Guinastasia]

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems to me that for years, the feminists were the ONLY ONES who were speaking up for the women of Afghanistan.

[Beagle]

There is one right? Regarding women and their rights and so forth.

I know fundamentalism and Shari’a are pretty strict. But not all Muslims buy into that.

Some feminist groups post lots of information on the atrocities against women in Islamic nations on their websites quite often.

[furt]

*Originally posted by Biggirl *
Ah, intellectual feminist theorist are now feminist organizations, you say? I say, well, poppycock to you!

I say? No, actually, I didn’t. I thank you for reading my post; but I’ll also thank you not to read things into it.

[Biggirl]

Well furt, I said feminist groups do not fight against religion. You counter that (poppycock is a counter, right?) with intellectual feminist theorist do fight against religion.

Where am I reading you wrong?

[furt]

*Originally posted by Eonwe *
I see/hear this all the time, and at least in regards to universities, it’s basically an imaginary belief that John Leo likes to throw out there when he writes his column.

I attend a public university, and know many others currently or until recently enrolled in school, both public and private. Not once have I witnessed, or heard anyone talk about how their school has been co-opted by the feminists.

I teach at a Public University, and the influence is massive. “Co-opting” is obviously a pejorative, and I wouldn’t expect to hear anyone inside using it, for the same reasons I wouldn’t expect to hear Democrats complain about left-wingers, or Repubs about righ-wingers. Either you are one, or at the very least you have to work with them.

And since people are wont to assume, let me add that none of this necessaily means the changes have been bad. That, I suppose, is another thread. But with all due respect, to suggest that there has not been massive changes in the curriculum, ethos, structure and pedogogy of humanities as a result of feminism, especially the theoretical variety, is frankly ludicrous.