I was also unable to think of any western patriarchal traditions
Published by R. Mildred October 1st, 2006 in Imperialism for Dummies, Purposefully Inflammatory, Feminism, Blogitics, Filtered Propaganda, This Vicious Cabaret
…Except marriage, obviously.
I love you amanda, but the thing is that while a burka is a handy dandy symbol of patriarchal oppression, it is not Your symbol to use you silly cracker.
You see, one of the ways the islamic patriarchy pushes hijab onto women who would otherwise prefer not to wear head scarfs or burkas or any of that stuff is to use the KultureKampf that western imperialists are waging against muslims as an excuse to guilt trip young muslim women into donning the patriarchy uniform that goes with the particular family’s cultural background.
So many muslim women have been raised and told over and over again by their famlies that they’re betraying their culture and their fellow muslims if they don’t wear the headscarf or dress super modestly that they start to go along with it as they realise how incredibly racist western society is towards them, and you can justify any patriarchal bit of bullshit with that line - way too many of the FGM victims I’ve met (all of whom were fundigelical christians) used the line to justify chopping their daughter’s clits off.
And as the KultureKampf increases in intensity - and it will, the anti-muslim pogroms haven’t even really begun yet, just wait until the repugs notice how many african-american muslims there are in america - the more subversive the act of wearing highly visible symbols of islam will become, and so the more attractive burkas and hijab will in turn become to muslim women.
Racist whtie people are one of the big reasons why it’s hard for white liberals to talk about non-white systems of patriarchy, they dirty the waters and support the islamic patriarchy by giving it something to justify misogyny or homophobia with, because the minority culture can start blaming such evils as equal rights for women and homoseuxals on the white man, and even go so far as to blame the “bad” behavior of minority women and homosexuals for the shitty social status of the minority groups, and so the oppressive systems maintain themselves with a huge intersystem circle jerk powered by whitey and their knout loving POC allies.
Your burka piccie falls on the bad side of that Amanda, not to the same extent as Mark A Rose’s bullshit you understand, but it is still less helpful than it is helpful because it spreads the meme that he was touting that there’s something exceptionally misogynistic about islam (which is where the Othering comes in - out of all the oppressive cultures you could have picked, you picked that one, and remember that authorial intent is irrelevent okay? So note that I’m not implying intent either), and that false belief in the exceptional misogyny of islam is of course then used as justification for mass murder and colonialism that then feeds into things like the Iranian Revolution, where iranian women observed hijab as a direct act of defiance against western imperialism, and so on, and so forth.
If you want to get rid of these bullshit, rape culture affirming, customs and support muslim feminists, you can’t do things like this - there’s too much baggage floating around because of the neo-cons and while you can pretend that the cultural context isn’t relevent, it really is and it’d be easier for everyone if you just stopped digging a hole for yourself.
Remember the golden rule for white people dealing with nonwhite politics: Don’t be T-Rex!
And if you don’t accept any of those other reasons, then just remember that at the very least it’s like the “calling repugs morons is an insult to morons” movement, what did muslims do to you to deserve being compared to Ann Althouse huh?
Hmm. Not buying a T-Rex comparison. Those are whole different levels of “insensitivity.”
We wouldn’t tolerate people of any culture promoting racism. Why do we have to tiptoe around any culture’s sexism?
Not buying it. Racial oppression doesn’t excuse gender oppression. Men who take out their anger on women are to blame for their actions.
Let me put it this way: White Southern men have been abusing women for a long time now because they feel emasculated by the North. If you condemn them for sexism, does that mean you’re pro-oppression?
By the way, I was drawing a direct parallel between American misogyny and the Taliban. I was saying to the conservative women that they were acting just like the Taliban they supposedly oppose. I get that my joke might have been too subtle, but that was indeed the joke.
R. Mildred -
It was my picture, first of all, not Amanda’s, even though it was posted by her and dovetailed into her post. Therefore I deserve any blame that’s earned.
How does the hijab relate to this? Was it in the picture somewhere? Is it as much the “gold standard” for forced modest dress? Is it used by the same ultra-orthodox strains of Islam (which I now have learned, btw, means almost exclusively the Taliban, and for that I offered a significant mea culpa) as the burqa is, or are the similarities only that the burqa and the hijab are each used by some of 1 billion people?
As for the burqa “becoming more attractive to muslim women” as the oppression of muslims ramps up, well, okay, although I haven’t yet heard about the burqa being a voluntary choice, but assuming it is - “Taken In Hand” has become more attractive to Christian women as the oppression of women has ramped up, and that doesn’t stop feminists from decrying that.
I know you’re rejecting authorial intent, so it may be pointless to ask for an example of a more misogynistic piece of clothing than the burqa. From any tradition. I will entertain any suggestions. I doubt if I’ll agree with them.
I’ve worked in muslims communities, I’ve had muslim friends, I’ve seen the bruises and cuts and burns and muslim lesbians being abandoned, ostracised and attacked by their communities, don’t give me that “oh but we can’t pussy foot around those people just because of a little international system of exploitation, murder and oppression” crap, we help, but we have to actually HELP, not Other them by holding islamic practices up as some platonic ideal of patriarchy.
It’s not like nuns don’t exist or anything. If there’s a western alternative to Othering muslims, go with the western one, nuns over burkas, mormons over muslim polygamists, and catholics are always good.
I’d add that by multiculturalist standards, lynchings in the South are beyond criticism because it was economically depressed white people acting out their aggression. We won’t sign onto the idea that murdering black people is an appropriate way to work out ill feelings (and rightly of course), so why is oppressing women an acceptable behavior?
The modesty requirements on Afghani women are deadly, of course. They cannot get medical treatment under Taliban rule and they die.
Is lynching women by proxy something we have to accept?
Well, a few things about that:
1) Burqas are the easiest to photoshop.
2) I don’t get it. Are nuns’ habits, which quite often show breasts and ALWAYS show faces, somehow AS forced-modest as burqas are?
3) But: No, I hadn’t considered that the burqa might be a point of defense for Muslim women to any greater a degree than any Christian-based repressive instrument might be a point of defense for Christian women; the fact that it is in some cases doesn’t make all criticism beyond the pale. That said, I certainly don’t make it a practice to attempt to drive away oppressed people.
The picture was an attempt to attack the oppressors, both Christian/Righty and Muslim, not the oppressed. But hey - authorial intent, again.
No one said nuns don’t exist. In fact, the point of my joke was that the very people who wring their hands over things like the burqua give a pass to the nuns’ habit. Unless you’re willing to defend the nuns’ habit as beyond criticism, I don’t see your point.
This is like deja vu all over again.
White female blogger employs cultural symbol of non white populations - photoshopped by male (likely white, but possibly not) artist into pictures originally containing all white people, attached to articles that have little or no relation to the cultural symbol being used and which indeed deal with accusations or disagreements back and forth among white people, as opposed to any conversation directly regarding those whose culture/symbol/method of dress is being used - by people who have a less than perfect understanding of the implications of the symbols themselves, or past and present uses.
Arguments are then put forth as to what the artist was trying to convey, and what the writer really meant and how nothing else would do but to use this symbol of non white populations to illustrate a point about a disagreement between white people. Somehow this is supposed to make sense.
I do hope this isn’t becoming a trend. Although I think it’s probably a bit too late for that hope.
I saw the photo at Pandagon and immediately thought. “oh jeeze, not again.” After all the other burqa stuff (not to mention the blackface stuff), with the South Dakota abortion ban and whatever else people have looked at a burqa and thought “oh this is just the perfect accesssory for my project/article, whatever!”
I think the artist was correct when he stated (at bfp’s) that there was no actual woman under there. It’s a prop, and not one used to highlight the cause, in any way, of those who wear the burqa or hajib, willingly or unwillingly, powerless or no, but to make a point, or joke referencing, again, powerful and privileged populations.
I agree with R Mildred that it is not your symbol to use.
Wow. Another sensative issue where there’s no way to win…
1) Burqas are the easiest to photoshop.
So’s blackface - ease of use doesn’t equal not-racist.
2) I don’t get it. Are nuns’ habits, which quite often show breasts and ALWAYS show faces, somehow AS forced-modest as burqas are?
They’re supposed to be, yes. They both use the exact same logic and justifications.
3) But: No, I hadn’t considered that the burqa might be a point of defense for Muslim women to any greater a degree than any Christian-based repressive instrument might be a point of defense for Christian women; the fact that it is in some cases doesn’t make all criticism beyond the pale. That said, I certainly don’t make it a practice to attempt to drive away oppressed people.
How many christian women have being killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, chechnya, indonesia, palestine as a result of feminist imperialism? How many christians are currently being tortured to death in feminist death camps?
It’s different. Note context. There is a certain validity in the muslim reaction, whereas there is no call for absorbshun under any circumstances.
so it may be pointless to ask for an example of a more misogynistic piece of clothing than the burqa. From any tradition. I will entertain any suggestions. I doubt if I’ll agree with them.
A wedding ring of course, though only from the point of view of a woman trapped in an abusive marriage they rushed into due to societal expectations to marry.
And that’s “feminist imperialism” in the sense that rightwing christian defensiveness is part of the anti-fem backlash - not that feminists are oppressing muslims.
So’s blackface - ease of use doesn’t equal not-racist.
Well, I’ve already indicated (not pleaded - that would imply that it was acceptable) my ignorance that the burqa would specify a racial identity beyond the fact that a high percentage of 1 billian muslims are from the Middle East. Certainly I have seen fully-covered - eyelines and hands only - caucasian women occasionally in Portland*.
My intent was only to skewer ultra-orthodoxy. When the reaction to one’s work is charges of racism, authorial intent suddenly becomes pretty important to the author. Accidental/ignorant racism is not acceptable, but it’s certainly less of a charge to carry around than purposeful/care-less (as in without care) racism.
How many christian women have being killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, chechnya, indonesia, palestine as a result of feminist imperialism? How many christians are currently being tortured to death in feminist death camps?
Somehow I keep being accused of thinking that Christians are okay because “look what Muslims do” but also of thinking that Christians are “just as oppressed as Muslim women.” Neither of which are accurate.
I’m not sure I’m reading you right, though - a certain validity in Muslim reaction? The fact that an oppressed people react by oppressing a subset is somehow valid? Or am I reading that wrong?
Can’t I be BOTH against oppression of women, AND against all those other things you listed? Cause I have been - I was against the bombing of Afghanistan, I was against Chechnya, etc. I don’t want to go on ad nauseum, but this really seems to be Either/Or thinking.
A wedding ring of course, though only from the point of view of a woman trapped in an abusive marriage they rushed into due to societal expectations to marry.
Agreed in those instances, btw, but is it your position that the burqa is oppressive to women only in some cases?
* Not intended to indicate that I deny or belittle the basic racial makeup of Islam - although Asians are a huge percentage; and my aforementioned ignorance assumed that ultra-orthodox Asian muslims must use the burqa as well.
Billion, dammit. 1 billion.
One more point of clarification -
At this point I am ONLY attempting to defend authorial intent and not particularly the image itself. When the subject is racism, I think it’s okay to spend time clarifying authorial intent, given the anathema of the charges to my own - and any decent person’s - sensibilities.
In other words, given the objections which have been raised, I would not make the image again, since whether I agree with ALL the objections or not, I certainly don’t purposefully make something which is objectionable to a large swath of people (that I’m not specifically intending to offend - if Althouse had been offended, so much the better.)
This isn’t a “sorry-if-you-were-offended” apology. This is an “I’m sorry that I made a picture which was offensive” apology.
if Althouse had been offended
By my calling her an attempted oppressor of women, not by the racism.
I’ll stop trying to finetune things now but I felt like that sentence was hanging out there.
offending and mocking althouse is an objective good - it’s the manner you went about it I’m objecting to auguste, do people really believe I’m calling them stormfronters or something?
Look, read this, check out the flowchart for the use of blackface (because flowcharts are cool), divide by 6 and bear in mind these little rules that I just made up:
1) If you know fuck all about the cultural custom you’re appropriating for your personal use, you don’t get to use it.
2) If you have to ask your critics about the custom, you know fuck all about the cultural custom you’re appropriating for your personal use.
3) Cultural colonialism is never funny (because it’s true).
4) Don’t be Kate Moss (who’s identity is, if there’s any justice in the world, being stolen by nigerian phishers as I type this).
5) Don’t be T-Rex (because I hear he has ground his cock down to a “nubbin” trying to grind a fuck hole into a mirror, and that just isn’t attractive).
6) Don’t be Jane Hamsher (AKA Talks-Out-Of-Bleached-Asshole).
7) Remember my high horse of asshollery eats strawmen for breaksfast (along with sugar lumps).
8) Don’t be afraid to admit you fucked up (because to err is human, but to do your damndest to try and not fuck up again in the future; divine).
1) I guess I don’t know fuck all. I was under the mistaken impression that Afghani women aren’t particularly happy with their oppression. Damn you,RAWA! You misled me!
And before the analogies start to stick, I would again like to remind everyone that in no way did Amanda refer to herself as “better” than a burka wearer (#5, TRex) or use the burka as a way to say something awful about Jessica (#6, Hamsher).
If anyone’s playing the TRex role here, I guess it’s me, per the 3rd party back-up, but I will again ask: why do we have to tiptoe around sexism when we would never tiptoe around racism?
For example, we don’t say that it’s a valid cultural choice to oppress Kurds.
And I’ll part with this for you to chew on, RM, also from RAWA:
Now you tell me who’s being othered here by defending the burka.
As for the title of this post, the joke of my original post was that IWF is constantly criticizing the patriarchal traditions of Muslim countries while letting themselves off the hook. I was saying they are hypocrites because of this. How do I call attention to the hypocrisy of criticizing other countries while letting yourself off the hook by referencing the nun’s habit or the gunny sack dress, two traditions they do not actually criticize?
It’d be like, “Ha ha what would you say if Jessica wore a nun’s habit to this meeting?”
Well, that’s not funny, because they wouldn’t say anything at all. But if someone wore a burqua, they’d be flipping out, even though they themselves are making exactly the same kind of demands on women to cover up their disgusting womanness in public.
Comparing the burqua joke to blackface is incredibly insensitive to the history of oppression of black people in this country. The blackface joke was not about opposition to the specific oppression that the blackface represents. My joke however was about opposing oppression to women. My joke was to hurt the feelings of people who oppress women, so the offense at it is on the behalf of the Taliban, which I find puzzling, I must admit.
“For example, we don’t say that it’s a valid cultural choice to oppress”
This is the problem. There’s a unilateral descision, enforced by brutal occupation, made by a cabal of folks that a real progressive shouldn’t trust farther than they can throw the Jefferson Memorial.
We say it’s not a valid culture.
That’s all shades of not fucking right.
sly,
“We say it’s not a valid culture.”
Who said that about what now?
I am not sure what you’re getting at, but all I pointed out was that nobody (we = feminist/liberal blogosphere) tries to defend racist customs in other cultures. That’s true, right?
Sly, I don’t get what you’re saying. Because the Bushies say it’s oppression, we have to refrain? RAWA also says it’s oppression, but they don’t think invasion was the answer. It doesn’t follow that because I think the Taliban is wrong somehow means I think Bush is right.
For what it’s worth, I’ve opposed the invasion of Afghanistan from day one. I’d like to use U.S. resources to get the godbags out, but not in a way that’s undemocratic and oppressive. From the beginning—from way before 9/11 when I first started reading about the Taliban and all the problems there—my opinion was the U.S. should go to the resistance movement of people like RAWA and ask them how we can help. But if we weren’t willing to let ourselves be mere helpers, and I don’t think the U.S. is even close to that position yet, then yeah, we shouldn’t get involved at all.
I will add this from my post on the matter:
I’m sympathetic to the fact that imperialists like Bush use humanist values like democracy as excuses to invade other countries. But it’s an excuse. He doesn’t believe his own bullshit. If cultural relativism were the prevailing value of American liberals, Bush would be arguing that it’s his cultural imperative to invade other countries and who are you to judge?
1) Western women say that implying the burka is a tool of patriarchal oppression is wrong.
2) Afghan women say poor women are being beaten because they cannot afford this male-ordered attire they don’t want to wear.
To be properly sensitive, it seems to me I should trust the Afghan women over the western ones.
1) “Othering” the wearing of the burka hurts women’s feelings, at least those who are rich enough to afford them and thus escape the beatings.
2) “Othering” the criticism of the burka encourages those beatings to continue.
So to defend the burka is to protect the feelings of women who can afford one at the expense of the lives of the women who can’t.
I just don’t see why I should trust the westerners that it’s all good when the Afghanis say it isn’t. Can someone help here?
To be properly sensitive, it seems to me I should trust the Afghan women over the western ones.
Hell then, now that us white folk have properly erased the muslim women who do wear burkas voluntarily out of reality, why don’t we bomb the shit out of their country! That’ll help the poor oppressed women of afghanistan!
Or not.
Never mind that I object to the fuckign practice on grounds of evilness and bad theology (see also my position on women being forced to become nuns or marry because they’re not allowed to use contraceptives or abort by the catholic church), fuck all that marc, you’ve just basically otherised burka wearing muslims out of existence using a chemical reaction that looks like this:
“chooses to wear burka whitietanium —> Invisiburkas Smug sense of satisfaction that afghani women have gone from being beaten (by Reagan funded fundies) for not being able to afford burkas to beign raped then killed for being raped by Bush funded fundies”
well glad to see the touch football status of third world women hasn’t been relinquished.
because that’s the kicker, most of the bullshit in the muslim world is being exacerbated by white people to the crazy levels it’s at right now - so lets tacitly support such things by conflating Ann Althouse and the stereotypical muslim men that she waves around to obfuscate mormon child brides (who I now accuse Amanda and Marc of being in favor of: Your turn with the strawchess).
For what it’s worth, I’ve opposed the invasion of Afghanistan from day one. I’d like to use U.S. resources to get the godbags out, but not in a way that’s undemocratic and oppressive. From the beginning—from way before 9/11 when I first started reading about the Taliban and all the problems there—my opinion was the U.S. should go to the resistance movement of people like RAWA and ask them how we can help. But if we weren’t willing to let ourselves be mere helpers, and I don’t think the U.S. is even close to that position yet, then yeah, we shouldn’t get involved at all.
then we agree.
But what manner of huge strawelephant got us into this culdesac in the first place?
So by listening to them, by hearing their words over yours, I am wiping them out?
That is nonsensical.
Oh, wait, do you think that by saying I think burkas reinforce patriarchy, and that defending them encourages the beatings to continue, that I am justifying western war on Afghanistan? Because not only is that a huge leap, it’s a false one.
But what manner of huge strawelephant got us into this culdesac in the first place?
That would be your original post, RM. Read Amanda’s post over at Pandagon if you haven’t yet.
A full-body burqua like the one shown here is oppressive. If optional high heels are tools of the patriarchy, surely, legally mandated head-to-toe covering is oppressive.
Yes, crazies like Malkin and Atlas Pam cite real human rights abuses in order to justify their genocidal aspirations. If you’re Malkin, you also spend a lot of time excoriating other women for being immodestly dressed in the West. Nothing like a patriarchal double standard to really confuse and demoralize the ladies into submission. Shamed if you do, shamed if you don’t!
Hell then, now that us white folk have properly erased the muslim women who do wear burkas voluntarily out of reality, why don’t we bomb the shit out of their country! That’ll help the poor oppressed women of afghanistan!
I’m sorry, but I can’t be particularly fucked to care about women who choose to wear the things any more than I’m going to stand up and defend a woman’s “right” to be physically forced to give a man a blowjob. How in the hell does criticizing burqas “erase” anyone “out of reality”? If anything, you’re treating them like actual human beings by refusing to pretend their choices are beyond critcism.
The fact that some women wear the burqua voluntarily is beside the point, as is the bombing campaign against Afghanistan, which no one here is endorsing.
Western feminists didn’t make the burqua the ultimate symbol of oppression. The Taliban did that by forcing it on women along with a slew of other mandatory regulations designed to virtually erase any reminder of women’s existence from daily life.
And not only that but anti-woman sentiments in the U.S. are different only in degree not in kind from the thinking of the Taliban - a fact that the photoshopped picture illustrates beautifully. The Taliban simply took the popular contempt for women in many cultures, such as that contempt displayed by Althouse, to its logical conclusion.
It’s true that men in patriarchal, non-western cultures will often use western critiques of their oppression of women to persuade women to go along with oppressive customs (i.e. gender apartheid becomes a way of taking a stand against western cultural imperialism). That’s a classic example of women being pitted against each other. But I don’t think that the solution is to just never comment on how wrong patriarchal, non-western customs are. To me, the worst sort of “othering” is when people told me as a kid (growing up in an Islamic country) that I shouldn’t worry about FGM and mandatory veiling because “that’s just their culture dear.”
Marc, the line between invalid cultural choice and invalid culture is a thin one. Disagree if you want, but i think the point that I’m making isn’t obtuse.
Because these rhetorics are being used by imperial forces, Bushies et al, it is extremely critical that we weigh our own interactions with them.
That does not mean a pat abandonment of our values, but it sure as hell means that it might just be a tiny bit totally inappropriate for us to impose that by fiat.
A lot of press got made over Ryan Smith geting gay bashed in the St. Maarten a while back. And the average queer reaction was, i kid you not, about how the European overlords of the place ought to do a better job policing it. There was nothing helpful to those queers who live there, nothing about repairing the racist implications of american queer idenity that allow queerness to be portrayed as a white activity of priviledge, no voices from caribbean queers. At the end of the day, it was about getting the American way, and damn the rest. “Sticking up” for queer rights meant in reality, sticking up for certain (subset of American) queers while sticking it to others.
I give an example from my own house here not to change the topic, but to try to move past the “support/hate” binary we’ve got going on here. Using this kind of image doesn’t “stick up” for women’s rights. Not here, not globally. The fundamental reason I make my objection on is that these rhetorics aren’t effective. Not for our ends.
I don’t see how criticizing a culture automatically leads to imposing your own by fiat, especially if you are very openly and obviously opposed to imposing your culture by fiat and you are criticial of your own culture at the same time.
Sly,
Thanks for the clarification.
My position remains that there are at least 2 things that safely fall on the “can criticize” side of any culture: racism and sexism. We can stand up for what’s right on those 2 issues without justifying a corrupt interventionist war.
We can. I really do beleive that. But it requires conscious work, and most of all…real alliance with the communities of liberation in those cultures. How we go about that matters.
Kudos to R. Mildred for this very sound critique of Amanda’s original post at pandagon. Good on Amanda for her half-hearted apology (I.e. one in which it’s obvious she doesn’t know what she is apologizing for).
Your use of the Iranian revolution as an example of why feminist women reappropriated the hijab and burka to counter western imperialism was a good one.
Knowing at least half a dozen FEMINIST muslim women who have recently decided to wear a headscarf in recent years (after being brought up in the ‘west’) it’s less than a coincidence that the increasing xenophobia is also proportional to the increase in headscarf wearing. As women of colour, we don’t have to just worry about sexism (from within and outside of our respective cultures) but also having to put up with a whole lifetime of EXPLAINING/APOLOGIZING for our cultural pracitises.
After all, America is a land for “individuals” - not of “american culture”. So no one needs to explain/apologize for serial rapists as part of culture, no one needs to apologize for “PORN culture”, or plastic surgery or whatever else. But as women of colour - we have to do the explaining both to other feminists, society at large, and to members of our own culture to explain WHY WE ARE FEMINISTS in the first place.
It’s a piss off really, when a bunch of supposedly ‘enlightened’ crackers sit around discussing why/why not it’s inappropriate to make such parallels, especially in highly xenophobic times.
Do I get unnerved when my male muslim drinking buddies who are supposedly atheist stop drinking because they have something to ‘prove’? Do I get disturbed by the recent ‘islamicization’ of my ‘atheist’ muslim friends? Of course I do, but I can totally understand in the light of the impending and looming xenophobia that is happening. People want to at least on a symbolic level show solidarity with other Muslims.
The decision to photoshop a burka vs. something else was because it was “EASY”. Not just easy to photoshop, but EASY because Islam is an easy-target… BECAUSE OF THE ASSUMED MUTUAL DISTRUST OF ISLAM BY THE VIEWER!!!
You all know you are talking to white people on your blogs, afterall most of the blogosphere is full of whites, you all know that you can ‘identify’ with the ‘oppression’ of BURKAS, you can all ’share’ in your ‘obvious joke’… “But, but, but — we’re on the side of the good guys. We talk about feminism, we talk about anti-racism, we voted democrat or green… so you can TAKE THIS JOKE from us. It’s just a joke because we all KNOW that a BURKA is OPPRESSIVE and therefore ISLAM is OPPRESSIVE”
Being South asian (not muslim) and having been openly attacked by white men who assumed I am a ‘paki terrorist’ in the last two years - I can attest to this xenophobia. (I’ve never experienced such overt racism in the past). It’s happening - instead of trying to piss off a few more of us - by showing how ignorant you are you can try to build bridges and show a little more understanding.
Do I think a burka is sexist? Hell, ya - but I also know that the women who ‘choose’ to wear it (as it’s not just the Taliban who enforce it) are choosing to just as much as women in the US ‘choose’ to pose for playboy.
Hmm. I am ignorant, and yet we agree that a burka is sexist. Which is my only point. And the point of the picture, really.
Am I not allowed to say the same thing you are?
Additionally, I think a choice that can be interpreted as supporting sexist oppression is a fine thing to criticize. If, as RAWA says, women are being beaten in the streets for not wearing burkas they can’t afford, should any person wear one if she can avoid it?
Seems to me it could be seen as a tacit endorsement of that oppression, whatever else it may say along with that, and I think there’s room for critique there. If I am allowed to say so.
Marc - the post was intended moreso towards Amanda and whoever posted the photoshop pic. Sure - admit the burka is sexist, go ahead. But also admit that American ‘culture’ is sexist because of the way that it promotes hyper-sexual beauty standards on women. It’s ‘choice-feminism’ (mentioned by someone already)really, because not all burka wearers are victims of the Taliban. Like not all ’sex-workers’ are victims of childhood abuse. But don’t go around putting up photos of it as an ‘inside joke’ amongst ‘your white friends’.
There is a reason why there aren’t many people of color on these blogs, most listserves/message boards that people of colour are on are ethnicity based despite their ‘political inclinations’. Geez, I wonder why that could be? Could it be that most diasporic communities don’t feel so welcome in progressive circles cause of the explaining they have to do about their cultures and their choices?
It’s also the reason why this burka picture was made in the first place anyways, cause y’all know that no one’s really going to object to it as I have already explained because of your mutual acknowledgement of burka as ‘extreme, sexist and other’.
Does Marc deny that American culture is sexist? I’ve not noticed that.
At the risk of being labeled an enemy combatant, let me say that the American culture is deeply sexist. I do try to get that message across on this blog from time to time. See today’s post, for example.
I agree that we need to reach a broader base than white people out here in the blogosphere. But not criticizing something sexist because it’s sensitive to some doesn’t strike me as the way to do it. To put that another way, I don’t know how to have a productive discussion with anyone who isn’t willing to criticize their own culture as harshly as I criticize mine when it is deserved.
No one says the burka is something to celebrate as a feminist symbol. Ergo, everyone should be able to critique it, even through humor. Because 99% of people who see it recognize the burka is being criticized because you care about the woman under it. You aren’t othering her.
But also admit that American ‘culture’ is sexist because of the way that it promotes hyper-sexual beauty standards on women.
Suggesting that anyone’s NOT admitting that, at least not those involved in the original post, is straw-person-y in the extreme, since both of us have extensive writings available to the contrary.
Unintended consequences - for which we’re taking deserved heat - are one thing, but creating an “Either/Or” (either you attack western sexism, or muslim sexism) where a “Both/And” is clearly called for (both condemn western imperialism, and condemn ALL sexism.)
If a burqa is sexist, it’s sexist. The shades of grey seem to exist - at least by your arguments - only in whose right it is to co-opt the symbol, for which I maintain my apology as noted above.
It’s also the reason why this burka picture was made in the first place anyways, cause y’all know that no one’s really going to object to it as I have already explained because of your mutual acknowledgement of burka as ‘extreme, sexist and other’.
Thanks for clearing up our reasons for us. Considering that you seemingly agree that the burqa is “extreme and sexist”, we’re really just arguing about the “other” aspect. And no one’s really going to object to it? What do you call what’s going on now? I didn’t REALIZE people would object to it, and that was a bad mistake which I should not have made. But now that I know people ARE objecting to it - and the reasons - well, it’s a teachable moment which I intend to absorb.
But that doesn’t mean I have to accept as gospel *everything* anyone is saying. For example, calling it “a joke to share among your white friends”, well, you’re assuming a hell of a lot about the posters and the various denizens of Pandagon. Of all the things I’ve read about this controversy, it’s the only thing to which I would actually reply “bullshit.”
Bullshit.
Which woman? Jessica Valenti? The white American woman? The problem is not criticizing misogyny when it happens to occur in another country. The problem is using an artifact from another culture with its own meaning and function as offhand shorthand for American misogyny. That doesn’t communicate concern for the actual women under actual burqas, or for the problems they face. It renders them and their specific problems invisible. It’s especially problematic–and not unlike the misconceived blackface gambit–because racist conservatives in this country have a long history of making that same shorthand connection in order to excuse their own imperialist designs on the middle east.
amanda, it’s funny that you would bring up that rawa calls the burqa sexist–i notice that you noted that rawa also doesn’t think that military interventions are exactly wonderful–and yet, go over to feminist majority’s site, and there is this online petition:
We urge you to do everything in your power to help Afghan women and girls. Girls’ schools, women election workers, women employees of humanitarian aid organizations, and women leaders and journalists have all been targets of insurgent Taliban groups, warlords and remnants of old Mujahideen forces. The United States must dramatically increase food and other humanitarian assistance, especially direct assistance to Afghan women led NGO’s, expand peacekeeping and security forces throughout Afghanistan, and dramatically increase funding so that the Marshall Plan promised by your Administration can be realized. Women must be central to any effort to establish a democracy and security is essential in preventing Afghanistan from becoming, once again, recruitment soil for terrorists, drug traffickers and warlords.
isn’t it interesting how afghani women specifically decry outside military intervention FOR YEARS, and yet, even today, feminist organizations are begging their constituants to please please tell our president to expand forces throughout afghanistan?
Do we have no responsibility as feminists to support the organizing and liberatory actions of other feminists?
And you know, I don’t think it works to say that it’s throwing that racist special pleading in their faces. That would only work if the Muslim women under the burqas were important to them and their constituents as anything but symbols. It would only work if they saw something wrong, even on an intellectual level, with using someone’s oppression for crass political gain. Of course they don’t actually care about women, here or there. Of course threatened fundamentalist misogyny of any variety doesn’t faze them. I don’t think you can call it hypocrisy when it’s gone so far beyond transparent.
(Sorry about the serial posting, but I had decent coffee this morning for a change)
I’m also uncomfortable about the efficacy of communication justification, to wit: we understand the burqa as a visible symbol of the constraints sexism places on women’s bodies. Setting aside any issue of imperialism, that use of the burqa excuses the transparency that makes it so hard for us to see, say, cosmetic surgery as anything other than wallpaper. In fact, it makes it even harder for us to bring our immediate surroundings into focus.
So, it’s not okay for Amanda and the photoshopper to use the (mutually agreed) oppressive symbol of the burka . . . because they’re (presumably) white.
And it is not racist to tell a white person what symbols they can and can’t used based entirely on the fact that they are white? But white people using said symbol is racist.
Seems like we’re splitting hairs for no real reason here. It also seems like several people are reaching to see racism where there isn’t any.
Auguste,
Sure, the pandagon and punkass may have a few non-white posters on their threads. But I’m not just pulling net constituency out of a hat. It is a fact - and in internet polls - you will find that the majority of internet users and bloggers are male and white. If you can’t really critique that angle, then I feel sorry for you. Unfortunately the only study that I can site is from 1995 - and in that sense it would be useless. But it’s no stretch of the imagination to assume that most of the constituents of these two blogs are probably 95% white.
Therefore my criticism of the fact that this was used as an ‘inside joke’ is still valid.
I can’t remember but was it 2001 when the UN was harping on about the digital divide? I.e. a divide where the internet is primarily english speaking and primarily white - is not ‘wrong’ for me to say. It is entirely valid to this post.
As for saying that punkass marc was not ‘feminist’ I did not mean that literally. It was said in the context that many people see ‘choice’ when it comes to women in the US posing in playboy - but do not SEE CHOICE when MUSLIM WOMEN IN IRAN Use the burka and hijab to protest imperialism. Using ‘religious iconography’ against percieved threats is common in most religions.
If you read my previous post - you will see that I did write the following: “But, but, but — we’re on the side of the good guys. We talk about feminism, we talk about anti-racism, we voted democrat or green…” albeit in a different context. I acknowledge the fact that you are all ‘fairly progressive’.
As for ‘objections’ - the WHOLE bloody point is that AMANDA did NOT EXPECT anyone to OBJECT, and there is a reason for that - which I have outlined. what part of this don’t you get??????? It’s obvious that this is a SURPRISE to her.
Look, all I did here was agree with R. Mildred. If you are going to take things out of context, lest I criticize people on these blogs for not ‘understanding’ that the ‘burka’ can mean things to women on an ‘individual level’ and you are going to take it personally - I can’t help you with that. It’s rather a knee jerk reaction on your part. And really lame too. “Oh no, but we are good (I’m not disputing this) so how dare you further critique us”…
By putting a picture up of a woman in a burka in a ‘how else would you have it way’, is wrong!
Anyways, I am obviously not doing a good job of explaining this - but I think Piny has explained it fairly well:
“The problem is using an artifact from another culture with its own meaning and function as offhand shorthand for American misogyny. That doesn’t communicate concern for the actual women under actual burqas, or for the problems they face.”
—————-
Some people have said that “we” never criticize the misogyny of Christianity or the West. I don’t know who you’re talking about.
Certainly, Amanda is one of the most articulate and forceful critics of Christian sexism out there. About 60% of the posts on Pandagon in any given week address some aspect of sexism in the West–whether it’s anti-abortion zealots, homobigots like James Dobson, etc., etc. She and Pam Spaulding criticize the white, Western, Christian patriarchy day in and day out.
Certainly, Amanda is one of the most articulate and forceful critics of Christian sexism out there. About 60% of the posts on Pandagon in any given week address some aspect of sexism in the West–whether it’s anti-abortion zealots, homobigots like James Dobson, etc., etc. She and Pam Spaulding criticize the white, Western, Christian patriarchy day in and day out.
Then why the burqa? If anyone would have a lot of choice clip-art from Lydia of Purple, it’d be Amanda Marcotte.
“She and Pam Spaulding criticize the white, Western, Christian patriarchy day in and day out.”
Yes, and that makes them inherently good people who should never further be criticized for anything else.
I read pandagon, for the most part - it’s good. Not the best - but better than most. I don’t think there is anything wrong with bringing this stuff up. Actually, difference is vital to any level of progress.
Sure, the pandagon and punkass may have a few non-white posters on their threads. But I’m not just pulling net constituency out of a hat. It is a fact - and in internet polls - you will find that the majority of internet users and bloggers are male and white. If you can’t really critique that angle, then I feel sorry for you.
Actually, I can, and do. That doesn’t mean that I’m some sort of closet racist who “tells racial jokes, but only when I’m with my white buddies”, which is exactly what your statement implied. Gee, why would I bristle?
The racism was there, yes, I’m understanding that now, but what doesn’t follow is that it was “intentional” because I’m in a “safe environment.”
Yes, and that makes them inherently good people who should never further be criticized for anything else.
Why does “explanation and discussion” equal “how dare you criticize”?
I think this was pointed out before (maybe it was on the thread over at Pandagon), but to properly point out Althouse’s hypocracy, western sexist garb just doesn’t work.
I think this was pointed out before (maybe it was on the thread over at Pandagon), but to properly point out Althouse’s hypocracy, western sexist garb just doesn’t work.
I dunno if that’s true–it relies on the belief that pandagon readers won’t recognize Western sexism as sexism.
It’s not about what we would recognize as sexism, but what Althouse criticizes for sexism. The whole point, as I understand it, was to reveal Althouse’s sexism for what it was using imagery of sexism that she has railed against. Using a bag dress would have revealed the sexism, but not the hypocrisy.ut not the hypocrisy.
Western feminists didn’t make the burqua the ultimate symbol of oppression.
First off, the ultimate symbol of oppression is slavery, second off, rightwingers have turned the burka into the “ultimate” symbol of oppression (it doesn’t strike anyone as odd that what amounts to a table cloth with holes in it is being called an ultimate symbol of oppression - unlike soviet anti-abortion random spot checks, or slave labor, or the fact that marital rape is still legal in 30 out of 50 states in america - while at the same there’s an international campaign by whtie people to demonise and exploit muslims across the globe?) even funding the taliban that everyone is using to score points in an internet fight, and finally, in what way did I declare that I love Osama bin Laden jagoff?
jagoff
8^(
Fine. You can read that as “Western feminists didn’t make the burqua the ultimate symbol of the oppression of women as women.”
The burqua itself makes sense in terms of that symbol because it was part and parcel of a mandatory system that included a zillion other restrictions all designed to make women invisible.
But where I am coming down on this after readng all the comments is that a thousand words is worth a picture. You tack a picture up, people are going to see all sorts of things that weren’t intended. I do think that it is completely valid to make connections and show commanilities between anti-feminist ideas around the world. One reason I am sensitive about this particular debate is that I think it is valid, and indeed, crucial to show these common ways of despising women. But, while a picture may be more elegant when it’s meaning is clearly understood, it is safer to expound one’s ideas in essay form rather than using symbolism that may mean different things to different people.
quote Auguste: Why does “explanation and discussion” equal “how dare you criticize”?
You know, responding to this is not worth it in the long run — but I stated this because of your continuous knee-jerking.
You called my entire post “Bullshit” to which I responded in depth.
Good for you to recognize it - and I think I have been quite ‘fair’ in my assessment, maybe a little less knee-jerk and a little more ‘attention’ would be better to employ.
your continuous knee-jerking.
Since BFP first brought this up I have spent hours (it’s only been a matter of hours, at least since I learned about the objections) thinking and writing about the issue. I have apologized, I have given and taken, and I have maintained a few points of disagreement while agreeing with the overall point.
Knee-jerking? I don’t know. I just don’t see it. I’ve tried to respond to the elements in YOUR comments which I felt I hadn’t responded to in PREVIOUS comments.
Here’s an example of what I mean:
On this I am in complete convincement, and felt I had already addressed that with this (emphasis added for this comment):
And to clear up one other thing:
You called my entire post “Bullshit” to which I responded in depth.
Um, no. No, I really didn’t. In fact, I was very careful not to. As I indicated, I was referring only to the claim that I’m a closet racist who breaks out the intentional racist jokes when I’m “among my white buddies.”
Not only are you a knee-jerker, but totally misconstruing my earlier point.
I never said you were a closet racist - please give me a god-damn break!!!!
I said - the intent of the ‘joke’ was not THOUGHT about. It was assumed ‘everyone’ would ‘get it’ as most of the bloggers on the net are WHITE.
I recognize the value of pandagon and punkass and their posts about ‘racism’ and ’sexism’ and ‘classism’ and ‘ableism’ blah blah blah — I wouldn’t be reading these blogs if I felt otherwise (Obviou-fucking-sly). But i do not feel the need to be ‘grateful’ for their own ‘liberal’ outlook and feel that it’s okay for me to point things out when I feel the need to.
I shan’t be replying to further comments by you - you just don’t seem to get it. Goodbye!
As I see it, the problem here is the intertwining of (1) feminism, and (2) cultural imperialism.
I agree with R. Mildred that we’re better off hurling our own cultural idols as iconoclastic insults rather than those whose appropriation raises distracting questions.
I don’t find this image’s use of the burqa to be nearly as offensive as blackface, but I do see it, at the very least, as an appeal to a Western Christian superiority complex in the service of a valid point. And I don’t think I have to say here that there’s no need these days for Westerners to pile on more insults on Muslims. I guess, in my eyes, the offense is that the Muslim woman’s voice does not appear in this depiction. As far as I can see, the central weapon for insult is appropriated from Muslim culture without consent. Does this mean I approve of Sharia law? No. It means that I don’t want to presume to speak on behalf of Muslims who are resisting Sharia.
Since RAWA keeps coming up in defense of this image, I would appreciate a statement from RAWA saying that this image upholds their values and objectives. Being familiar with RAWA’s work is not enough.
Peace.
Excuse me? “But don’t go around putting up photos of it as an ‘inside joke’ amongst ‘your white friends’.” That’s a direct quote, and if you’re going to claim that you don’t know the signifiers behind that sentence, that’s fine, but that also means you need to accept that I didn’t know my signifiers before making the photo, which is really my whole claim here.
I said - the intent of the ‘joke’ was not THOUGHT about.
Right, and I apologized.
It was assumed ‘everyone’ would ‘get it’
With you so far.
as most of the bloggers on the net are WHITE.
No. You’re ascribing intent and attitude, to me, that is NOT. APPLICABLE. As I have gone over before - my error and insensitivity was in my very ignorance that there would be a racial overtone to the photo in the first place. Not that I thought I could get away with said racial overtone.
But:
But i do not feel the need to be ‘grateful’ for their own ‘liberal’ outlook and feel that it’s okay for me to point things out when I feel the need to.
I don’t understand who’s asking you to be ‘grateful’, or asking you not to point things out. “Taking exception to something specific you say” is NOT the same thing as “trying to shut you up.”
I shan’t be replying to further comments by you - you just don’t seem to get it. Goodbye!
Well, okay. I’m sorry to see you go, as one thing I have maintained throughout is that it’s not my intention to alienate people of good intentions.
It’s probably safe to assume that anything you have said which I haven’t addressed, either before or after you said them, means that I am essentially in agreement with you. The points of disagreement are the points which are worth going over - but not with someone who thinks that “disagreeing” is “knee-jerking.”
RAWA believes that the United Nations has not been able to address the problem properly. If the UN can send a large number of peace-keeping forces to places like Cambodia and Bosnia, why should it not be adopting a similar policy in Afghanistan? It is all the more important to have large peace-keeping forces in Afghanistan where most fundamentalist groups owe their power to the support of foreign countries. It is very unfortunate that UN activities are limited only to negotiating with fundamentalists, and it is very apparent that the UN is not willing to take any steps that would annoy them. We advocate that the UN view Afghanistan as the homeland of the Afghan people, and not as the property of a few armed militia. The UN should take into account the will of the people of Afghanistan and must not proceed according to the whims of the fundamentalists.
There seemed to be some confusion upthread on RAWA’s position on UN peacekeepers in Afghanistan and whether or not Feminist Majority is overruling their wishes.
actually, I never said a thing about the UN, I said U.S. interventions. Having a nuetral force enter a countrie with no underlying hopes of colonzing or permanetly usurping the resources of the nation is completly different than a nation that has documented its desire and need to “birth” a new middle east. RAWA recognizes the differences between the two and have made their opinion known for many years.
Since you specifically objected to the call for peacekeepers, I figured it was a relevant point of information. The U.S. doesn’t really have “peacekeepers” under direct U.S. leadership, though we do give troops to the UN for peacekeeping.
If we can agree that anorexia and high heels are symbols of patriarchal oppression, even when women choose to participate, we should also accept that burqa is a symbol of oppression even when women go along with it.
In fact, the burqa is an even more potent symbol of oppression because it was forced on the women of Afghanistan by the Taliban in very recent history. Many women in Kabul and other cities favored Western dress before the Taliban took over, but one of the Taliban’s first acts was to shove women into burqas and quiet shoes before remanding them to virtual house arrest.
The Taliban takeover is a powerful metaphor for exactly what the religious right and other social conservatives are trying to do to emancipated North American women. Before the Taliban, women in the big cities of Afghanistan were often educated, emancipated, and employed. Obviously, that didn’t make their way of life any less Islamic. They were Muslim women upholding their own standards of modesty, until the Taliban fundamentalists took over and imposed their norms by force.
People who say that using the burqa to symbolize oppression is a way of demonizing Islam don’t know what they’re talking about. On the contrary, Treating the burqa as representative of observant Islamic dress or as a stand-in for Islam itself is even more offensive.
Islamic law mandates that women dress modestly, but there is no theological or cultural consensus as to what constitutes modesty. Burqas are the norm in Afghanistan, but not elsewhere in the Muslim world. For example, in Saudi Arabia, a loose cloak, a face veil, and a headscarf are the standard for modest feminine dress, with the face veil being legally optional. That’s a very restrictive dress code by Western standards, but considerably less constraining than the tent-like burqa. Burqas aren’t standard attire in most of Pakistan, Iran, Muslim North Africa, Indonesia, or North America. Certainly some people wear them, but they aren’t the norm, let alone the law.
“People who say that using the burqa to symbolize oppression is a way of demonizing Islam don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Lindsay, who put those women in the burqas? Evil Islamic men, which means we must go save them! And off we go bombing everything in sight using women’s oppression as one of our pretexts. You saw Laura Bush’s comments about how many women have been liberated, right? And you are not paying attention if you haven’t seen how any reason is used to demonize all muslims/arabs including burqas and head scarves.
During the 2004 elections I remember some paper in the UK wanted their readers to call voters in Ohio to please vote for Kerry and get rid of Bush. There was a backlash, the people they called told them to fuck off and get out of American politics. Most people do not want outsiders to tell them what to do or how to think. This is why it is a bad idea for colonizing nations and their people to use other cultures at the butt of their jokes. It can create a backlash and has done in the past.
I also said that I thought that I would have gotten the “joke” if the intent was to say that the Afghani woman deserved a seat at that table more than another middle class white person adding to the echo chamber. I do not see her as silent, instead I do see that those who were there were simpering and fawning. The Afghani woman would have been the only one speaking truth to power. I imagine that both Auguste and Amanda thought that if Jessica had been wearing a burqa she would no longer be chatting and laughing, she would have been silent and turned into nothing. This is why we say they have some unconcious racism going on, they can not imagine a burqa wearing woman with actual opinions and voicing them at that meeting. It’s laughable and that’s part of the “joke”.
Strawman, Donna. Many feminists, myself included, feel that patriarchy is worldwide and don’t demonize Muslim men. On the contrary, I’m sure that our theocrats here would love to subjugate women. They say as much. Instead, we feel sisterhood and offer humbly to other feminist women our help, under their direction. Which is why I tend to think that RAWA is the first go-to source on what should be done about Afghanistan. I don’t patronize other women. On the contrary, I think feminists of other cultures are probably the first people you should listen to.
I don’t think so. The burqa in the picture was a strawman argument. Or do you think that Jessica in a burqa really crossed Althouses mind? I doubt it. It crossed Auguste’s mind, and yours though, so it says more about you two than Althouse.
I’d really like to know why it is ok for you to draw out Althouse’s writing on the subject to what you believe to be the “logical conclussion” that she wants American women to wear burqas, but it isn’t ok for your POC to do the same to you? Are we only allowed to examine our enemies but not our allies?
I wonder if people would have found offense if you contrasted two pictures, kept the burqa wearing woman in that photo, and also had a photo of the American male plasticized ideal, Pam Anderson in a bikini, wandering a market in Afghanistan. And had the caption, “Is this what Althouse wants?” It would still be hyperbole, but because you are contrasting the sexism of the east with that of the west it wouldn’t appear that you are pointing a finger at the evil of muslim men. By only having the one picture, it is like saying, Althouse is as bad as those horrible muslim men who want to keep women covered head to toe, but she is really worse than that, because she is sexist both ways and would force American women to be covered and muslim women to be uncovered, whether it is what they wish or not.
Wasn’t that the point? That Althouse never would on her own understand her own hypocrisy?
OT: Bring back Pandagon?
If we can agree that anorexia and high heels are symbols of patriarchal oppression, even when women choose to participate
Actually there’s been fierce debate over whether we can use high heels (don’t compare burkas to anorexia please, because the funny thing in all this is that burkas only become violently oppressive in the context of men who are looking for any excuse to beat women anyway - high heels are more physically oppressive than burkas but burkas have a certain psychological edge over high heels, because they come with a whole load of rape culture affirming assumptions about who, when and why acts of rape are committed) as an all purpose syumbol of patriarchal oppression - I know they’re a good symbol of oppression for me, because they represent the casually accepted aspects of patriarchal culture that most people don’t see, but I’m leaning towards the view that as a general symbol they’re not ideal.
Or do you think that Jessica in a burqa really crossed Althouses mind?
Well i might have done, but that is of course assuming we can find the poor abused thing that once was Ann’s mind in the first place.
If we can agree that anorexia and high heels are symbols of patriarchal oppression, even when women choose to participate
Uh, I’ve got a problem with applying this analysis to anorexia. It tends to be both extremely shallow and incapable of analyzing the disorder as a disorder with dimensions beyond simple internalized misogyny. I don’t deny that the typical goal of anorexia is related to patriarchal beauty standards, but that’s not the same thing.
Plus, “choose to participate?” Yeah, not so comfortable with that, either.
High heels are more physically oppressive than headscarves, but not more oppressive than burqas. Headscarves don’t restrict women’s activites or physically injure them.
Whereas the burqa is like a diving bell. The wearer has to peer out through a a screen. These garments restrict a woman’s movement and her vision. Imagine trying to drive a car, play sports, or work in a lab in a true burqa. These garments are incapacitating.
“like the Iranian Revolution, where iranian women observed hijab as a direct act of defiance against western imperialism, and so on, and so forth.”
Actually the hijab in this context was a form Islamist recuperation, which they used usefully against leftist revoltunaries who had naively aligned themselves with Iranian Islamist movement led by Khomeni. When secular Iranian women during the Iranian revolution demontstrated against dress restrictions (among other things) they were denounced as perfumed, bourgeois women by the Islamist rulers. This forshawoded the executions, exiling, torture and purging from the revolution of Iranian leftists.
So the hijab as defiance against western imperialism? Hardly.
“I’d add that by multiculturalist standards, lynchings in the South are beyond criticism because it was economically depressed white people acting out their aggression. We won’t sign onto the idea that murdering black people is an appropriate way to work out ill feelings (and rightly of course), so why is oppressing women an acceptable behavior?
”
Amanda, that’s a vile analogy and you are a fool, you had Clinton already in the picture, the man most responsible on earth for the oppression of women in Afghanistan, including the burqa, the founding father of the Taleban. And instead of criticising him and this policy, you celebrate it and displace the blame onto dark strangers, because the white President has the right to treat that trash as he pleases, because he like to see tits too, and anyway it’s not personal, only business. Right?
Stop this grotesque sanctiminous fraudulent excuse making; you thought a woman in a burqa was something that would make other Clinton toadies giggle along with you. That’s the most undeniable measure of your compassion and commitments to women you insist on your right to champion by ridiculing and exploiting the image of their pain and lying about its causes for your vanity while gazing in adoring awe at their Persecutor Taleban in Chief.
You say Althouse is remarkably like what she claims to criticise; consider her your mirror.
You see that’s the heart of YOUR cultural relativism; what you condemn in those wicked dark others you excuse in the Great White Man and yourself because, well, veiling, abusing, exploiting and attacking women (and men and children) with specially armed and trained wahabbist paramilitaries is acceptable in your culture.
“Wasn’t that the point? That Althouse never would on her own understand her own hypocrisy?”
Right, and neither would you or Amanda, Laura Bush or Bill Clinton, Catherine McKinnon or those advocating today for US military intervention in Sudan, or anyone else indoctrinated in white supremacist imperialist orientalist thinking.
“In Bosnia, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon and his successor, the German Christian Democrat, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, have acted as local dictators, annulling elections, nixing politicians and overriding laws as they see fit. Dyncorps, a private military contractor for the US government, was found to have been running a sex slavery ring in Bosnia. This is the perfect epilogue to the way in which the “international community” helped bring bloody carnage to Bosnia as part of its drive to break up Yugoslavia. In Kosovo, under the appointed humanitarian dictatorship of Bernard Kouchner, UN forces and their paid surrogates have been running a mini-Guantanamo, while UNMIK and K-FOR forces have been engaged in more sex slavery.”
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/10/of-pride-and-protection-rackets.html
I know it’s impolite to mention anything that wasn’t on CNN this week, but don’t forget to thank the Chief of your culture and his wahabbist extremist paras who accomplished these great strides for Western Enlightenment in Yerup while you are preaching of the evils of multiculti islamophiles and how they are really too soft on misogyny.
the madrassahs which created the Taleban were set up to train terrorists for Clinton’s proxy and eventually declared full scale war on the secular feminists of Yugoslavia and their countrymen, his inherited proxy war on the people, secular and religious, of Chechnya, and Clinton’s proxy war on the people of Afghanistan. You see, the problem with “The Merchant on Venice” is not that ruthless usurers are not so bad, it’s that ruthless usurer is not a synonym for Jew. And the problem with your supposed objection to the subjection of women in Afghanistan is not that this subjection is not so bad, it is that you have this utterly uninvestigated assumption that some unnamed Semites and Orientals, the usual suspects, are to blame. In fact your culture, not “theirs”, is responsible for conditions for people in Afghanistan, which has been ruled by the US effectively since the mid 80s and you deny this and blame a vague and fungible horde of dark islamoscary others for it while at the same failing even to understand what it is and what it isn’t and what the people concerned are doing to improve their lives, defend themselves, and resist your culture’s crimes against humanity. The problem is not that enforced dress for women is not so bad, it is that you acquit those who impose it, who have the power to impose it, and fail to take the least responsibility for deferring your opinions about it until you have taken the trouble to be schooled by those concerned. They are not abandoned children you can simply adopt like kids of the periphery sold to liberals on teevee for a dollar a month; many have a different view regarding who their enemy is and many consider, with good reason, you and that culture you defend and admire as superior to theirs, and whose crimes you whitewash and frame up other people for, to be the main problem negatively affecting their lives, the root problem. You cannot pretend to champion women in burqas and portray Bill Clinton, he who imposed this very policy on them by force with your money, as neutral or admirable at the same time; that’s emphatically a pro-wahabbist extremist attitude, and volunteering to disseminate this propaganda which acquits the actual creators, directors and masters of (minority) wahabbist para forces operating globally and offers a deceitful set of assumptions about it is only contributing to the maintenance of these forces and ensuring they will continue to commit atrocities certainly not confined to the forced veiling of women which result in great profits to their leadership/sponsors whom you support. These assumptions you repeat, as a joke, which suggests they are so obvious only a lunatic would question them -their culture is pro-forced-burqa, our culture is anti-forced-burqa, their culture is anti-feminist, our culture is feminist, all lies - is ignoring what every organisation of feminist women in burqas is trying to get across to you.
Anti-forced-burqa-ism begins at home. For you especially, for American Liberals, who invented the practise of forcing women to wear those specific burqas you pictured and foisted it, and other oppressions, by force of arms and a specially trained paramilitary on women and men in Afghanistan. Not every Afghan man is pro-Taleban, but everyone, man or woman, who ever supported the democratic party in the Clinton era was whether they knew it or not.
“There seemed to be some confusion upthread on RAWA’s position on UN peacekeepers in Afghanistan and whether or not Feminist Majority is overruling their wishes. ”
No, RAWA is complaining that afghanistan is at the mercy of fundamentalists supported by ‘foreign countries’, principally the US. Feminist Majority is calling for *more* US support for their fundamentalists clients, and is thus part of the problem RAWA is appealing in polite diplomatic careful language to the UN to address.
Wahabbism is a an American thing. It exists ONLY on the largesse of US patronage and is a feature ONLY of US clients and inside the most tightly controlled and politically ‘dependent’ and cherished part of the US empire, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, among the CIA network of which Osama Bin Laden used to be the head, among some of Negroponte’s death squads in Iraq, among the extreme right US clients in Bosnia. There are NO Wahabbist organisations or governments in the entire world who are not US creature clients, and there never have been.
There is one case of a US islamist, but not wahabist, client funded by wahabists which has gone independent, which is Hamas. It is not itself Wahabist. It was controlled and funded by the US initially through Saudi, but it became a mass movement and its membership changed its character as it became a legitimate part of the Palestinian struggle. That is the only US-(and in this case Israel) creature Islamist client which left the US nest.
There has never been a Wahabist mass movement or popular movement. Never ever ever. Wahabism is not ‘the culture’ of any people on earth but an ideological instrument controlled by people in Washington DC. It is the extreme right wing ideology of small cliques of US clients doing the empire’s work in places populated by Arab and Muslim majorities.
Devout, highly observant Muslims of course exist elsewhere; among a certain bloc of the political class in Iran for example; they are not ‘fundamentalists’ in the strict sense, which is in any case a term adopted from discourse on Christianit