…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?
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).
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!
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, 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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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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.”