Hold up, Hold, the fuck, up lindsay, What the fuck are you talking about?
I am of course referring to this ghastly burkatuter grade evil creature of a paragraph:
Amanda’s insight undercuts ethnocentrism. It’s harder to think of your culture as the measure of all others when you realize that humanity’s most serious problems repeat themselves everywhere under different guises. If you assume that there are commonalities, awareness of an oppressive practice in another culture should lead you to wonder if your own culture might be doing something similar but less obvious to you.
Let us step the fuck back and examine what the fuck it appears Lindsay is accusing Amanda of here:
Accusation the one: the burka piccie undercuts ethnocentricism.
Reality: the burka piccie is just a reheating of the rightwing meme used to justify the afghanistan invasion after Bushchev let Osama escape into pakistan. It was accompanied by no extra analysis, nor where actual afghani or indian women who are forced – one group through physical threats of violence and rape and another through the social coercion that everyone suddenly gets once the activity that women are being coerced into is a freaking burka and not highheels or gagging on cock* – even mentioned, the point was to compare Ann Althouse to Teh Taliban, who might as well be run by a funny little moustachioed austrian for all the substance found behind the various “you’re worse than the Taliban!!!!!11!” wolf cries I’m seeing atm.
That it was only criticism of the initial burka peice that prompted every ghorii from here to calcutta to start going on about how terrible burkas are is just another layer of irony on the whole thing – complete with a liberatarian style missing of the point; “the taliban had women beaten with sticks – see how oppressive several feet of cloth is!” went the cry, in face of a million and one people who A) knew that already, being feminists, and B) objected to the Uncle Leo style hyperbolic comparison between hardcore violent oppression with Ann Althouse’s hatred of boobies.
That the only real reply to all this is to point out that neither Amanda nor Lindsay denounced the holocaust, which everyone must admit was even worse than burkas are, and in turn to denounce both amanda and lindsay as anti-semites of the worst sort.
That this is nonsensical is of course a case of me meeting both Lindsay and Amanda half way with their pitiful excuse for logic on this subject, what with them having long ago left the safe and comfortable lands of sanityville to go to the crazy place where Ann Coulter’s mind resides.
Accusation the two: That the burka piccie shows how many of humanity’s problems repeat themselves in different cultures, and in turn makes it harder to make your home culture the one against which all others are judged.
Reality: If any such empathy was involved, then the burka piccie would have been something a bit more substantial than a cheap snipe at ann althouse’s fear of boobies – it would have been a complex and crosslinked examination of hijab customs in both the west and the developing nations where islam is strongest, with ample comparison between burkas and Dawn Eden/Crazy Clown Ladies for America’s modesty cult and other rightwing memes – with no expense being spared to examine how the gag cult of RandomBird and others is a remarkable hyper-reaction to the modesty cult that oppresses no more or less than burkas really, but exploits the wins feminism has made to liberate women in the west and turns those past successes into more bondage to bind us in.
In short, it would have been a completely different post, and while my experience within and around muslims in the west, and in africa and india too, barely starts to give me the depth of knowledge that might enable me to write such a post, I would do it with the sort of care and tenderness that such a complex and intricate subject deserves.
Or to put it another way; if the word “complex” is used to describe anything but the nonsensical rationalisation that Amanda and Lindsay have been pumping out, I shall laugh until I wet my bra. Lindsay here is of course confusing the reaction to the burka post with the burka post itself, and is at the same time forgetting or wilfully ignoring the fact that if no one had mentioned and pointed out the badness involved in the use of the burka as a cheap symbol of islamic patriarchy then no actually talk about burkas would have occurred in the first place, leaving us with what actually occurred: A middle class white woman using the oppression of muslim women as a cheap gag to get back at Althouse with.
Not to break too fine a Godwin’s law but, what if it had been the holocaust that was used instead for the cheap snipe? Say a black triangle? Would criticism of such an obvious retorical misuse of the holocaust been so readily slapped aside? I doubt it.
All of which invalidates the third accusation, which rather relies on the first two being somehow accurate.
And while some of Lindsay’s commenters bitch and moan about how certain (name no names) feminists’ refusal to be inclusive to this sort of unconcious and offhand islamophobia is of course what is really holding the feminist movement back – unlike the white, middle class heterocentric feminists propensity to be total assbags, which one can only presumes is all to the good – I have to wonder why they’re wasting their time writing and reading mutiple page essays on burkas, when they could be doing something they probably think IS useful, like banning headscarves in french schools (again).
Because if we don’t denounce islamic culture as the “ultimate” form of patriarchal oppression, well that’s as good as letting the terrortalibanists win.
How dare you imply that I’ve swallowed and am now repeating right wing talking points, I know I’m not because I didn’t intend to, and I should bleeding well know eh, what?
* Not that I’m bitter, razafraza…
** For if burkas are so oppressive, how come the women were only beaten when they weren’t able to own the damn things? It’s almost like a totalitarian theocratic state is more oppressive than some cloth garment, but that can’t be so, why Amanda assures me otherwise… And if a Texan english lit professor doesn’t know her knout from her scold’s bridle as far as the oppression of all women everywhere in the world goes, then I posit that no one does.
*** Yes folks, I also didn’t see anything wrong with the piccie at first glance, it was only BfP, BA and other’s critiques of the piccie that got me looking at the thing to see if they were right about it, at which point I realised they were.
This is of course how you’d take any reasoned critique of anything in the bathoblogosphere, as opposed to the apparent methodology used by non-racists who’s apparent reaction to a POC actually saying anything at all is best represented by this sign:
This is of course, the worst sort of racism of them all: treating POC like having a different skin tone means that they have a severe mental disability, and being too afraid of made up stereotypes to actually treat them like “normal” people, and be able to criticise as criticism is needed.
And I don’t care if you don’t do it on a concious level, it’s still fucking racist. Feminism is about women being accepted and treated like people, which includes *gasp* the ones with darker skin tones as well. If you’re focusing on the “C” in “POC” and not the “P”, you’re approaching it all wrong and letting the whole fucking side down in the process.
No one is arguing that your viewpoint is inherently or inevitably racist; they’re arguing that it is racist, and that the premises on which you have reflected are wrong. They’re not “thrilled” with controversy or with the chance to beat up on you, or roasting you simply because you disagree while being white.
Why should other people worry about calling things racist when they see them as racist? It’s counterproductive to put that accusation on a pedestal such that white people’s feelings about things like racism and islamophobia are protected in the name of a “dialogue” that can never deal honestly with these issues.
Plus, “an islamophobe” is falling into the “I’m not a [bad] person!” trap, such that someone pointing out what they see as racism on your part is making you out to be Strom Thurmond. Like I said: if I call you out on a minor case of heterosexism, I am not equating you with Fred Phelps.
Marc, what I was trying to explain above is that Althouse using Jessica to make a joke about Clinton will rightly see it as sexism, even though the target is Clinton. The same goes here, using the burqa will be seen as imperialism/colonialism, even though the target is Althouse.
I think Althouse changed the target to Jessica when she was called out on her b.s. The amount of dissembling she does, turning a normal pose in normal clothes into a shameless hussy, speaks volumes. She should have said it was just a lame Clinton joke and apologized to Jessica, if she had any decency.
As far as Amanda and Auguste, I don’t see them doing the dissembling, but their supporters are and they aren’t doing much to stop it.
Part of their joke was that Althouse has written anti-sexist posts in the past, she is against women being forced into the burqa. But she forgot to check her own sexist baggage when she decided to use Jessica in service of a cheap laugh.
The same is true here, I don’t doubt that Amanda has written anti-colonialism posts in the past. But she forgot to check her own imperialist baggage when she allowed that picture to be posted. She momentarily forgot that there are real women behind the burqa. She wouldn’t have done the same if Auguste gave her a picture including a lynching, or concentration camp survivors, or waterboarding, etc. I think she would have understood immediately that people who are living or have lived through these things shouldn’t stand in when making a frivolous joke. Women in burqas shouldn’t either, but it’s easy to forget when the government and news media are currently using them in the same frivolous manner. That is what makes it ok.
This is one of the reasons I personally am angry with Lindsey. One of her links is to the State Dept. of all goddamned places. Like they give a damn about Afghan women??? They are using the burqa frivolously in pursuit of their wars. Might as well spell it all out for us, if it’s ok for the State Dept. to do it, then it’s ok for Amanda and Auguste to do so also!
Marc said:
“Again, I hold a position shared by many Muslim women, which is that the burqa is oppressive. Because I hold that view, I find it okay for people who share that view to use it in satire to make a point.”
The thing is, it is *precisely* because the burqa has been used to oppress some women (Afghani women in particular), by those who have forced these women to wear it, and by those who have used its ‘symbolism’ to bomb the shit out of their country in order to ‘save’ them, that people object to its use in a satire to make a point, especially when the point being made is between two white women who have never been forced to wear it, nor have had their lives and the lives of their loved one threated by ‘saving’ bombs.
I’ll try again to make the point clear by using another example that should speak to all the self-professed feminists:
I think we can all agree that ‘slut-shaming’ women is an oppressive practice, right? Well, that’s also why most feminists would find it offensive and sexist if a woman was called/presented as a slut in order to make a point through satire. And why, although some women/feminists have tried to ‘reclaim the slut’, many disagree that it can be successfully ‘reclaim’ to advance a progressive agenda. Bottom line is, if some women want to reclaim it, it’s fine with me. And I also reserve the right, as a woman, to reclaim it for myself. But if you’re a man, don’t you fucking dare call me a slut in order to make a point, especially if that point you’re trying to make is between you and another man, and has nothing to do with me. And if you do, I don’t fucking care how many women/feminists you get to quote that agree with you that slut-shaming is oppressive and hence should be made fun of, nor how many women/feminists would agree with you that slut can be ‘reclaim’ to make a progressive point: I’ll still call you a sexist.
Oh and the picture itself isn’t racist, it’s imperialist. It’s the condescention and dismissal of POC opinions that is racist. I won’t say as a native american woman that I understand perfectly about how muslim women feel in Afghanistan, but I do understand about multiple layers of oppression since I have also lived in a falling over shack on a reservation (class) and have three herniated discs that limit what I can do (ability). I deal with sexism/racism/classism/ableism on a fairly regular basis. That is why the dismissal angers many of us, the white supporters rightly say that we can not understand fully what Afghan women think or feel, but wrongly think that means they know more than we do. A white middle class woman only understands how sexism works against her, and worse a white middle class man has a hard time even understanding that little bit. That’s why POC should be given more than a little leeway when making their points, they understand how all these “isms” come together and can be played off each other by those who are dominant. Colonialism is simply an added layer for people in Afghanistan.
darlin’ did you know RAWA existed until now?
If you didn’t, then you are just running of to find data to support a conclusion you’d drawn long before that.
NO ONE IS SAYING THE BURQA ISN’T AN INSTRUMENT OF OPPRESSION.
“Again, I hold a position shared by many Muslim women, which is that the burqa is oppressive. Because I hold that view, I find it okay for people who share that view to use it in satire to make a point.”
Marc, there is a difference betwen you and many Muslim women: There is a difference between you and ANY Musim woman.
First, you aren’t a woman.
Second, you aren’t Muslim.
Third, you aren’t wearing a burqa.
Fourh, the chances you will be forced to wear a burqa at any time is close to zilch.
Fifth, nobody is gonna to mistake you for a Muslim woman any time soon.
Sixth, you are a member of a dominant society (as am I) and Muslim women are not.
Seventh, you are a member of a society that is, at this very minute, killing Muslim women; Muslim women are not killing you or dropping bombs on your country.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Having the same point of view as some Muslim women is not the sole criteria to use in deciding what kind of behavior to engage in. That seems pretty obvious to me. Some Muslim women agree with you. So what?
Please explain.
man, i hate it when i prematurely ejaculate like that.
Anyway, what does it matter that most or all or two Afghani women agree that the burqa is oppressive?
The issue IS not whether it is oppressive, but whether it is appropriate to use them as pivotbabe’s for a circle jerk in which the energies of members of an imperialist nation currently dropping bombs, with no intention of every living these people alone are being spent in endless hours of discussion over a debate that they could not give two shits about at the moment.
maybe someday, you know. but in the meantime, using them as objects of pity and pivotbabes, is not likely to win friends and influence people. In fact, we have driect evdience of women in third world countries directly running into the arms of misogynistic brown men and embracing it becaues they did not see embracing US as a wise decision.
“i understand THIS asshole in my life right now. That one over there, SCARIER. NOt oonly scary, they don’t even respect my culture. they treat it and me as pivotbabe for internecine warfare among feminists.
probably having given two shits about their culture before, it’s endlessly important to use it now and cling tenaciously spending enough more time, when you could have been doing something productive that might reallly have contributed to ending their oppression.
because if it was so fucking important, then why did no one give two shits about Clinton in that picture — and the missing Hillary and the fact that those bloggers are pawns in a game. Spent endless reams griping about sHillary otherwise, but not when it comes to a gender issue. Then it’s all about US US US US US US US.
I mean, why not Photoshop a bomb dropping over J’s head. There’s the ultimate oppression. (stole that from one of my clients just now. ha!)
At this point, it’s become clear that at least some of you feel as though it isn’t appropriate for me to hold a dissenting opinion on the issue because I am not of a burqa-wearer or of the group expected to wear them.
No. It’s not appropriate–or accurate–for you to offer the opinions of burqa-wearers as justification for your viewpoints. They’re a diversion.
Basically, what BL said.
Anyway, what does it matter that most or all or two Afghani women agree that the burqa is oppressive?
Well it matters when women are getting killed for not wearing it. However, in the intellectual sense, dead, not dead, all the same, just fodder.
probably having given two shits about their culture before, it’s endlessly important to use it now and cling tenaciously spending enough more time, when you could have been doing something productive that might reallly have contributed to ending their oppression.
Wasting time arguing with you has been presented as the most important issue of the day.
Well it matters when women are getting killed for not wearing it. However, in the intellectual sense, dead, not dead, all the same, just fodder.
See, marc? Diversion. We can agree that the burqa is oppressive and still resent arguments like this one.
Marc,
As BL said, and many others have said repeatedly before for over a week now, NO one is arguing that the burqa hasn’t been used as an instrument of oppression.
What I don’t get though, is how you go from a)”When looking for the words of people forced to wear burqas in Afghanistan, most of what I found was outrage over the oppression”, to b) using the image of a burqa to make a joke is A-OK.
You find these women’s outrage funny? Or is it oppression that you find funny? Do you find it funny that women are threatened to death if they don’t wear the burqa? You find it funny that the US government has been dropping bombs on these women’s head by using the ‘symbol’ of the burqa as a justification for its imperialist war?
No, you don’t? Me neither. So please, explain to me very slowly again why the fact that you and many Afghani women agree that the burqa is oppressive is supposed to stand as a justification for using the image of a burqa to make a joke.
Piny
and the most disgusting thing about it is that it shoves the old GENDER GENDER GENDER ONLY analysis right out there again, as if it is the ONLY one.
*hands in pockets whistlin’*
like i said, if gender IS the only thing that matters to people, go with jeebus^H^H^H^H^H^H (the late) MacKinnon. There really is nothing to discuss. That’s your bag, Everyone is twigged to the fact that you’re not interested in putting race, imperialijsm, class, disability on the same level of analysis.
It really makes no never mind to most folks.
But the rest o’ youse? who think you do no such thing as privilege a gender analysis?
*hands in pockets whistlin’*
Also, was the question serious when veroniqua asked why people are clinging to the burqa thing as something they have a right to do no matter what ?
I thought maybe I could photoshop up a flow chart or sumpin’ for that one.
Marc,
I asked elsewhere, another ultimate symbol of women’s sexual suborination is gang rape. Would it have been fun to photoshop J being gang raped? yet, that’s what soldiers are doing, OUR soliders are doing. and it probably most accurately captures their lives, right now, especially with Clenis in that room.
Marc,
The problem with your argument is that — please sit down before reading it, because it might come up as a shock to you — *you* do not alone get to decide what the image of the burqa evoke. Nor do the authors of the image. Because meaning is not created outside of the society in which we live in.
In a previous post you said:
“I think the satire was not inherently wrong”
No one said that.
What people have said however, is that GIVEN THE CONTEXT in which the burqa image was used, it is wrong.
By context, we mean:
* History of colonial/imperialist appropriation of the knowledge, culture, land, and labour of colonized people/people of color.
* History of white feminism complicities in colonial/imperialist discourses and practices.
* Current global political context in which the people who used this image are privilege white people living in a colonizing state currently involved in an imperialist war against the country where most women wearing the burqa live.
* The discussion which prompted the use of this image was one in which the two main characters are privileged white western women and the issue at hand had nothing to do with the women wearing the burqa, but rather concerned the sexuality of one of the two said white women.
* And probably more stuff that I’m forgetting now.
So, no matter how you want to interpret that image, and no matter how many time you repeat it, it’s not going to make this historical and political context disappear.
And because *you* didn’t see how the image was offensive doesn’t mean it is not. The only thing it says is that you are privileged enough to be able to not see how offensive it is. Which is actually how systems of oppression work and are sustained: in large part because those who benefit from it are blind (willfully or not) to their own privilege and to others’ oppression and realities.
I will go so far as saying that in holding on so hard on your ‘right’ (or A&A’s, or somebody else’s right) to use this image or to see this image as you did, you actually come off not as caring about these women as you claim, but as caring only about holding on to your privilege.
just that wee little escape hatch in case it could be used against her in the future. yes.
http://pandagon.net/2006/02/04/can-rape-jokes-ever-be-funny/
and with that folks, I’m done with this. people who are this forgetful about even their own experiences of being the object of a rape joke, or even that all this follows on the heels where everyone was saying, “but it was just a Clinton joke” and the whire whir whir whir “oh they think we’re humorless feminists.”
and then commenters all over hell saying, humorless brown hordes!
w0tevA
Marc, I would still like an answer, please. Just who is forcing Afghani women to wear the burqa? A piece of cloth isn’t oppressive in and of itself. If no one is forcing anyone to wear them then it’s voluntary, non-oppressive. So someone is forcing Afghani women to wear them. If your answer is that it is only the Taleban that is doing this, then that is imperialist thinking. If your answer is that the US government has aided and abetted, then the picture doesn’t work with Clinton in the room. If there is a another way of looking at it then please enlighten me. Why is the burqa oppressive? Because women are being forced to wear them. Who is putting women in burqas? Your answer please.
Mark, you are serously sounding like a complete idiot here. Have you not noticed that all of us agree that there is more than one interpretation of the image? Have you not noticed that no one has said your interpretation is wrong. Your interpretation is simply incomplette. I don’t know how you can read bfp’s very first post on this issue and not understand that very basic concept. You do not strike me as a moron, so what’s going on here?
I have a story at my blog (also copied it to one of BL’s threads) that shows how while trying to defend the rights of oppressed people in Central America, I created an incredibly racist image when I never intended to do so. The group that planned this event was mostly Latino with Native American representation and a couple of white allies. You can read it here:
http://ravenmn.blogspot.com/2006/10/memory-seems-apropos-in-mid-1980s-i_08.html
So was I racist? Was our group racist? Of course not. Does the fact that I can come up with a plausible explanation that includes anti-racist intent mean that the image we created wasn’t racist? Of couse not. When I participated in creating the image of klan rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, I was wrong.
A more active anti-racist would have seen it immediately. I did not. My frame of reference was off. My personal experience did not apply. Moreover, the same event could have happened in San Salvador without the racist implications coming to mind. But in the U.S. in the 1980s with African Americans suffering disproportionately and the rise of racist organizations, the image was completely and utterly wrong.
Vernoque said it eloquently:
Because meaning is not created outside of the society in which we live in.
Pierre Bourdieu imo the greatest sociologist evar was a proponent of reflexivity or a constant awareness of one’s location and locations from which knowledge springs. No one’s calling you a racist, Marc, but Auguste’s image was insensitive. His location is as an American and as American taxpayer who funded the invastion of Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban and burkas hence the image was insensitive. We have to be aware of our location as Americans who indirectly abetted the Taliban’s tyranny against women.
Holy shit BL!
OK, I’m done discussing this as well. I mean fuck, one of the very author of this stupid and bad ‘joke’ had been saying months ago exactly what we’ve been trying to get people here to understand for more than a week now. But I guess it doesn’t apply because in this case, because she was only talking about issues affecting white women, right?
Now, if what’s been going on here isn’t bad faith and/or wishful ignorance, I don’t know what it is.
BFP focused on it pretty relentlessly in her first post and the next. She should be given all the credit.
Markos uses language like “the nanny state” when describing liberalism, but all he does is feed a mythical beast that was created by elitists.
Marc, do you see any irony in saying this in another thread, and the argument you are using here? The mythical beast is the savage backwards uncivilized brown men that are featured by using the burqa as the ultimate oppressor of women. Ann Althouse really believes that shit, and Auguste reinforces it by agreeing with her in making the picture, and Amanda by posting it, and you and other supporters of the use of the picture. So far Auguste is the only one appears to truly understand why the pic is wrong. Although the light is dawning for a few over at BFP’s place.
Did you see this poem from This Here Garden?
No More
I will no longer be the pin-up girl for your wars,
oppressed and veiled whore
to be pimped to the masses
for “feminist” causes.
From this moment on
this struggle will no longer be
all about you
and your agenda
for me.
I will not offer apologies
for refusing to melt my soul
and pour it into the mold
that you have shaped for me.
Take back your hands and their intent.
you cannot reshape me
into your image
of liberty.
You cannot liberate me
and simultaneously negate me,
alienate me,
berate me.
Know this, sweet sister,
I have the final say over my destiny.
My fashion decisions do not oppress.
These tightly woven strands of cloth on my head
do not compare
to the weight
of your foot
on my neck.
We will never succeed if each time i try to lift up
from the oppressive depths of obscurity,
you tear away at my beliefs
Some of us want to be heard
and not seen
and some of us want everything.
You know
and I know
and I know that you know:
power and freedom of choice
are not directly proportional
to the amount of flesh that I show.
====
First, the date it was published to that blog is August 12, 2006. In other words, it is not in response to this particular hullabaloo. This is nothing new to us. Second notice that she says to advance “feminist” causes. This tells me she is talking about liberals, not conservatives to justify their wars, but liberal women to advance their causes but without a care to the WOC and their causes. That is what happened here, Amanda used covered women in Afghanistan to further her agenda, which was protecting a middle class white woman, not raising awareness about burqas or Afghanistan. The only ones who raised any awareness were the ones disagreeing with her.
“No one’s calling you a racist, Marc, but Auguste’s image was insensitive.”
Donna, in a way I have to disagree with you. As a white person, I feel that it’s imperative that all whites realise and own up publicly to the fact that we have racism. Owning up to it doesn’t mean we *embrace* it, or indeed that we feel anything other than shame over it. But if we deny it, we end up in situations like this one, in which clearly racist actions are denied or minimised because, “come on, *I’m* no racist–in fact, I’m an anti-racist!”
BL: good remembering on Amanda’s “are rape jokes ever funny?” conclusions. Come on, Marc, Amanda herself gave us the rules for this sort of thing, how come they suddenly don’t apply?
Crys T –
First, want to say that I thank you for continually talking about the”reverse racism” card that keeps getting played.
More importantly, I want to say that I agree with wholeheartedly. It is unclear to me why it’s perfectly OK to call out misogyny and sexism and all of a suddent it’s not ok to call out racism/imperialism.
If you call yourself a feminist, marc, then it better be damned well OK to call out both and if you think other men should listen to feminist critiques — something you actively encourage them to do yourself, then get on the fucking klew train for chrisake.
to paraphrase:
Until white folks get as upset about racism actually limiting the life choices and chances of people of color, as we do about black folks hurting our feelings, it’s unlikely things will get much better. In the end, it’s hard to take seriously those who fume against [hurt feelings]. so petty is the complaint, and so thin the ivory skin of those who issue it.
Barry Fucking Manilow
Name-calling can also discourage people from working on their issues because we’re all racist and sexist to some degree. There are gradations of racism and sexism like Marc’s, Auguste’s, liberals’, right-wing and KKK racism and leftist men’s, Keith Olbermann’s, centrists’, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Sacks’ sexism.
I called the image insensitive because there’s a difference between Marc and Auguste’s racism and Bush’s and the KKK’s racism.
Yeah, Donna, and I think that we have to make the distinction clear. Marc is NOT equivalent to the KKK, and it would wrong to say he was. However, if we don’t own up to the fact that we *are* racist, even it is to a different degree than the KKK, what happens is, well, Burqagate. I think a few hurt feelings amongst white bloggers is less important than the real damage that has been done to WOC-white feminist relations over all this.
Thanks for the link, BL, I’ll have to read it when I’m not at work and have time to think about it.
[...] Amanda described dealing with racist commenters as something she finds difficult to do given that she has a full-time job. As she wrote: apologize that I didn’t jump in and fight on every point. I have a regular, 40 hour a week job. It cuts into my flame war time. [...]
[...] Amusing. I was looking for something for a post I wanted to write about something brownfemipower had said about the desexualization of women of color by the SPINO (sex positive feminist in name only) Brigade. Doing so, I happened to come across this paper, in which the author describes how Afghan women and RAWA reacted to Western feminists overweening concern with the burqa. Not that I think anyone will catch an errant klew — now. Still, I just thought others might be interested. I remember when the MS incident occured because I remember a fellow debate forum participant writing about it then. Since mainstream white feminist politics are not my bag, I hadn’t really paid attention to the protest and symbolism, but knew of it via political discussion forums where I read articles about it. It is interesting that even the Feminist Majority Foundation seems not to have focused on the issue as symbolic of desexualization, but at least spoke to issues like education and employment. [...]