The Failure of Feminism?
There is an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week by Phyllis Chesler, author of The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom.
The article (only available through a subscription), entitled, The Failure of Feminism, speaks volumes about why feminist academics and journalists in the US fail to support women who are truly being abused in the Islamic world:
I guess for these postmodern feminists, it would be seem too "masculine" to take any real action to help the women in Islamic countries. God forbid, they might be accused of the same type of imperialistic behavior they have been blaming on the current administration. Then they might have to admit to themselves that the United States is not so bad afterall. In their mind, what a failure of feminism that would be.
The article (only available through a subscription), entitled, The Failure of Feminism, speaks volumes about why feminist academics and journalists in the US fail to support women who are truly being abused in the Islamic world:Islamic terrorists have declared jihad against the "infidel West" and against all of us who yearn for freedom. Women in the Islamic world are treated as subhumans. Although some feminists have sounded the alarm about this, a much larger number have remained silent. Why is it that many have misguidedly romanticized terrorists as freedom fighters and condemned both America and Israel as the real terrorists or as the root cause of terrorism? In the name of multicultural correctness (all cultures are equal, formerly colonized cultures are more equal), the feminist academy and media appear to have all but abandoned vulnerable people Muslims, as well as Christians, Jews, and Hindus to the forces of reactionary Islamism.
Because feminist academics and journalists are now so heavily influenced by left ways of thinking, many now believe that speaking out against head scarves, face veils, the chador, arranged marriages, polygamy, forced pregnancies, or female genital mutilation is either "imperialist" or "crusade-ist." Postmodernist ways of thinking have also led feminists to believe that confronting narratives on the academic page is as important and world-shattering as confronting jihadists in the flesh and rescuing living beings from captivity.
It is as a feminist — not as an anti-feminist — that I have felt the need to write a book to show that something has gone terribly wrong among our thinking classes. The multicultural feminist canon has not led to independent, tolerant, diverse, or objective ways of thinking. On the contrary. It has led to conformity, totalitarian thinking, and political passivity. Although feminists indulge in considerable nostalgia for the activist 60s and 70s, in some ways they are no different from the rest of the left-leaning academy, which also suffers from the disease of politically correct passivity.
I guess for these postmodern feminists, it would be seem too "masculine" to take any real action to help the women in Islamic countries. God forbid, they might be accused of the same type of imperialistic behavior they have been blaming on the current administration. Then they might have to admit to themselves that the United States is not so bad afterall. In their mind, what a failure of feminism that would be.
posted by Helen at 1:18 PM
26 Comments:
Spot on, Dr. Helen. Sadly, feminists won't give President Bush credit for helping Muslim women because that would hurt the feminists' liberal political allies. The fact is, President Bush's policies are helping more women out of harsher conditions than feminists in America ever have helped. While that may be a function of how terrible things are for women in the Muslim world, it's still true.
And kudos to Phyllis Chesler for having the courage to write this article and publish it in that forum.
I completely agree that the feminist movement in the United States has not turned enough of its attention beyond America's borders. Feminists are not by any means alone in this mistake — for example, private American aid for Hurricane Katrina dwarfed aid for an earthquake in Kashmir last year that killed 90,000 people. But American feminists are certainly among the guilty.
On the other hand, there is far more to do than thank the Bush administration, because Iraq and Afghanistan have only 2% or so of the world's women who must cope with extreme inequality. India alone has 20 times as many people as Iraq and Afghanistan put together. The real issue for most of the world's women is basic family planning, not overthrowing this or that tyranny. The Bush Administration's record has been very mixed. They have some useful notion of Christian charity towards the developing world, but they are also superstitious about abortion and even contraception.
For that matter, even within the war on terrorism, women's rights have been set back in Iraq almost as much as they have moved forward in Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein was a leftist tyrant, not an Islamist. Now religious marauders are gaining month by month in Iraq. The United States isn't even fighting most of them.
Yep. Americans sure are bad for giving a lot of money to the victims of Katrina and not to other victims elsewhere in the world. Boy, those Americans sure are awful!
No matter what we do, it just isn't enough for the better educated, more intelligent folk who seem to know better after the fact.
And we also have learned that women now have it "almost" as bad as they did when Hussein and his cronies were killing, raping, and poison gassing right and left. Right.
In other words: all American activities are bad or not enough (and in this character's dictionary "not enough" is apparently the same as "bad").
All Kuperbergian comments and plans are superior and better thought out.
Oh puh-leeze.
Hey, 5:36....
You realize that you are just feeding the troll?
I think that Dr. Helen's post is the point, not hijack attempts from the Boffin of UC Davis. It is certainly true that the feminist movement has become co-opted by the Left so that disagreements within that group are not tolerated. That is the sad point of the article to which Dr. Helen refers.
Tammy Bruce in LA is a good example of this, having run a chapter in NOW for many years. But because she was Libertarian-Right, she became persona non grata with the NOW folks....and is now routinely vilified by her former associates.
Any group needs to have room for disagreements, even very aggressive disagreements. Perhaps, 5:36, like this group of posters?
Greg K -
Your description of the Bush Administration:
"they have some useful notion of Christian charity towards the developing world"
in describing generous grants for HIV/AIDS in Africa; and "they are also superstitious about abortion and even contraception".
Discuss, please, don't yell FIRE. I am open to ideas where we can do more or better to help women in the world, particularly Muslim women. You sound like a feminist who wants to denigrate everything - even something that does good - in order to hurt Bush.
Here are some more failures of feminism! ...
http://www.angryharry.com/nobenefitsoffeminism.htm
You have a great blog.
Charles
DRJ,
I suppose that I am a feminist, and I don't by any means denigrate "everything" to "hurt" Bush. I said very clearly that he has advanced women's rights in Afghanistan. Besides, Bush was reelected, and has both houses of Congress on his side, so there isn't much that I can do to "hurt" him.
He can, however, hurt his own legacy with bad policies. And that issue is really not far from this posting. In comment #1, you demand gratitude from feminists from Bush's policies. If that is your demand, then you should understand that Bush's policies have taken Muslim women as many steps back as forward. For one reason, because women's rights have been as damaged in Iraq as they have been advanced in Afghanistan. You can't stick to half-truths if you demand thanks.
If you sincerely want to help the world's poor women, then great. Do you mean you personally, or do you mean the government that represents you? Either way it's a good sentiment. In the former case, you can donate to family planning and women's education organizations.
In the latter case, you shouldn't only hope for the United States to help Muslim women. The invasion of Iraq has led most of the world's poor Muslims to deeply mistrust the Bush Administration. I think that their mistrust goes far beyond any fair bounds, but on the other hand it is entirely predictable. So now is just a bad time for Washington to target Muslim women specifically. But it could pursue the same solutions — family planning and women's education — more broadly. If they could set aside just 1% of what they spend on the war in Iraq for world family planning, it would make a huge difference.
Feminism is so much about victimology and liberals view virtually the entire rest of the world as victims of Western culture, imperialism, etc. They probably can't manage to criticize any of the groups because they are all victims. And you can't blame the victims for hurting other people. They are just all victims, blah, blah, blah. We just need to find the "root causes" and eliminate them.
Also, it's much easier to criticize someone whom you know full well will not harm you than someone who might fly an airplane in your window.
Greg -
It's nice to run into you again. It's been awhile.
Family planning wouldn't be my first choice for targeted giving, but I would gladly support aid for health care, actions to end slavery and sexual exploitation, and clean water technology. I think all those things would help women and children in third world countries. I hope that America is doing those things now and that we do more whenever possible. Even America has limited resources so we must choose where and when to give.
I don't agree with you that Iraqi women are worse off now than under Saddam, so I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one.
My opinion is that the Bush Administration has prioritized its foreign aid and it's not the way you would choose. You may be right that other choices could be better but I don't think the Bush Administration's choices are made with the intent to hurt women and children. Just the opposite, in fact. It's fair to say you would make different choices and to explain what those choices would be, as you did in your most recent comments. But when you do give the Bush Administration credit for something, it's generally in a backhanded way and I don't think that's fair. Further, your rhetoric about Christian charity and the "superstitious" Bush Administration was at a minimum designed to be inflammatory.
Well said, Drj! Polite and direct, and I applaud your civil discourse.
5:41 said: It is certainly true that the feminist movement has become co-opted by the Left so that disagreements within that group are not tolerated.
Well, I am so glad you are an expert on this topic. Femininism and NOW are not synonymous. You give one example at one NOW chapter and that covers all feminists and all NOW members. Wow! What a representation.
11:25 said: Feminism is so much about victimology and liberals view virtually the entire rest of the world as victims of Western culture, imperialism, etc. .... We just need to find the "root causes" and eliminate them.
You are such a victim and you know so much about women. You are scary.
DRJ: My opinion is that the Bush Administration has prioritized its foreign aid and it's not the way you would choose.
To say the least. More than half of all of the money that the Bush Administration spends in and on developing countries is spent on Iraq. Iraq has less than 1/250 of the world's population, but it gets two-thirds or so of these resources. The war in Iraq costs a continuing $60 billion per year. This is more than $2000 per year for every man, woman, and child in that country. I don't think that they spend even a dollar per person in Bangladesh, which is poorer than Iraq (according to the CIA almanac) and is also overwhelmingly Muslim.
I am sure that at some level they mean well. However, they are obsessed with looking like winners and do-gooders, rather than with actually doing good in the world. Glenn Reynolds has a book called "The Appearance of Impropriety" to describe Washington's obsession with not looking corrupt, rather than with actually avoiding corruption. One could write a book about Washington's foreign aid called "The Appearance of Propriety", about the converse impulse to look helpful rather than to be helpful.
But when you do give the Bush Administration credit for something, it's generally in a backhanded way and I don't think that's fair.
The reason is that most of the Administration's achievements really are backhanded. I am sure that you have heard about the fiasco known as Medicare Schedule D. The difference between that and current foreign policy is that Americans don't get to see the latter for themselves. Again, I'm sure that he meant well with Medicare D just like with everything else, it's just that meaning well is far from the whole story.
And I don't mean to single out Bush. He should be in the hot seat for doing a bad job just because he's doing the bad job right now. A lot of politicians do a bad job. Lyndon Johnson was no better and he was a Democrat. Besides that Bush is the current disappointment at the top, there is the beginning of this discussion, where you demanded gratitude from feminists for what he is doing. You should understand the big picture before expecting that.
me: As to Iraqi women, I agree they are better off without Saddam in that they don't live in a totalitarian dictatorship, and don't have to worry about rape rooms, mass killings, etc. However, they are worse off in that in some areas they are now being forced to live by sharia law and, considering a religious party won the election, can probably look forward to more oppression in the future. However, I would bet most Iraqi women would rather have Saddam gone and would much rather live in a democracy where their vote counts - I just hope Iraq doesn't turn into (more of)a theocracy or have civil war when we leave.
This is some correct thinking about what is going on in Iraq, but it does not go all the way. According to both Jim Dunnigan and Austin Bay, Iraq already has a civil war. It is not just that religious parties essentially won the elections, it is also that they operate private militias that are above the law. As long as they do not attack American forces, no one stops them. These militias have deeply infiltrated the police and the Iraqi army, and they also operate death squads. Political group killings have resumed; every other day the Americans discover groups of executed men in ditches. These killings are on a smaller scale than when Saddam Hussein was in power, but the militias may well be waiting to strike after the Americans leave. Some of them have said as much, although they may be exaggerating, if Iraq is lucky.
Since Saddam Hussein was so brutal, prospects for men in Iraq may be better than before the invasion. But prospects for women are bad. Rape rooms are a sensational topic, but the truth is that the vast majority of Saddam Hussein's victims were men. As you say, the religious parties want Shariah, as their militias already enforce it in many instances.
Dr. Kuperberg writes, in reference to one poster's comments:
"This is some correct thinking about what is going on in Iraq, but it does not go all the way."
Wow. "Correct thinking"?
You know, the more I think about this post and the source it references, the more I am convinced it is all bunk.
Mind you, it's not that there are people on the Left who shouldn't be criticized for their views on Feminism. However, this notion by strong implication that the Right is all about human freedom and the Left is all about hating America and comforting repressive regimes is just far, far too convenient to be true. Whenever you see a comparison where one side is declared virtuous while the other is shamelessly demonized you are almost always looking at something more like self-serving propaganda and Shadow Projection, not reasoned argument.
As I stated previously I read both Left and Right wing sites. I can tell you that there is no lack of articles on the Left protesting the ill-treatment of women around the world (and often blaming the Right/Republicans for the problem). Likewise, I would think there is plenty of blame for the current state of affairs to go around. After all, since WW2 there have been more Republican administrations than Democratic ones and all have done their part to promote or at least cast a blind eye toward the repressive nations of the world -- at least when we saw them as our "allies" (potential or real). Hypocrisy is in no way limited to the Left in this regard.
In the end, this sort of one-sided black and white rant does (IMHO) a lot more to make the writer look uninformed and foolish than the target of her words.
A basic difficulty in discussing feminism is that the term is often construed as a description of women's accomplishments generally - successful women are feminism's accomplishment. But Feminism is also a community of activists within the academic, institutional, and political spheres. Arguments about feminism tend to devolve into semantic ploys.
Greg K -
I see your point that some people might object to the tone of my first post, and I'll keep that in mind in my future comments.
DRJ
"I can tell you that there is no lack of articles on the Left protesting the ill-treatment of women around the world"
I know this is true as well, but the problem pointed out in Dr. Helen's post is the fact that much of it is simply talk and nothing more. When someone actually does something about it (regardless of whether or not it was his intention) feminists and others on the left can't even applaud the actions, even if they're not so crazy about the guy taking the action.
I know several so-proclaimed feminists who said, shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan, "Sure, I'm glad the Taliban is gone and all, but I'm not too thrilled that Bush was the one to do it."
Why not just end before the "but"? When they put it like that, they seem more interested in winning a political argument than the treatment of women. Which, in many respects, I think they are.
It was the liberal, but very Catholic priest and novelist Andrew Greeley who first pointed out to me that when people believe that their children have a shot at a better life, they limit the number of children. Whether the culture is Roman Catholic or not, that is the case. Until then, all our advocacy is just air. We want to put that system in reverse, telling people that if they limit the number of children, they will be better positioned economically. Human nature doesn't seem to work that way.
The demographic collapse of Europe fits this pattern. It is better for the society at large for Western Europeans to have more children. But for each individual couple, who need to provide for the medical care and education of a child, fewer seems better when facing an economy that seems stagnant.
The tyrannical governments are, in fact, the key obstacle. Economic opportunity drives family planning more than a hundred government nurses with flip charts.
As to the feminist abandonment of foreign oppressed women, "me" has it right. This is not a universal among feminists, many of whom are very active in real-world solutions. It is the extension of the problem of feminism in the 80's and 90's in our internal affairs. The justified complaint was that they were very concerned with getting good day care for women going to law school, but not very worried about the unsafe neighborhoods of poorer single moms. The splits in modern feminism are very much about this sort of issue. The organizational structures support an ideology which "gives a voice" to poorer women, but only when they are asking for typical leftist interventions.
Increasingly, assertive women looking for some label other than "feminist" are supporting ideas which reduce poverty.
Jason says:
I know this is true as well, but the problem pointed out in Dr. Helen's post is the fact that much of it is simply talk and nothing more.
And your evidence for this is what? A few anecdotes about people you know? Just because they don’t in general support Bush’s policies? Considering how ambiguous the results of his Middle East policies are that’s not much of an argument.
Which is my entire point. There is nothing wrong about Dr. Helen or anyone is making a reasonable argument from a particular ideological viewpoint. In fact, that is exactly the sort of thing I came here to read. I just don’t think that has happened in this case. She (and the source she lists) presents her argument as if it is so “obvious” she is free of the requirement of actually making her case.
This is a complex issue with a lot of different viewpoints. It cannot reasonably be reduced to a convenient black and white syllogism. To put it another way, I want to see a good, insightful argument, not just the ideological party line presented as dogmatic “truth”.
Alan,
If you are so interested in the topic, you can purchase Chesler's book or any other that you see fit on Amazon--that is why I provide links so that people like yourself who are so thirsty for knowledge can do their own self-study to gain further information. Good luck.
Helen --
I appreciate the link and will at least check out the book at my local store. However, that doesn't really address my original criticism. After all, I assume that you were expressing your own opinion. Therefore, I'd like to hear the logical and evidentiary basis for the rather strong views you present.
One little check I thought I'd do. I had come across this post concerning a teenage girl being sentenced to death in Iran for killing one of three men attempting to rape her and her niece.
Obviously, Feminsting reported it but when I went to the website of NOW I couldn't find any sign of it although they did report on the status of gay marriage in Iran. They actually said this: "Sometimes it is easy to forget that the United States is relatively accepting of the LGBT community compared to a majority of other countries in the world." Nice to see they noticed.
There is definitely much more work to be done in non-Western countries but it can also be very dangerous if done in those countries. No claim is made that this test is representative but it seemed this was a specific case NOW might comment on. Lots of others have.
Dadvocate,
Thanks for your comments. Chesler, in her article at the Chronicle of Higher Education, also noted that she had tried to get "feminists" to support women in Islamic countries, here is what she got instead:
"For example, I know that many feminists enjoyed talking about the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban; and why not? This tragedy proved that Feminism 101 was right all along, that men really did oppress women. But few of the televised feminist talking heads wanted to systematically sponsor Afghan women as immigrants or as political refugees. I know because I suggested, privately, that the anti-Taliban American feminists do so. Needless to say, these feminists did not want to launch a military invasion of Afghanistan on behalf of women either. I know. I raised this idea many times. All I got were pitying looks."
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