RE: Dropping F-Bombs: I've Become a *gasp* Feminist!
Thanks for replying. It's not been my experience that feminists defend the oppression and abuse of anyone based on that person's culture or religion. In regards to feminism and Islam, the reluctance I've witnessed from self-proclaimed feminists is to condemn the wearing of hijabs, burkas, niqabs, chadors, or what have you as inherently oppressive, and that seems to stem primarily from many Muslim women's insistence that they wear these garments as a willing and enthusiastic expression of their faith. Since a basic tenet of feminism is that individual women should have control over how they present themselves, I don't see a conflict there. I must also respectfully disagree that rapes in Sweden, or even just rapes committed by Muslim men make up the "overwhelming bulk of misogyny." It's so much more than that.
Thanks for your discourse, I like to get down on and debating ideas. For me, it is a way of getting at the truth of the matter rather than just winning the argument. It is one way I learn in life.
For the sake of argument, you stated:
This contradicts the subsequent statement where you show how feminists (albeit self-proclaimed) defend repressive Muslim female clothing on religious grounds:
It is important to recognize that Islam is not merely just another religious faith. It is an excellent plan to conquer the planet by any means possible. They almost succeeded centuries ago, but were defeated.
According to Islam, the penalty for leaving Islam is death. This is hardly a situation conducive to freely putting down your hijab. Furthermore, honor killings are another misogynistic Islamic tradition. We had one recently here in Phoenix. A young girl was wearing makeup and dressing like a teenager and her father killed her. This is not just an isolated incident. We recently had Islamists murder and suicide bomb a stadeum full of young women in Manchester because of their decadent Western ways. FYI bombings by Islamists and throwing acid in the faces of women are happening all day long.
In summary, I don't care about people's silly religious superstitions. That is not something worth talking about. What I do care about is political Islam's on-going conquest of Western Civilization and I am willing to fight for MY freedom.
I think I may need to clarify what I mean when I say the feminists I've had experience with are reluctant to identify Muslim women's garments as oppressive. It might seem rather petty given the abundance of more immediately threatening issues, but for many feminists, a major sticking point is the right for a woman to wear what she pleases, whether that means covering themselves from head-to-toe or running around buck naked. And the feminists that feel that way find themselves struggling to reconcile that value belief with the idea that women could willingly participate in a religious system that dictates their dress.
So what I'm trying to say--maybe a little inarticulately--is that they're not defending restrictive dress on religious grounds but rather defending religious women's right to participate in what outsiders view as oppressive. They find themselves in a position in which to do otherwise would be tantamount to demanding that a modest woman walk around in a miniskirt and tube-top, which is equally oppressive, just in the other direction.
For the record, I do worry that a number of the Muslim women who vocally support their religious garments are doing so under duress (because, as you say, dissent could very well mean death), but that topic is so far outside my wheelhouse that I can't adequately and responsibly address it without first doing an abundance of research.
"they're not defending restrictive dress on religious grounds but rather defending religious women's right to participate in what outsiders view as oppressive"
Exactly! As a Christian woman who usually chooses to dress modestly, enjoys cooking and cleaning, and regularly says things like, "Honey, I didn't get married so I could kill the spider," I believe that feminism needs to be respectful of all women's choices that don't cause harm to others. I find it just as anti-woman if a feminist tells me I'm less of a woman for choosing family over career, as I do when a Pastor tells women in the congregation they need to be guardians of men's virtue by covering up their tempting shoulders.
I was raised near the beach, where much of my free time was spent in daisy dukes and bikini tops (when I could rock that look, lol) and when I moved to the south, my female landlord was scandalized by my wearing a tank top. I imagine if I had been raised in a culture that considered a tank top to be a sexual overture to every man within eyesight of me, I might feel really uncomfortable wearing tank tops, however oppressive that might seem to a person raised on the beach in NJ. And if I had been raised in a culture that considered showing my hair to be similarly sexual in nature, I might not feel comfortable forgoing the hijab no matter how oppressive it seems to someone raised in East Texas where you can bear your hair but not your upper thighs without fear of castigation.
So I agree that certain sects of Islam retain the ugly tribalistic degradation of women as a major aspect of their culture and that is wrong, obviously. But to tell a woman who was raised that way that she must westernize her dress because the way she was raised is wrong, seems to simply be a revictimization of an already victimized woman.