You would think that good feminists would have serious
objections to the way women are treated in the Palestinian territories.
You would also think that good feminists would be marching
to protest the way women are treated in many Islamic countries.
Shouldn’t feminists naturally oppose cultures that practice honor
killings, that allow men to beat their wives, that jail rape victims for having
sex outside of marriage, that force girls into arranged marriages, that refuse to allow women to drive cars or to go shopping by themselves?
Being political leftists and fierce supporters of gay rights,
feminists should naturally oppose cultures where homosexuality is a capital
crime, and where anyone who is caught being a homosexual is hanged.
You would also think that feminists would cheer the advanced
democracy of Israel, a country that guarantees women’s rights, freedoms and
opportunities.
If those were your thoughts, disabuse yourself of your
ignorance and naiveté. If those were your thoughts you do not understand
America’s radical left.
Ready for a wake-up call?
Emily Shire has the story:
Last
week, a group considered the largest academic feminist organization
in North America approved a measure to cut all ties with the state of Israel,
including the researchers, teachers, and academics who work in its
universities, museums, and cultural centers.
The
National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) voted to endorse “the
2005 call by Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions
(BDS) of economic, military and cultural entities and projects sponsored by the
state of Israel.”
You read that right. The leading group of feminist academics
has chosen leftist politics over women’s lives. They have signed on to a
blatantly anti-Semitic cause because they believe that it represents the
politically correct thing to do. Women be damned; it’s only the ideas that
matter.
Islamic cultures count among the worst practitioners of
misogyny on the planet. What do these feminists find so attractive about that?
If they know, they do not care. Having long suspected that
an important strain of contemporary feminism merely uses women as pawns to
advance the revolution, I am not surprised to find feminists openly embracing
misogyny. Because that is what happened here.
Shire also quotes what the BDS movement stands for:
Refrain from participation in any form of
academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli
institutions.
Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli
institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of
all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions
The movement goal is perfectly
consonant with the goal of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah: to eradicate the
state of Israel and to send the Jews back to the Ukraine. Why? Among other reasons Israel is a liberal democracy that respects human rights. And it has been a successful nation surrounded by civilizational failure.
The only difference
is that BDS wants to destroy Israel non-violently while Hamas is happy to resort
to violence. That is why noted feminist academic and dimwit Judith
Butler sees Hamas as a progressive force but refuses to support it wholeheartedly
because it resorts to violence. She too supports BDS.
Feminist supporters of BDS
naturally cloak their madness, stupidity and misogyny in feminist terms:
As
feminist activists, scholars, teachers, and public intellectuals who recognize
the interconnectedness of systemic forms of oppression, we cannot overlook the
injustice and violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, perpetrated
against Palestinians.
Don’t be too surprised. Last week an anti-rape group on the
Columbia campus aligned itself with the Students for Justice in Palestine. I
repeat again, if a woman is raped in a strictly Muslim culture she will be
jailed for having sex outside of marriage. If a teenage girl is caught holding
hands with a boy she will be murdered by her father and brothers. And some
Muslims believe that they have a right to rape infidel women. Therefore, women
who are militating against rape culture actively embrace a culture that allows
men to commit acts of violence against women.
If you think that these activists care about women, think again.
Naturally, the Columbia feminist anti-rape group has aligned itself with Palestinian culture. Shire quotes her colleague Lizzie Crocker:
My
colleague Lizzie Crocker pointed
out the problem with conflating matters pertaining to Israel and
campus rape last week when she wrote about how No Red Tape, a Columbia
University anti-sexual assault group, had aligned itself with Students for Justice
in Palestine.
“No Red
Tape has lost the plot. In trying to be inclusive of other oppressed groups,
they’ve alienated victims that their group is dedicated to advocating for,”
Crocker wrote.
One is tempted to say that these are merely useful idiots. After
all, their abject stupidity is striking. And yet, that is too easy. They are
suffering from an ideological depravity that ought to be exposed for what it is
and rejected by all rational feminists. Certainly, it ought to be rejected by
anyone who respects women. Increasingly, that does not seem to include
feminists.
4 comments:
Ares Olympus...while I agree with you that we have been far too suck-up-ish toward Saudi Arabia, I'm not fond of the phrase "addiction to oil." All living creatures need to employ some form of energy. Were people in northern medieval Europe addicted to wood? Were to Plains Indians addicted to buffalo?
Oil represented a great step forward over coal and wood as fuels, eliminating for example the horrible jobs of stokers at power plants and onboard ships.
We could have become much less dependent on the Saudis with a more intelligent energy policy decades ago, and today we really can break the chains with a combination of extended fracking and revived nuclear power, together with niche use of solar and wind. We should consider a specific import tariff on oil from Saudi and other especially malevolent states;not clear how much difference it would really make since oil is a global commodity market with relatively low transportation costs--but it would sure send a message.
Those were never my thought, for I know these "womyn" are leftists toeing the Party Line with the biggest, heaviest toes they can cram into their boots.
David, don't forget all that oil we are supposed to have stolen and are thought to be currently stealing from Iraq!
"Islamic cultures count among the worst practitioners of misogyny on the planet. What do these feminists find so attractive about that?"
But US raises girls to act like Sulkowicz, Dunham, and Miley Cyrus.
I would say both modern Liberalism and medievalist Islam are degrading to women.
As for feminists, they think in terms of priorities.
They don't like Muslim treatment of women, but they see western imperialism as the bigger crime.
Because many Zionists are of European origin, they are seen as 'bad whites' by the left.
During the Vietnam War, many western liberals understood that North Vietnam was repressive and illiberal. But they still supported the North Vietnamese because US was seen as the imperialist power.
It's just how the leftist mind works.
And homosexuals? While I find Muslim attitude to homosexuals to be wrong, what we have in the west is gayria. Anyone who won't bend over to the 'gay' agenda is fined, destroyed, or even jailed.
I have no sympathy for homosexuals because they, having gained power, force everyone to praise and celebrate them. You better or else.
Some on the Left are hostile to Israel itself.
But some support BDS only on the issue of West Bank settlement.
They want the occupation to end. They also see the occupation as a form of colonization because not only is West Bank militarily dominated but has systemically been settled(permanently) by Jewish arrivals. That is problematic in the long run.
When US occupied Japan after WWII, it didn't allow masses of Americans to grab territory for permanent settlement. The occupation was merely military and ended in 1952.
But the occupation still goes on in the West Bank, and Jews have taken whole swaths of land for permanent settlement.
Regardless of whether Palestinians are misogynist or not, this is seen by the international community as colonization.
Consider the following scenario:
We know Saudi Arabia isn't democratic or liberal. So, does that mean that a western liberal nation has the right to take a chunk of Saudi land and settle it with Europeans? Would it be justified on grounds that the settlers are more 'progressive' than the native Saudis who are 'misogynist'?
International community would disagree and would remind the world that western imperialism was justified on grounds of 'greater progress' and 'white man's burden'.
Suppose Israel were theocratic and reactionary while Arabs were modern and liberal. Would that mean Arabs have the moral right to occupy Jewish land and settle it with modern and liberal Arabs?
Does liberalism justify imperialism?
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