NEWS: Which of These Women is a Feminist?

CULTURE: Which of These Women is a Feminist?

On the left, Asma Jahangir. Here's her C.V., and here's an interview with her that appeared in the UN Chronicle.

On the right, a photo of a group of women from the ("Red Mosque", a campus of sorts that includes the mosque as well as religious schools for both men and women, and that has become a center for pro-Islamist political action in Pakistan.

Jahangir wants Pakistan to recognize and support a secular version of human rights, particularly human rights for minorities and women. As she says in the linked interview, "cultural diversity does not mean inhuman treatment of other human beings."

Lal Masjid, including the women of Jamia Hafsa (a kind of women's seminary), want Pakistan to embrace Sharia, a specifically Islamic form of law, the particular tenets of which vary depending on who you ask; roughly, the idea is that the laws of a political state should be based in religious texts and religiously-based precedent.

Presumably to most of us it's obvious that Jahangir is in the right, and the women of Jamia Hafsa are in the wrong. It's pretty easy when you're standing outside of whatever the cultural/religious norms are to recognize that not everything that people with tits do is automatically feminist. It's a lot harder when the norms being criticized are norms you yourself hold.

Feminism isn't "all about choices." It's all about power and equality. Arguing for women's "right" to do things that perpetuate their lack of power or equality isn't feminist; it's using pseudo-feminist language to argue for women's continued status as second-class citizens.

Similarly, arguing for men's "right" to continue to be treated as individuals without regard to the social status or power of "men" as a class is usually anti-feminist: e.g., arguments about men getting "passed over" for jobs or promotions in favor of women, etc. If the situation is one where the job in question is "traditionally" a woman's job, then sure: argue away. But if we're talking about politicians or CEOs or college professors or scientists or construction workers, then nope--sorry.

Context matters. If you refuse to consider it, then you might as well go back to 'separate but equal." As Warren wrote in Brown v. Board of Education,

because

The court's finding at the time depended on a great deal of research and the integrity to realize that the way difference is interpreted matters.

Theories are all well and good, but at some point you have to look at what's actually happening. If it "just so happens" that women can't get contraception because it's prescription-only, or because some pharmacists and doctors "just happen" to have religious prejudices against it--but it doesn't "just happen" that men are subject to the same problems--then it just happens to be the fact that that's discriminatory. If it "just so happens" that women "choose" to wear heels and makeup because doing so increases their status, while men "happen" not to rely on signalling sexual availability/attractiveness in order to increase theirs, then that, too, is discriminatory.

If women's "choices" happen to perpetuate the idea that women are second-class citizens, then those choices aren't feminist.

Which ain't the fault of those women; we all make the decisions we have to make to live in the world. And for the record, there are defensible arguments that (say) nude pictures of oneself can be quite feminist in nature.

It's a question of context. As Diana York Blaine said in the interview linked immediately above,

Focusing on the nudity is part of the problem, people. Just like arguing for women to be "protected" from rape by covering themselves and staying out of public view--or by "not getting drunk with strangers" or whatever your preferred "how to not get raped" argument is--as if women "get" raped by some invisible force of nature.

You're not doing feminism any favors when you think it's all about what women do or don't do. Women aren't raised under rocks, and we're not brains on sticks. The world we live in, and the people we live in it with, have an effect on us. The real question ought to be, are you trying to change shit? Or are you just making a bunch of bullshit excuses to perpetuate your own comfortable status quo?

Bitch_PhD promises this will be her last post on this subject for the forseeable future.

But I like reading your articles... Even if they make me sad.

Ignorance really is bliss.

"Similarly, arguing for men's "right" to continue to be treated as individuals without regard to the social status or power of "men" as a class is usually anti-feminist: e.g., arguments about men getting "passed over" for jobs or promotions in favor of women, etc. If the situation is one where the job in question is "traditionally" a woman's job, then sure: argue away. But if we're talking about politicians or CEOs or college professors or scientists or construction workers, then nope--sorry."
Go fuck yourself.

Thank you. It's hard to believe anybody still buys some of this bullshit.

i tend to agree.
multiculturalism is often the excuse of western progressives to sit on their asses and turn a blind eye to injustice and cruelty elsewhere in the world.

nevermind

Quit making stuff up, Bitch_PhD. Asma Jahangir? We all know there is no such thing as a feminist in backward places like Pakistan.

+1

i admire people like Diana York Blaine
stories like Asma Jahangir are very sad, fuck, very real

I don't think women should be allowed to fuck themselves. I don't want the competition.

didn't Omaha reinstate educational segregation?

...yeah so I'm off topic

I love you.

Uh, since when? Isn't feminism about a woman making a personal, positive choice in her life for what she wants, and not have to deal w/the backlash of said choice?

-TM

The link to the red mosque returned an error message when I clicked on it: This one should work, though.

As an aside, I still love that Onion article - even a few years later, it still makes me laugh.

"Argumentum Ad Verecundiam: Declaring an argument to be true without any supporting evidence, merely because of the authority, knowledge, or position of the person asserting it."

IE the "respect mah authoritay!" argument.

Personally, I'd love to see "brains on sticks" banned from serious use on this site. Mocking the phrase would be appropriate, natch.

Mocking humor on sticks?

Vaginor. Ruler of All Women's Issues.

I agree wholeheartedly. It's more of this postmodern bullshit that tells us to fear truth claims as though they were the spawn of Satan himself; that claiming something to be true, even when you have piles of evidence, automatically turns you into some kind of a truth-nazi who is degrading everyone who disagrees with you. I think there are certainly times when you should believe a statement is true (e.g. that people in foreign countries shouldn't be allowed to treat women any way they want) simply because you know it to be true, and if it offends someone then they can go fuck themselves.

In short; I am not a fan of Postmodernism, but I am a fan of Bitch_PhD. </rant>

I thought choices were power, and by definition as a choice not everyone will make the same one choice, the bid to be amongst the elite. That part didn't make sense to me.

Consider neck and hand tattoos, the so called "no future" tattoos. In the United States it's not illegal yet to get a neck tattoo so as an American male I have my choices:

Now one group of men will say, "I wish the culture in the Republican party would let me have a neck tattoo but I know they wouldn't and I want to work there so I won't get the tattoo, because they say people with neck tattoos are second class citizens, riff raff, and having a shot at senior member is worth more than my freedom of choice on that matter."

The other group of men will say, "No way! My freedom to choose to do whatever the fuck I want with my body is worth more to me than having a chance at working within the Republican party. So fuck those assholes! I'd rather find another occupation then."

I guess that's why you say "head on a stick", ie class discrimination isn't sexist discrimination.

It's also interesting to note that the percentage of women here, at least that I meet in the community are much more queer than the average slice of society, either bisexual or lesbian. Would that be a "head on a vagina" situation concerning the male gaze?

While I have not read all the linked articles, in a lot of countries woman's rights are so bad trying to make them ideal in one foul swoop is just unrealistic. Some time's it's better to make slow change and work towards the ideal. A lot of problems come from the old ideas and making it law is hardly the be all and end all of the sexism and I think making the progress slowly is usually the best way to prevent a back lash.

Femputer.

Me.

No, seriously, that's what discussion is for. Shutting it down by saying "who decides" is a dodge, don't you think?

That does not fempute.