I was tempted to write a riposte to Pamela Bone’s schtick about the alleged betrayal of Islamic women by Western feminists the other day, but in the end I was pretty busy with work and I also decided that I didn’t want to give her the time of (International Women’s) day. It’s probably significant that when a lot could be said about the declining position of women in the workforce here in Australia, the increasing difficulty of finding childcare, and a whole lot of other issues (many of which were covered in tigtog’s Blog against sexism post and the comments thread) that the only thing the Australian found worth publishing on IWD was a left-bashing rant. Shaun took Bone on in a post linking to tigtog’s previous refutation of similar claims by number one feminist of convenience Janet Albrechtsen. But the whole thing was niggling at me. There are two obvious counters to claims (which I think are in fundamentally bad faith, but more on that later) by people like Bone that:
I don’t hold much hope on this International Women’s Day of seeing big protests in Australian cities against female genital mutilation; or against honour killings, stonings, child marriages, forced seclusion or any of the other persecutions to which women are still subjected. The fire of Western feminism has quietly died away, first as a victim of its success, lately as a victim of cultural relativism, of anti-Americanism and reluctance to be seen to be condemning the enemies of the enemy.
The first is that “big protests” tend to be directed at domestic issues. The Iraq War is not an exception - what was at issue was Australian participation. This canard is identical in logic to the slur made by other RWDB columnists - that anti-war Australians didn’t march to protest about Saddam’s human rights abuses. Aside from the fact that neither did any of those columnists or all of the chicken hawks in the blogosphere who like to shriek loudly about this, the claim that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are fought for human rights reasons is just risible. And of course, for those who want to make that claim (and the feminist of convenience argument is rarely made these days about Iraq where women’s rights are under sustained attack), there’s an obligation to reflect on the degree to which military and civil violence against civilians (including many women) advances human rights. As I’m suggesting, women in Australia have a lot on our plate here at home. But I also suspected that the claim that women in the West gave no support to Islamic feminism was a complete furphy. My guess was that about ten minutes’ worth of research in the blogosphere would refute that (op/edders are apparently exempt from the requirement to test their ops against facts). And so it proved to be. Over the fold.
One of the points made by Bone was that the momentum of events like Beijing in 1995 had sometimes been lost (and of course, this is all the fault of feminists. Not mentioned by Bone is the contradiction between this criticism and her claim, cited above, that feminism in the West has apparently been a “victim” - significant choice of words from Bone - of “its success”). Have a listen to Jessica Valenti from Feministing pointing out that much of the inaction on the Beijing agenda has been the responsibility of governments, and that much effort has been put into pushing it by women internationally.
You can check out links to the organisation and publication Jessica talks about at Alternet. In particular, Beijing Betrayed is online.
Jessica also mentioned the imprisonment last week by the Iranian government of women activists in an attempt to deter IWD protests and events. Now, this is obviously an issue going to the sorts of concerns Bone claims that Western feminists are blind to. But that’s clearly not the case. It was reported and condemned on Jessica’s blog, Feministing, in several posts. I didn’t see any mention of it from Bone, or for that matter, from any of the other pontificators who would usually be quick to condemn anything going on in Iran. Also on Feministing was a post drawing attention to an international report from feminist NGO MADRE condemning the shift of Iraq towards a theocracy and its horrendous consequences for women.
Now, I found all those links, which suggest that the claim Bone made that Western feminists are unwilling to support Islamic women, and that we don’t do so because “Islam” is the “enemy of our enemy”, just by going to one blog that I regularly read. Check out a technorati search for iranian women feminism and you can find 131 posts. There’s an interesting mixture of posts from Iranian women themselves, who as Andrew Bartlett observed, are keen bloggers, from Western women pointing to the issue and practical action that could be taken in its support, and Bone’s ideological fellow travellers either claiming that “feminists don’t care” or that “this shows Islam is evil”.
Now, Bone is supposed to be a journalist, I think. Elementary fact-checking is obviously not something she’s keen to do. Nor does she acknowledge either the real concern among Western feminists over these issues, or the fact that feminists have often (and appropriately) believed that women in particular situations and contexts are the best judges of the sorts of action and response to be taken, and that we should be reluctant to speak authoritatively and definitively on their behalf and occlude their voices.
But it’s clear, from the most cursory of net research, that Western feminists are in fact giving more than rhetorical support to Islamic women in their struggles.
I’ll close the case by noting that none of the more structural issues about the position of women in countries like Iran and Iraq ever get a hearing from the “feminists of convenience”. Rather, they go for the ideological jugular and cite practices they can conveniently condemn as “barbaric” to roll in their Islamophobia with their partisan political agendas. Because that’s what all this is about. It has bugger all to do with any real concern with women in Islamic societies and everything to do with scoring culture wars points here in Australia. I’d happily join a march to protest against Albrechtsen and Bone, or for that matter Joe Hockey’s casual dismissal of two reports into work and family issues, which the feminists of convenience are also conveniently silent on.
Great post, Kim.
Another comment worth making is that the Bones of this world, while ostensibly opposing “relativism”, argue in wholly illogical and emotion laden terms. It’s quite right to say that picking on “stonings”, etc, is an Islamophobic rhetorical move. It also enables Bone to ignore the fact that many women in Iran (for instance) are educated and middle class, and elides all concerns that may exist regarding women’s rights with a picture of Islam as somehow primitive. It’s either stupidity or fundamental dishonesty, and the total lack of research that you point to also reinforces this diagnosis.
As an aside, Feministing’s Jessica is a great vidblogger. Here’s her V-Day entry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv1Qu_EKqGI
The other point that I wanted to make, and forgot to, on that issue is that the concentration on:
ignores the degree to which many of these practices are cultural and really the legacy of pre-modern mores and customs (for instance, “forced seclusion” was a hallmark of classical Greek culture which Bone et al would normally hold up as the quintessence of civilisation) rather then Islamic in their essence. Thus, yet again, the concentration on “barbarism” enables op/edders both to ignore issues of modernisation (and to totally silence the voices of educated Islamic women) and to elide Islam with these reprehensible practices.
A tad defensive, Kim? I think you are protesting too much.
…thou doth protest…
Thanks, Mark.
Well, Rob, I’m defending feminists against Bone’s criticism, certainly.
So, Rob, what is the appropriate level of protest against Bone’s idiotic and unoriginal rant?
What does it matter if FGM has pre- or non-Islamic origins? It’s still a disgusting and yes, “barbaric” practice specifically intended to destroy female sexuality by force, and it’s still carried out today under a specifically Islamic justification.
Just a thought (which Ms Bone has never addressed) but wouldn’t feminists and other westerners marching against pre-modern practices in the Middle East simply give the anti-western regimes in the area (Iran, in particular, springs to mind) one more reason not to adopt decent policies towards women.
It seems to me that if anything vaguely resembling gender equality ever comes to the Middle East the force driving it will be economics, it being impossible for state to make really substantial economic progress while excluding 50% of its population from economic participation.
Katz, I thought Bone was making a perfectly reasonable and valid argument. I don’t see why anyone is getting bent out of shape about it, and can’t see any reason for a “protest” of any kind.
Well, I think she is making a perfectly unreasonable and invalid argument, Rob. As I’ve tried to demonstrate.
It matters a lot, Rob, if the intent of talking about it is to make an argument about Islam, and an argument that somehow implies it’s the fault of “Western feminists” that it continues, or that people are not criticising it for political reasons. However, as I’m suggesting, the choice of examples is itself highly political, as is the context for the discussion. I used to give Bone the benefit of the doubt as to whether she was sincere about all this. I’m no longer inclined to, for the sorts of reasons Kim gives in the post. Her arguments are illogical, contrived, tendentious, and directed mainly at striking a culture wars blow. If she’s so concerned about Middle Eastern women, what is she doing about them? Or Albrechtsen? Or is supporting war a sufficient means of demonstrating an alleged concern for human rights? Or a culture war? As Kim said, the feminists of convenience are usually missing in action now when it comes to Iraq. I’d recommend people look at the report linked to. It’s an indictment of any claim that the invasion of Iraq has materially contributed to an improvement in women’s position, and it renders hollow ex post facto claims that that was one of the aims of the war.
That being the case Rob I would very much like to hear your explanation of how a lot of sound and fury from the west will benefit women in a part of the world seething with anti-western feeling.
And I’ve condemned FGM here, Rob, as has Kim, and others who according to Bone must be seen as being “silent” and in the grips of “cultural relativism”. But what difference will condemnations made in Australia, as Chris suggests, make to the lives of girls and women in, say, the Sudan? Far better, as Kim argues in the post, for Western feminists and pro-feminists to make linkages with Islamic feminists and other human rights activists in their own countries and give concrete moral and financial support, than for any number of prating prattling piffle ridden op/eds to trumpet some faux indignation, whose only point anyway is to intervene in Australian domestic discourse.
Well, with respect, Kim, I don’t think you succeeded.
This was just petty:
“Now, Bone is supposed to be a journalist, I think.”
Of course she is. She’s been a professional journalist - and outspoken feminist and multiculturalist - for at least twenty years.
Well, then, she’s under an obligation to do some basic research, as Kim suggests, which is not time consuming, to find out whether or not her claim that Western feminists are disinterested in the plight of Islamic feminists is true. Kim’s demonstrated to my satisfaction that it is false. If she wishes to purvey falsehoods, then she can’t fall back on her professional status because she’s contemptuously devalued it in the service of her politics.
Bone’s sole crime, in your eyes, Kim and Mark, is that she has said something you disagree with. Having read her stuff throughout her career as a journalist (a journalist, yes!) I’m comfortable with the conclusion that she knows more of which she speaks than you do.
It seems to me that in some sections of the Australian community, or at the very least some sections of the Australian, there are people who have become so deranged that they refuse to acknowledge the existence of pragmatism, never mind pragmatic arguments. Instead they accuse anyone who does not share in their blind idealism and belief in the ability of their values to bend the crooked timber of humanity into whatever shape they choose of moral and/or cultural relativism.
To my mind multiculturalism is the classic of the genre. The critics (who do not include Bone as far as I know) like to suggest that anyone who takes the (conservative) view that people are deeply attached to their traditions and unlikely to relinquish all of them just because some dude in Canberra thinks they should is a cultural relativist.
Iraq is another good example. Those who were skeptical of the ability of liberal democracy imposed from above to take root in the Middle East were roundly castigated for, again, cultural relativism. Likewise those who did not waste their time denouncing the self-evidently wicked insurgency were deemed to be guilty of moral relativism.*
The feminists of convenience are yet another example. As outlined by Mark and Kim in this thread the situation in Iraq means that the feminists of convenience don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to actual, practical things that can be and are not already being done to support feminists in the Middle East. Instead of discussing the barriers to the kind of actions that they seem to want to see taken or promoting actions that are genuinely helpful they just rant about relativism.
* Those who actually supported the insurgency are deserving of the tag moral relativist or worse.
And Chris - so should we be silent in the face of every atrocity perpetrated in the Third World for fear they would like us less for condemning it? I think not.
That’s a fine misrepresentation of my position Rob. I think that where there are actions we can take to help marginalised and persecuted groups in the third world we should take such actions. These can include direct actions like providing financial support or indirect ones like encouraging the Middle East to integrate into the global economy.
And yeah you can condemn all you want, but don’t think it will actually help matters on the ground much and go accusing those who don’t join you as being moral relativists.
So, the argument from authority, Rob?
Look, it’s very simple. She claims that Western feminists show no concern for women in Islamic countries. It takes me about ten minutes to find a host of blogs, reports and links to major publications which demonstrate that she’s wrong. Therefore, either she is ignoring the evidence to score political points, or she doesn’t even bother to find any evidence to support her claims. Neither is good.
Just to clarify if they don’t like it and it’s not going to backfire on us then do it. What I don’t feel obliged to do is things they don’t give a shit about.
Chris, I’m not sure what you mean by “moral relativism”. But, in the frame by which I understand the term, Mark’s 3.27 pm comment is a classic. You don’t like?
Katz:
I’m amazed Bone still has the nerve to publish. Did she do a mea culpa on Iraq yet?
I have read where she has supported military intervention since the Rwanda wars between the Tutu and the Tutsi that claimed hundreds of thousands of people. Am I missing something?
Now the Iraq war has claimed hundreds of thousands of people.
I can’t understand anyone with a feminist outlook (anyone, really) who would support to pre-emptive war.
You’re setting up a straw Pamela, Kim. Anyone can cherry pick via Google to demonstrate almost anything. Hell, I could do it to demonstrate that RWDBs didn’t support the war in Iraq. It takes greater depth and broader wisdom, which I admit I don’t possess, to see the bigger picture. I think Bone has both. Yeah, I’d give her that authority.
“I’m amazed Bone still has the nerve to publish.”
Brendon, I’m frankly amazed you still have the nerve to comment.
Rob Mark is quite capable of addressing that charge himself but the way I read his comment he was claiming that many of the reprehensible practices which some are want to pin on Islam in fact have deeper cultural roots.
This does not mean they are justified or that we are not entitled to judge them. A moral relativist response to female circumcision, for example, would be either a straight out denial of our ability to judge along the lines of “how can we judge what is good for African/Arab/Islamic women?�
Alternatively it could take the form of a spurious comparison in which the above assertion is implicit, such as “we may not like female circumcision but some people think that male circumcision is abhorant.�
Pamela Bone has terminal cancer.
It’s not nice to speak ill of the the nearly dead.
Her (approaching) death-bed conversion to Albrechtsenism is not something that requires analysis. If it gives it her peace of mind, if she thinks it will smooth her passage to a better place, then that is a matter for her. If the Oz editor wants to give her column inches, well, that is his choice.
That Bone writes unfilleted nonsense is neither here nor there.
Chris, but Bone is arguing against moral relativism, is she not? Her sharp remarks about Germaine Greer’s views on FGM seem to indicate this.
Spiros, you’re sick, mate. Seek help. Get back under your stone.
Also, I understand Ms Bone’s cancer is in remission, Spiros-ghoul, so your ill-disguised gloating at the imminent death of another human being may be misplaced.
With respect, Rob, that’s rot.
It takes about ten minutes, as I said to find the support in question, which includes serious reports with much analysis and much reference to the experience of Islamic women, and their voices.
Well, let’s see Ms Bone retract her “report” since it’s so easily demonstrable that she is wrong. The only person she actually mentions in support of her claims is Germaine Greer. There are lots of less high profile women working on these issues, and with Islamic women. It is absolutely not too much to ask Bone to go and find out that this is the case, before she rushes into print. Her so called “bigger picture” is rubbish, Rob. It’s a distorted and ideologically blind picture, and the evidence is right in front of her fingertips, if she bothered to look. It’s not good enough, and your defence of her is totally unconvincing.
So what’s your answer to her primary question, Kim?
“On International Women’s Day, where are the protests in our cities against stonings, honour killings or any other persecutions to which women are still subjected?”
Where’s the public outrage that attends, for example, David Hicks, who’s suffered far less than these women? That’s Bone’s point: there isn’t the sting of outrage. Why not?
Rob, I can’t at all see how you could see my comment as being “culturally relativist”. I’m not implying any form of support for TGM, and as I said, Kim, I and others have condemned the practice in very strong terms. I don’t know whether you saw the recent thread where I got monstered by postmodernists, but my position is very far from relativism of any kind. I believe in truth. However, it aids the cause of truth to point out that claims that particular cultural practices are not primarily religious in origin, because it assists in separating out and rebutting ill informed bigotry and specious argument which contributes to Islamophobia. I have no idea why pointing out that there are cultural practices which differ could be construed as “relativist”. Nor am I in any way implying that because this is a cultural practice, it is in some way therefore exempt from criticism. Quite the opposite.
The thread in question is here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/15/the-war-on-the-punditariat/
I answered that in the post, Rob. Public protest usually revolves around issues that have an immediate impact on people within their own national sphere. Hicks is an Australian citizen. We could just as easily point to the horrendous situation in Sudan, which isn’t a political football in the same way that Islamic women are. There are no demos in the streets about that either. There’s some sort of weird assumption going on that if one can’t point to demonstrations or rants, then there’s no concern. But I’d also question (and I think this is what Chris is saying as well) the value of “outrage”. To what degree do loud expressions of outrage assist anyone? To what degree do careful analysis and working out how to take action in concert with people overseas who suffer from these issues assist anyone? The latter is much more valuable than the former. Bone, and you, seem to have formed some sort of mindset where the only acceptable moral yardstick is how loud people shout. That’s just wrong. I have much more respect for people whose quiet work for justice is often untrumpeted than those who loudly trumpet their supposed concern across the op/ed pages as a way of scoring political points.
And what Mark said about the reason why these (reprehensible and condemned) practices are singled out.
I’d also suggest that none of us really know how much David Hicks has suffered. Comparisons of degrees of suffering in order to assess degrees of appropriate outrage really are an odd way of going about ethics and moral judgement.
Mark, your position is relativist inasmuch as you are prepared to mitigate the intrinsic barbarity of FGM by reference to its non-Islamic past (whilst ignoring its specifically Islamic justification in the present) to avoid any appearance of being “Islamophobic”.
“To what degree do loud expressions of outrage assist anyone? ”
Well, I’d argue that it got East Timor its independence for a start.
Huh?
That’s nonsense, Rob. It’s not “mitigating”. It’s pointing out facts. And if those facts combat Islamophobia, then all the better. Any sort of bigotry against people on the basis of their beliefs, as opposed to what they actually do, is wrong. Your logic is all askew on this question, I fear.
“Any sort of bigotry against people on the basis of their beliefs, as opposed to what they actually do, is wrong.”
What??
What you describe is standard operating procedure at LP.
Really, Rob? Did Bone write an op/ed?
Drawing attention to abuses which are not highlighted is worthy. But conspicuous indignation in a domestic political cause is not. it’s interesting to note two things:
1. Your comment implicitly devalues the contribution of the East Timorese themselves. Similarly, these calls for “outrage” in fact imply that if the West says so, then magically these things will stop. In fact, as pointed out by Kim, none of the claims made in support of the Iraq War being a fight for women’s rights have had any effect, except to expose their own hypocricy. The material situation of women is now worse. Those most able to combat injustice are those who are immediately in a position to do so. Careful support of their aims, as Kim says, is welcome. But ethnocentric assumptions that loud ranting in the Western press either brings change, or is a substitute for the hard work of supporting change, are specious.
2. We have had discussions about FGM here at LP where I’ve been more than prepared to concede that it is often enforced by people claiming that it’s a religious requirement. That doesn’t make it so, any more than it makes the whole of the Islamic tradition and the billion adherents of Islam guilty of its continuance. It is not relativist to point out facts. You’re the postmodernist, buddy, not me!
When losing an argument, go meta?
“I answered that in the post, Rob. Public protest usually revolves around issues that have an immediate impact on people within their own national sphere.”
That’s rubbish, Kim. The world-wide protests against Gulf Wars I and II, and those against the French atomic tests at Mururoa 10 years ago testify to the falsity of that claim.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Rob, Australia was involved in Gulf Wars I and II.
Again, I’ll come back to the sort of weird 60s/70s leftism that now has morphed into rightism, why are street marches the touchstone and the lodestar of concern? You could well argue that the sorts of protests being made on the blogosphere against the oppression of women in Iran, which Kim discussed in her post, are much more effective than some derisory demo, because they serve to inform, prompt to pragmatic and useful ways to assist, and so on. As Chris said, why has it suddenly become compulsory not to be pragmatic about human rights issues? If you, Rob, or Albrechtsen or Bone, feel strongly, then there is absolutely nothing to stop you organising a demo, vigil or march. Please do report back as to how it has actually assisted in furthering the cause of human rights, though. Or is it the expression of outrage and indignation that’s the point?
“Really, Rob? Did Bone write an op/ed?”
No. But 25 years of strenuous and strident international protest did finally pay off — for whatever it will ultimately be worth. International protest by teh Left, be it said. No-one else gave a toss. The East Timorese could never have done it on their own.
“When losing an argument, go meta?”
Bah. All that has provoked this post and thread is the typical ideologue’s inability to understand that a person of good faith and honest intelligence can reach a conclusion other than that held by the ideologue. On her record, I rate Pamela Bone much higher than either of you.
Don’t be daft, Mark. I know you’re more intelligent than that.
Eastern women are not the only ones with an FGM problem.
Well, that’s fine, Rob, and that’s your right, but some sort of mystical ability to assess the big picture doesn’t rate with me compared to getting basic facts right, which is the threshold responsibility of a journo. If she asserts that Western women don’t say or do anything about the oppression of Islamic women, and it’s very easily demonstrable that they do, then she is just not meeting basic standards. Thus her opinion, based as it is on a falsehood, is of dubious value too, even if you think she’s reading some sort of ethereal signs of the times. I’m a bit sick of cultural criticism that isn’t grounded in fact. I’m afraid she’s the ideologue here.
Well, I shouldn’t have been snippy. But there’s a category mistake here. Regime change is a very different thing from cultural change, as the US has found out. Independence for East Timor is a concrete geostrategic goal. Shifting cultural practices in a pro-feminist direction is a much longer term goal, and contrary to Bone’s claims, feminism has not succeeded in the West to such a degree that there’s no work left to do.
Thanks for the link, Adam. The point that Christians and animists also practice FGM in sub-Saharan Africa is an important one.
Feministing has also pointed to the Western craze for “vaginoplasty”:
http://feministing.com/archives/006659.html
People who ask ‘Where are the feminists, hmm?’ are usually those who assiduously avoid any medium where feminists have any kind of voice — so of course they don’t know what they’ve said, because they don’t know who they are or where to find them. These snipers certainly don’t read feminist (or feminists’) blogs.
Feminist posts on group blogs are frequently derailed almost immediately, by, say, some bloke popping up to bleat about his browser. Which of course he didn’t do on purpose or anything.
Bloggers who take a feminist viewpoint on this or that are routinely attacked, mocked, cat-called, ignored, called insane, and, occasionally, requested to display their breasts. Strangely, this tends to wear some of us down.
Very few feminists have a regular voice, or indeed any voice, in the contemporary Australian MSM.
And then a motley crew of reactionaries asks indignantly Oh, where are the feminists then? This despite the fact that, here at least, Kim and others have answered this question, complete with links, dozens and dozens of times over the last few months.
But then, Rob, there is no evidence in any of your comments here that you have actually read Kim’s post. You have not even directly, much less substantially, addressed a single one of the points she makes.
Spot on, Dr Cat.
Bone claims the “fire has gone out of feminism”. Well, who’s wielding the hoses? You’re quite right to point to the denigration that is all too common - however, I continue to believe that it’s worthwhile to engage in spaces like this one on feminist issues, because at least we’re reaching an audience which contains many who are sympathetic to our arguments, and engaging with those who aren’t (who often comment in bad faith and for reasons having to do more with maintaining their own egos) allows us to sharpen our arguments. For me, at least, it helps stoke the fire in my belly. To be a feminist is to have to fight daily, and the ignorance of the Bones of this world only empowers me to want to keep doing so.
Of course I’ve read it, PC. I just don’t agree with it. The two things are not the same. And I regard Ms Bone as a feminist. Do you?
“Feminist posts on group blogs are frequently derailed almost immediately, by, say, some bloke popping up to bleat about his browser. Which of course he didn’t do on purpose or anything.”
Oh gosh, that’s me again, I think.
Well, Rob, as Mark said, you’re the postmodernist, with your Baudrillard and your Barthes. You tend to assume, in classic textualist fashion, that different narratives can be spun without empirical referent. You’ve consistently refused to engage with the evidence I provided that Bone is just wrong. End of story. Entitled to her opinion, etc., but it’s uninformed and falsifiable with reference to the facts. By claiming in the face of that that it’s valid, you paint yourself as the relativist.
Oh boy. All you did, Kim, was go for a Google and come up with some references that suited your purpose, which was to (try to) shoot down Pamela Bone. Well, duh. What intrigues me is why you’re trying to do it. Bone is pointing to a universal wrong, a monstrous injustice against women. And yet you, a feminist, are not on her side, and I, a rusted-on RWDB, am. Feed the fire in your belly, sure, if it makes you feel better about yourself. But what on earth is the point of what you’re saying?
Sorry, Rob, are you being deliberately obtuse?
Bone claimed that no feminists spoke out about the position of women in Islamic states. There are some. I found them. Therefore she is wrong. As Dr Cat said, perhaps these women don’t get to write op/eds in the Australian like Bone does, but they exist!
And however do I get to be painted as supporting a “universal wrong”, a “monstrous injustice about women” when I am arguing in favour of women’s rights in Iran and Iraq and pointing out the practical support many other women in the West have given to these causes. I’ve donated to some of those NGOs, Rob. Have you? Or do you, now apparently the sole feminist on these pages (along with Bone) content yourself with cheering along narratives which appeal to your political views?
And in my view, as I’ve repeatedly argued, Bone is more interested in scoring culture wars points than doing anything substantive or positive to redress this “universal wrong”. So to that extent, yes, I’m not on her side.
Why didn’t she write a substantive column pointing to the issues? With actual analysis and facts? And suggestions for action? Then I’d have some respect for her alleged moral indignation.
No, you are being obtuse. It’s quite clear from Bone’s article that she is questioning the lack of public outrage at the tyrannisation of women in the Middle East, the Gulf and North Africa. Where are the feminists, she asks? It’s a good question, and a Google search to throw up some blogs and academic papers is not a good answer. Why aren’t you coming out in support of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the handful of heroic women who are risking and losing their lives to stand up against that oppression? And why in the world do you think it furthers the feminist cause more to bucket someone who knows far more about these things than you ever will, just because she doesn’t push your particular ideological buttons?
I didn’t say you hadn’t read it, I said there was no evidence in your comments that you had. The two things are not the same.
Well, if she herself asks ‘Where are the feminists?’, then that would suggest to me that she does not regard herself as a member of said group. And if that is the case, then who are you to say you know her better than she knows herself?
Besides, unlike many, I don’t think it’s at all my place to go around deciding whether other people pass or fail little ideological tests. Feminism is not a contest, not a club, and certainly not a religion. There is no password, no creed and no cutoff score.
Nice cap, Rob; excellent fit. If you derailed an International Women’s Day thread with a pointless bleat about browsers and didn’t do it on purpose, then it was a stupid (and very revealing) gesture; and if you did do it on purpose as a passive-aggressive way of saying you didn’t give a shit about IWD, then it was a despicable one, and even more revealing.
Oh FFS. See above.
Begged question: again, for the squillionth time, no such ‘lack’ exists. (Where is Lacan when you need him?)
Besides, if you’re right and she’s a feminist and she has a regular voice in the MSM, why isn’t she using her own space to express some? I’m now questioning the lack of her public outrage. Money, mouth, etc.
Now how could you possibly know that? And how could anyone possibly think that Pamela Bone outclasses Kim in any way as a researcher and thinker?
Rob:
Ouch! Is that you, Pamela?
More Rob:
The “tyrannisation of women in the Middle East” has been bought about in no small degree to the continued corruption of states in that region by European and American colonial policies over the past centuries that were put in place to extract its wealth. How did the current Saudi regime come into power? The Saudi government is one of the most oppressive in the world.
Iran’s mullahs are a reaction to oppressive American interference. You name a country in the Middle East and its history is full of intervention, war, corruption, and puppet governments set up by foriegn powers like America. This breeds militancy and extremism that is not conducive to a stable society or social equality.
Bone doesn’t know anything if she thinks yet another oil war will solve this. Blathering on about how intelligent she is doesn’t make you look any too smart.
Some travelling music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxjuZ5Ct9wA
“Oh gosh, that’s me again, I think.
Nice cap, Rob; excellent fit. If you derailed an International Women’s Day thread with a pointless bleat about browsers and didn’t do it on purpose, then it was a stupid (and very revealing) gesture; and if you did do it on purpose as a passive-aggressive way of saying you didn’t give a shit about IWD, then it was a despicable one, and even more revealing.”
Ideologues, don’t you love ‘em.
Here’s what happened. I loaded a new version of Firefox onto my PC. LP went all weird. Couldn’t see the sidebar, past posts, comments, nothing. Still can’t. Not having access to Saturday Salon, since I couldn’t see it, I chucked an appeal for help into the first LP post I could find.
I apologised to to Kim for crapping up her thread.
So much for conspiracy theories.
Good enough for you, Pavlov’s Prat?
Brandon, oh yeah, right, it’s all down to us filthy colonialists. Strnge that we’re the ones that want women to be free and somehow the Islamists just don’t get it.
“Iran’s mullahs are a reaction to oppressive American interference. You name a country in the Middle East and its history is full of intervention, war, corruption, and puppet governments set up by foriegn powers like America. This breeds militancy and extremism that is not conducive to a stable society or social equality.”
Funny that it works in Israel.
Heh.
Right, philip. Well, I’ll just develop my masculinity, OK?
Going back to near the head of the post, Mark wrote:
“It’s quite right to say that picking on “stoningsâ€?, etc, is an Islamophobic rhetorical move.”
Is it? Maybe it’s a genuine statement of revulsion or something.
They mightn’t have held a street march (although it probably wouldn’t have been reported if they had), but in Brisbane 1300 people attended a breakfast organised by UNIFEM to hear Malalai Joya, a twenty-something woman who is the youngest member of Afghanistan’s Parliament, give a very powerful speech about the continuing serious oppression of women.
The account of her speech on Online Opinion reports her view that
According to Ms Joya reported in the Daily Telegraph
She is quoted in an interview with the Courier-Mail saying
If I’m not mistaken, Ms Joya’s presence in Australia to raise awareness of the continuing oppression of women in her country under its western-backed government was faciliated by UNIFEM, which by anyone’s definition is a feminist organisation (and a bloody big one at that).
I didn’t see any report of Ms Joya’s various speech in The Australian. Perhaps there was and I missed it. I suppose one could say that, unlike UNIFEM and the thousands of people who attended their functions to hear and support Ms Joya, they just don’t care about women being opressed in foreign countries - however that would probably be unfair. It probably had more to do with the fact that she is very critical of the role of the USA and called on Australia to rethink our alliance with the USA and our approach towards Afghanistan. Still, the end result was her brave message at the Brisbane event about the continuing oppression of women was not given coverage on the following day - the say day Pamela Bone’s article appeared.
We should be all (not just feminists) be more concerned about abuses of women’s rights (and other human rights abuses) everywhere. But there are plenty of examples of much more direct hypocrisy that could be pointed to than the one attacking selective feminism which some who see themselves as being on the right like to run with - e.g. right wing ‘defenders of freedom’ who drool over greater trade opportunities with China but who will not say a word about the very serious human rights abuses (not to mention the many curtailments on freedom that are part of everyday life in China).
It can be useful to call for more attention/outrage/concern to be directed towards particular issues, especially ones that are easily ignored - which ones that are overseas tend to be. However, to go from that to condemning a whole group/philosophy/ideology/ for not being outraged enough is usually rather unfair (and selective).
No, Rob, judging from your comments on this thread, you need to develop your brain.
It is you who are the ideologue, and a particularly trite one at that.
Thanks, Adrian. I will strive to improve; “endeavour to persevere”.
Rob:
Next time I run into a Palestinian woman in Gaza I’ll ask her if you are right about that.
Where are the feminists, she asks? Well, they’re on blogs, and they’re working for NGOs, and they’re writing papers that seek to draw attention to the actual dimensions and complexity of this issue, in order to bring about real change. And they’re working in their own immediate sphere to bring about change, through education, through lobbying governments, through meetings, through all sorts of action.
I’m sorry if they’re invisible to you and Bone.
And I’m sorry if there’s some weirdassed orthodoxy that you only care about something if you express “outrage” and then march in the streets. Chris said it best early on the thread - whatever happened to pragmatism?
But the question posed by several commenters remains a good one - why doesn’t she get off her bum and write something positive and constructive, given that she has a much more influential platform for disseminating her views than many of us? Why does her supposed outrage have to lead her to attack others? And to do so in complete and probably wilful ignorance of what real feminists are actually doing?
Oh, and thanks, Andrew for that comment. Because of the number of links, it ended up in the moderation filter (and I was watching The West Wing!), but it’s now there above, and I’d urge anyone who might have missed it to go back and read it.
Kim, you’re sounding like a bureaucrat. “Writing papers” - yeah, right. Been there, done that.
As for this:
“Why doesn’t she get off her bum and write something positive and constructive, given that she has a much more influential platform for disseminating her views than many of us?”
Well, she just did, didn’t she?
No, she didn’t, Rob. The point of her column was to denigrate feminists and the left (and by indirection, Islam).
I’m not much interested in bureaucratic papers, because that’s not what I’m talking about. What I am interested in are books like the one that Jessica referred to in her video blog, which seek to advance awareness of the situation of women around the world, put pressure on governments, and empower and communicate with women and other human rights activists. And I’m talking about the report released by an NGO about the declining situation of women in Iraq, which has the aim of seeking to redress that.
You and Bone