Paul Sheehan asks why Western feminists are mute on the plight of their Islamic sisters

quote:

---

"... In this cultural clash, the treatment of women is the most hotly contested terrain. Not just the treatment of non-Muslim women by Muslim men, but the treatment of Muslim women within Western culture. Many Muslim women live under constraints that are unacceptable to wider society. For years, a symptom of this tension, which is largely submerged, has been the distraught young women turning up at the Australian embassy in Beirut to escape forced marriages.

In the midst of this cultural and moral struggle one element has been conspicuously missing - the feminists - the authors, academics and commentators who rose to prominence as advocates of women's rights. In Australia and Europe, their response to the growing levels of sexual intimidation, harassment or suppression of women by Muslim men has either been a deafening chorus of silence, or denial and blame-shifting."

---

Read the Full Article here

A quick google of Paul Sheehan indicates that he is a progressive and not a right-wing hack, but I fail to see why a progressive man asking such a question means we need to leap to our defence, as anti-racists feminists.

Feminists in the west critique Islam, often from a USian-centric and Islamophobic perspective. Is this what Paul wants? I sure don't need to see more racism spouted by so-called feminists.

Feminists in Arab countries have been critiquing Islam for years, but he doesn't seen to be aware of their existence.

This is an article that Ms. Magazine printed, in 1993, before the Taliban-hating narrative had hit the mainstream. Ms.Magazine May/June 1993

It is so much easier to support the status quo at home, and demand that everyone agree to impose our standards on foreign populations.

Of course, in reality, the interventions are not about helping women in Afghanistan or Iraq. That's just a talking point for the naive.

And writer Sheehan is saying that is it shameful that Western women don't support those imperialist adventures. I think it is shameful that he would lend his reputation to such an endeavour.

Doing a google, though, we see that the writer may not be so sensitive to women as one might hope:

quote:

---

Australia is suffering from Fat Chick Syndrome. In totality, women in this country have been adding an extra kilogram every couple of years for a long time. The majority are now either overweight, fat, obese, or are worried about crossing the border from fab to flab.

---

sheehan article

Statistics show that men are actually more likely to suffer from obesity than women, but Paul doesn't care much about that.

--------

By the way, it might interest babblers to know that the Soviet Union once justified its occupation of Muslim lands on the basis that it was helping women. Of course it was a failure, as it only created nationalist opposition.

quote:

---

Originally posted by bigcitygal:
I'm always very skeptical of writers who open with a call of "where are the feminists?".

---

quote:

---

Before the reform-minded PDPA took power in the late 1970s, Afghan women were forced to wear the stifling head to toe veil, and had no right to own property, go to school, or divorce. They were considered non-persons in the eyes of the law. The female literacy rate was one percent and polygamy was common.

---

But hey, now women have Hamid Karzai, the mayor of Kabul and drug lords to champion their cause in Afghanistan. It's like before 1978 only with U.S. and Canadian backing this time.

And in Iraq? Well, Dick Cheney, Haliburton execs and shareholders sing ... DO THE HUSTLE!!! (whistles frilly disco tune)

[ 23 July 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]