Letters to the Editor
Ms. Anthropia
Published Letters: 69 Editor's Choice: 1
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Defending liberalism against leftist apologetics
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't the conclusion that the hijab is primarily voluntary essentially forgone with leftists who want to justify inaction? It is after all the position which conveniently justifies passivity much like moral relativism and the notion of 'respect' do for multiculturalism in general.
Whether it is years of indoctrination or force, wouldn't traditional liberal values demand some form of reasonable intervention, especially with Muslim communities in the West which are subject to secular laws? At the very least couldn't we have the courage to say that there is nothing wrong with abandoning cultural and religious traditions and we will support you if you do?
France and its admirable laïcité policy banning religious symbols in primary schools comes to mind, which of course had Anglo-American multiculturalists trashing in paroxysms of rage about religious freedom (ignoring as always the children's right to be free from their parents' religion, which thankfully the key French teachers' union recognised).
The anonymous poster who identified as a teacher in Europe and discussed the compulsion behind the hijab from first hand experience is the person we should be listening to, not Tracey Clark-Flory with her pre-scripted leftist orthodoxy. I mean was anyone anywhere surprised by her 'nuanced' conclusions?. And here I always thought was feminism supposed to be about uncompromising support of egalitarianism?
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@ Elie Elhadj
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You start with the strawman of the Saudi school-fire killings which serves no purpose but to attempt to mitigate more mundane forms of oppression which are the real issue. The key question is, are the day to day indignities and violence women in the Muslim world are subject to Islamic?
In turn your lengthy post speaks to the inherent absurdity of the notion of a 'Muslim feminist,' which Canuckistan Bob invokes.
In your own words:
The Quran subordinates women to men [see, for example, Verses 2:228 (Chapter 2, Verse 228], 4:34, and 18:46).
If one feature defines feminism it is sexual egalitarianism, the notion that men and women are beings of equal worth deserved of equal opportunity and expectations. Again by your own admission, the Qur'an which Muslims are expected to view as the inerrant revelation of Allah, is fundamentally incompatible with feminism. No Qur'an, no Islam, no such thing as a Muslim feminist.
Here is startlingly simple option. If you believe in gender egalitarianism, don't be a Muslim (or a Christian or Jew in my wider opinion). Squaring the circle and trying to make violent, misogynistic religions compatible with Enlightenment values is a waste of time. I realize that progress by hypocrisy is the flavour du jour in liberal circles these days, but all it does is leave pseudo-believers open to attack by fundamentalists. Until you ditch the Qur'an and Bible there will be your fellow believers beating you on the head with it.
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@Juliebird
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are you so hopelessly naïve as to believe the hijab is a simple matter of choice? The hell-fire and damnation in the Qur'an, the whispers or out-right charges of about being unIslamic, the threat of complete ostracisation and even violence which follow from being seen as unchaste or worse, in a state of apostay, oh and don't forget the awkward reaction of sniveling multiculturalists who fetishize cultural diversity (since it doesn't affect you does it Julie?) and can't handle someone rejecting 'their rich cultural heritage' for the sake of personal autonomy. Religions do everything they can to make choice a social and psychological impossibility.
Oh and I love the little multicultural fantasy of Chicago you paint. The glorious diversity of the Abrahamic religions forcing their beliefs on others...ohh just gives me shivers. What about the Muslim woman getting a beating Qur'an-style, the Polish immigrants disowning their gay son or the defenseless baby having its penis mutilated by a mohel for the sake of forced tribal scarification.
Your disgustingly shallow view of diversity is exactly why liberalism is dying and we are falling back into the black night of tradition and fundamentalism.
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Timmy's Academic Lesson
[Read the article: Feminist hypocrisy on the hijab?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"For those who still can't imagine how the wearing of hijab may be empowering, why don't you try talking to someone who wears one? "
I have it is an underwhelming experience of trite comments on male sexuality and religious superstition.
For a professional academic (as you make sure to tell us) you exhibit a facile understanding of critical analysis. A religious believer has by their very act of belief precluded meaningful, disinterested self-analysis because they fundamentally cannot (or will not) criticize the belief itself.
A Muslim who concluded that sexism, indoctrination, fear, conformity and the threat of violence or social exclusion were behind the hijab would probably not be a Muslim any longer. Women who wear hijab have to make apologetics in the end in order to avoid cognitive dissonance. Apologetics have no place in academia and no academic should ever take them as more than an anecdotal curiosity.
You further pretend that there is some lack of critical analysis of American foreign policy and women's media images within the West itself. That is exactly why the West is superior to every other society by orders of magnitude because we do criticize ourselves constantly and openly. Traditional societies have effectively zero self-critical capacity. Problems are generally either ignored or all failings are blamed on the West.
Indian reformers blame their nation's sodomy laws on the British Raj, Japanese pretend their Imperial armies weren't complicit in horrific atrocities and well, Muslims blame their lack of scientific achievement, their lack of political freedom, etc. on Western hegemony, all the while the brutal Islamic theocracy in Iran having for thirty years proven the limits of America's reach. Muslims are even angry about the Crusades still, a struggle the won by all measures.
A smug, likely white, likely hetrosexual male like yourself can poopoo Modernity and what I damn well believe is unequivocal superiority of Enlightenment values (the individual over the group) because you come out on top whenever, wherever right?