Why don't feminists fight for Muslim women?

Faux feministas empower Muslim abuse of women

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CHRISTIECRITE WILL REFUSE TO CONDEMN THE MUSLIM WHO DID THIS TO HER


Phyllis Chesler, for one, is fed up with the silence. Author of several books on feminism beginning in the 1970s, her latest – Islamic Gender Apartheid: Exposing a Veiled War Against Women – pierces the ominous hush that has surrounded this widespread brand of misogyny. It is a compendium of many short essays written between 2003 and 2016. Even picking out a few at random would suffice to induce distress over the indifference with which appalling monstrosities are met by feminists and “progressives” at large.

She speaks from first-hand experience, having unexpectedly found herself, as a young Jewish-American bride, among a harem in Afghanistan. This was long, long before the Taliban. After escaping, she focused her energies on exposing and opposing the various forms of degradation women encounter around the world. The forced marriages, the beatings, the sexual abuse and trafficking, the honor killings and genital mutilation.

Like most feminists of that era (and those on the march today), however, Chesler remains ardently in the “pro-choice” camp. This massive chink in her armor seriously undermines the universality of the values she defends. But we should ponder her lament that today’s feminists have become so fearful of being politically incorrect – being branded racist or insufficiently multicultural – that they have become nothing short of Islamically correct. All of a sudden, obvious barbarism and misogyny are off limits; instead, Palestinian men reflexively outrank women.

Her essay “Conservatives are Feminists, Liberals are Misogynists” expresses sorrow over the loss of many friendships (with feminist peers) based on what she thought had been shared values. There is one about the Sultan of Brunei banning Christmas, even as his brother runs a private brothel composed of western women. That might seem “hypocritical,” but both these categories are fully sanctioned: suppressing non-Islamic religious expression, and regarding infidel women as sub-human objects to be sexually abused at will.

There are, by the way, means by which Muslim women can permissibly be sexually exploited as well. One such justification is the practice of “temporary marriage,” in which short-term liaisons – akin to prostitution – are given religious sanction. This practice contributes to the fact that Iran – yes, Iran! – has among the highest rates of venereal disease in the world.

Other essays are even harder to read. But those especially make you wonder why today’s feminists shy away, as Chesler does not, from tying the crimes of Boko Haram (in the news yet again) – particularly sexual predation upon young girls as a legitimate component of Islamic expansionism – back to the very foundation of Islam. And since then to the steady if intermittent raids that have occurred whenever the crescent asserts itself.

Insight into the mindset that drives Boko Haram is freely expressed in the plain as day words of its leader (Abubakar Shekau): “I enjoy killing anyone that God commands me to kill.” That’s not from Chesler’s book, but it reinforces her point that Westerners fail to grasp or go to great lengths to avoid grasping the authentically Islamic justifications for iniquity.

The silence of today’s feminists fortifies the Islamic judgment that the vilest, most reprehensible forms abuse can’t be considered as actual offenses if non-Muslim women are the targets. Not a crime! What shall be overlooked in Pakistan shall not be condemned here! So what on earth, then, are feminists fighting for? Maybe it’s a matter of what they are fighting against.


https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/03/08/the-strange-feminist-silence-on-islam/
 
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