What Feminists Used To Fight For
An Ashe Schow column in the WashEx quotes Ayaan Hirsi-Ali on how feminism used to be -- before it devolved into what she called (and I agree is) "trivial bullshit." (This amidst fighting for discrimination against men -- or at least laughing it off.)
"I want you to remember that once upon a time, feminists fought for the access -- basic right -- access of girls to education," she said.Hirsi Ali -- who despite the harsh words she said, spoke softly, almost timidly -- told the story of a fight between her mother and father when she was about 11 years old. Her mother wanted to take her and her sister out of school because education would lead them to rebel against their family and "bring shame upon us." Her father responded by saying, "If you take my girls out of school, I am going to curse you and you are going to burn in hell."
Taken out of context, Hirsi Ali said, one might side with her mother, but in reality, she said it was her father that allowed her to be educated and helped make her what she is today.
"That's what feminists used to fight for -- the access for girls to education," Hirsi Ali said. "They used to fight for the recognition of girls as fellow human beings and recognition of their personal liberty."
And Hirsi-Ali is right:
Feminism needs to fight the real war on women: Radical Islam and other parts of the world where women don't even have the right to an education or to leave their home without a male guardian.
The difference between western men and jihadis? western men will just shrug their shoulders and move on. Jihadis will chop their heads off. Or worse.
So guess who the Femis will go after. Go ahead, guess. I'll wait...
I R A Darth Aggie at November 21, 2014 6:17 AM
I'm not sure why it has to be an either-or thing when it comes to old-fashioned feminism and common courtesy and decorum. For example, it's a bit hard to imagine a feminist like Judith Martin agreeing with Hirsi-Ali; JM has pointed out over and over that civil disobedience, for example, can be just that - there's no need to be impolite OR to give up one's serious ideals. Not to mention that American feminists everywhere DO pour quite a lot of energy into girls' rights/access to education, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Even if JM DID think there was an overreaction to the shirt, in a big country like this, there will always be a lunatic fringe in every movement, and you can bet the media will inflate it as much as possible - somehow, I doubt most professional feminists were that interested in the shirt.
Seems to me one might just as well argue that MRAs should stop all their "trivial bullshit" about all sorts of issues that they, unlike feminists, would rather talk about than act upon, most of the time, and focus instead on issues like the fact that about 1.5 billion people in this world can't get a clean drink of water. Or even, maybe, the life expectancy gap between the average black man and the average white male in the U.S. (So long as paternity fraud gets ignored by U.S. society and the courts, however, one can hardly argue that MRAs should focus only on those less privileged than themselves.)
Not to mention that maybe gay rights activists in the U.S. should stop whining about silly stuff like gay marriage and "next of kin" legal issues and focus instead on all the countries where being gay can easily get you executed by the government.
lenona at November 23, 2014 12:08 PM
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