How the Feminists Betrayed Feminism?
Sorry about the copy/pasting of this article, but I received it via email.
Margaret Wente is a tool.
How The Feminists Betrayed Feminism
by MARGARET WENTE
7 March 2006
The Globe and Mail - A15
Warning: It's that time of year again. International Women's Day. Time
to admit, despite 40 years of astonishing progress for women, things
are
really rotten. Time to figure out whose fault that is.
Judy Rebick knows. "The triumph of neo-liberal/neo-conservative
politics
has dealt a mortal blow to a feminism that seeks economic and social
equality," Canada's best-known feminist writes. "The gains we have made
are threatened by the increasing impoverishment of women . . . the rise
of racism, militarism and the security state; the monopoly of men on
power . . . and the continuing scourge of war and violence against
women
and children."
If you are unaware of just how bad things have got, you can also
consult
the experts at York University, which is so feminist it even teaches
feminist geography. Just in time for IWD, a helpful press release
promises fresh insights on how women are being oppressed by
globalization, by cutbacks in health care, by the male business
establishment, and by non-inclusive pedagogies, whatever those are. If
you want an update on "anti-racist, post-colonial and transnational
feminisms," York's the place for you.
The trouble with these experts is that almost every claim they make is
wrong. What impoverishment? What rise in racism? Women in the West,
even
minority women, have never been more economically and socially equal
than they are today. Oh, sure, we still get stuck with the
child-rearing
and the dishes. But feminists must concoct increasingly exquisite
grievances to make their case. The vast majority of women can only
dream
of oppression as exquisite as ours.
Yet, when it comes to women who really are oppressed, Western feminists
have nothing useful to say. How can we help Afghan girls whose schools
are being burned down by the Taliban, or women in South Africa who
endure one of the highest rape rates in the world? What about the
unwanted female children of rural India whose parents let them starve,
or the millions of African women suffering from HIV-AIDS because of the
deeply sexist sex habits of the men? And how can we help the millions
of
Muslim women who live under the worst kind of gender apartheid?
Sorry. If you want answers, don't call York or Ms. Rebick. They'll just
blame Western imperialism.
Phyllis Chesler, one of the best-known feminists of the 1970s, has had
enough. In a powerful essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education, she
argues that modern feminism has betrayed the very women it claims to
serve. "It gives me no pleasure, but someone must finally tell the
truth
about how feminists have failed their own ideals and their mandate to
think both clearly and morally," she writes. "Because feminist
academics
and journalists are now so heavily influenced by left ways of thinking,
many now believe that speaking out against head scarves, face veils,
the
chador, arranged marriages, polygamy, forced pregnancies, or female
genital mutilation is either 'imperialist' or 'crusade-ist.' "
In other words, the feminist establishment has it exactly backward.
Western values and institutions aren't the problem. They're the answer.
We should be doing our best to spread them. Capitalism and
globalization
have done more to empower oppressed women of the world than all the
NGOs
on Earth. Peasants pulled up from destitution as India gets richer are
less inclined to starve (and abort) their female children. Chinese
girls
who escape the serfdom of rural life to make goods for Wal-Mart are far
freer and better off than their mothers ever were. And who are the most
oppressed women in the West? They are, in large part, the immigrants
who
belong to certain subgroups that have rejected liberal Western values.
Ms. Rebick says she deplores the rise of militarism and the continuing
scourge of war and violence against women and children. Well, who
doesn't? Maybe she's referring to Congo and Darfur and other lands
where
tribal warlords run amok and millions of people are dead. On the other
hand, maybe not. Those places don't count, because America didn't do
it.
P.S.: It's not neo-liberal and neo-conservative politics that killed
feminism. The feminists did.
mwente@globeandmail.ca
Margaret Wente is a tool.
How The Feminists Betrayed Feminism
by MARGARET WENTE
7 March 2006
The Globe and Mail - A15
Warning: It's that time of year again. International Women's Day. Time
to admit, despite 40 years of astonishing progress for women, things
are
really rotten. Time to figure out whose fault that is.
Judy Rebick knows. "The triumph of neo-liberal/neo-conservative
politics
has dealt a mortal blow to a feminism that seeks economic and social
equality," Canada's best-known feminist writes. "The gains we have made
are threatened by the increasing impoverishment of women . . . the rise
of racism, militarism and the security state; the monopoly of men on
power . . . and the continuing scourge of war and violence against
women
and children."
If you are unaware of just how bad things have got, you can also
consult
the experts at York University, which is so feminist it even teaches
feminist geography. Just in time for IWD, a helpful press release
promises fresh insights on how women are being oppressed by
globalization, by cutbacks in health care, by the male business
establishment, and by non-inclusive pedagogies, whatever those are. If
you want an update on "anti-racist, post-colonial and transnational
feminisms," York's the place for you.
The trouble with these experts is that almost every claim they make is
wrong. What impoverishment? What rise in racism? Women in the West,
even
minority women, have never been more economically and socially equal
than they are today. Oh, sure, we still get stuck with the
child-rearing
and the dishes. But feminists must concoct increasingly exquisite
grievances to make their case. The vast majority of women can only
dream
of oppression as exquisite as ours.
Yet, when it comes to women who really are oppressed, Western feminists
have nothing useful to say. How can we help Afghan girls whose schools
are being burned down by the Taliban, or women in South Africa who
endure one of the highest rape rates in the world? What about the
unwanted female children of rural India whose parents let them starve,
or the millions of African women suffering from HIV-AIDS because of the
deeply sexist sex habits of the men? And how can we help the millions
of
Muslim women who live under the worst kind of gender apartheid?
Sorry. If you want answers, don't call York or Ms. Rebick. They'll just
blame Western imperialism.
Phyllis Chesler, one of the best-known feminists of the 1970s, has had
enough. In a powerful essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education, she
argues that modern feminism has betrayed the very women it claims to
serve. "It gives me no pleasure, but someone must finally tell the
truth
about how feminists have failed their own ideals and their mandate to
think both clearly and morally," she writes. "Because feminist
academics
and journalists are now so heavily influenced by left ways of thinking,
many now believe that speaking out against head scarves, face veils,
the
chador, arranged marriages, polygamy, forced pregnancies, or female
genital mutilation is either 'imperialist' or 'crusade-ist.' "
In other words, the feminist establishment has it exactly backward.
Western values and institutions aren't the problem. They're the answer.
We should be doing our best to spread them. Capitalism and
globalization
have done more to empower oppressed women of the world than all the
NGOs
on Earth. Peasants pulled up from destitution as India gets richer are
less inclined to starve (and abort) their female children. Chinese
girls
who escape the serfdom of rural life to make goods for Wal-Mart are far
freer and better off than their mothers ever were. And who are the most
oppressed women in the West? They are, in large part, the immigrants
who
belong to certain subgroups that have rejected liberal Western values.
Ms. Rebick says she deplores the rise of militarism and the continuing
scourge of war and violence against women and children. Well, who
doesn't? Maybe she's referring to Congo and Darfur and other lands
where
tribal warlords run amok and millions of people are dead. On the other
hand, maybe not. Those places don't count, because America didn't do
it.
P.S.: It's not neo-liberal and neo-conservative politics that killed
feminism. The feminists did.
mwente@globeandmail.ca