A Source of Sad Wonder -- The Western Left's Abandonment of Muslim Women

[jordan179]

When I saw that science fiction writer jaylake had posted the following article by Jonathan Lyons, "Islam, Women and the West," essentially dismissing the Western image of Muslim women as oppressed as a mere Orientalist delusion

Comments

[pasquin]

You put your finger right on it: progressives must choose either their multicultural gods or feminist titans.

Reconciling this pantheon results in contortions of logic for which I apply this sabre.

Do women choose the hajib or don't they? Argue all day about whether the veil is a good or bad thing, but a prison of beautiful cloth is still a prison jumpsuit.

[kitten_goddess]

I am a Western liberal woman who heartily agrees with you on this issue! Thank you, Jordan!

I also need to add that ALL theocracies are evil and backwards, no matter if they are Muslim, Christian, or something else. A Muslim theocracy is basically The Handmaid's Tale with burkas and the Koran.

[polaris93]

Not to mention clitoridectomies and worse. The Handmaid's Tale still managed to be less awful than the reality for Muslim women. The best glimpse we have of that reality is provided by the Dune novels of Frank Herbert and his son Brian Herbert. If you haven't read them, you should -- in them, there is a clear contrast between a culture that may oppress women to some extent, but not totally, the Empire, and one which oppresses women in all ways imaginable, the Tleilaxu.

[marycatelli]

Perhaps you should read a little more history about societies that tried to be theocracy.

I will point out that the first of the American colonies to explicitly outlaw domestic violence -- prohibiting a husband or a wife from striking the other -- was Massachusetts. Though, to be sure, it had been prosecuted as assault before then.

[jordan179]

I was talking about the "Burning Time" in Germany, not Massachusetts. In fact, very few people were killed as witches in Massachusetts, and none were burned.

[benschachar_77]

I think the worst part about these debates argument wise is when you inevitably have some idiot talk about how we have no right to criticize because we weren't much better 5 centuries ago.

Think about how insane that argument is. Why is something from 500-600 years ago supposed to have any relevance to here and now? Why does something WE did 500-600 years ago annul the sins of another society doing the same thing in modern times?

There are just so many fallacies in that one sentence I'm a tad shocked the cognitive dissonance hasn't killed them.

[polaris93]

And then there's the fact that the oppression of women in the West never involved the Veil and the Burqa, nor required clitoridectomies, nor a number of other items that are routine in the Muslim world. On the other hand, in many parts of Europe, women could own their own businesses and conduct business just as a man could. True, women were denied many of the rights that men had, and there was the Burning Time -- but many men perished of the Burning, as well, and the Burning was directed at Pagans, that is, people who embraced the ancient religion of the region that everyone had followed before Christianity, rather than women per se. The Church had a deadly mysogonistic attitude then, but that was offset by popular attitudes. Women were not locked up in Purdah, and bigamy was considered a sin, not just a crime -- and monogamy favors women in many ways. So yeah, you're right. And even more right than stated here.

[marycatelli]

Actually, there's no evidence that the witches were indeed practicing a secret religion, let alone a surviving pagan one.

[dexeron]

In fact, most evidence seems to say that those burned during the "burning times" (which itself is kind of a misnomer) were just Christians, Jews and some others caught up in a moral panic that came about as the Catholic Church was trying to fight "heresies" within and without: in other words, threats to its power and influence. Paganism had, unfortuantely, been dead for CENTURIES by that point, almost completely wiped out through just basic attirition and societal change - pretty much everyone was just christian by default, with various regional differences based on whatever pagan faiths had been there before christianity took over. However, no one (apart from MAYBE a very small hidden minority) seriously practiced anything we'd call "paganism" until VERY recently, when it was "rediscovered". When you look at the victims of, say, the Inquisition, or the Salem witch trials, the vast VAST majority of these terrible times were just christian women being used either as an example to further reinforce the fear of disobedience, or rich

[polaris93]

As others have said, the preferred position that the Left wants for women is . . . prone. They don't respect women, and if we didn't have laws and traditions here in the West preserving women's freedoms, the Left would no doubt treat women the same way they are treated in the Middle East as well as in some Western Muslim households, e.g., in Europe and even here in the USA. Feminism was only attractive to the Left as long as they could co-opt it. Lately Feminism -- in its latter-day incarnation -- has been utterly marginalized (which isn't true of old-style Feminism, which inherited Suffragism, which wanted only equal rights under the law). Why the Left despises women isn't clear, but that they do is incontrovertible. And this has deeply influenced their dismissive attitude to the evils visited on women in Muslim cultures.

[dexeron]

Can't agree more. It seems that for some people, women are just tools to be used to further ideology. I won't go so far as to paint all feminism, or all liberalism with this brush, but when you run into people who seriously want to DEFEND the Islamic position on women, and call any criticisms of it "Islamophobia", then I'm sorry, but such a person has no right calling themselves a feminist or a friend of any woman.

[polaris93]

Couldn't have said it better. XD

[gothelittle]

The ol' "take one for the team" mentality is indeed strong among Leftists when dealing with liberal politicians and movers/thinkers who abuse women.

[tara_li]

As far as the Left is concerned - Muslim women don't make campaign contributions, and they don't vote in US elections, ergo they are not worth worrying about.