It's an old tactic. Right-wingers become feminists whenever impending sabre-rattling is needed prior to bombing Muslim countries.
Not feminists, as much of feminism actually likes a lot of things Islam likes. For example, Radfems don't like sexualized depictions of women any more than religious Muslims do.
But I am in favor of equal rights and individual freedoms, yes.
But once the short-term actual goals are achieved, like, say, getting oil or installing an allied dictator, suddenly the feminist arguments go down the memory hole.
It should be an equal rights argument, not a feminist argument. Feminists don't mind Islamists like Linda Sarsour for example.
But nobody here favors installing a dictator who would trample of individual rights, including those of women. What are you talking about?
I know that you consider me a far left radical feminist—I’m not but I’ll play along fir this post if you need me to do that.
I do imagine that a lot of feminists in the us and elsewhere share a lot of the same views and beliefs as Sarsour, and other feminists. Just like any other group, feminists are comprised of individuals who hold some variation in beliefs, etc.
You may or may not be relieved that the basic tenet of feminism is equal rights for all. Equal rights for all is absolutely a feminist ideal or if you prefer, argument.
That’s it. That’s the whole shebang. Equal rights for all.
Now that does bring up some uncomfortable questions about what is standing in the way of those equal rights, the history, the societal, psychological and social constructs in this society ( mostly talking about US but also Great Britain, Europe and Australia) as well as other parts of the world.
Did you know that historically, women in Muslim countries had many more economic rights compared with say, women in the US who did not obtain the right to have credit in their own name until the 1970’s? Muslim women have had the right to own their own property independently for centuries. Christian women: not so much, including in the US. Here, we are accustomed to seeing Muslims as being repressive towards women. That is certainly true in many ways, particularly in modern times after the rise of the Ayatollahs, when the Gulf nations, newly rich with oil money, desperately sought to modernize their societies—only to pull back on much of that modernization out of fear of bloody revolution such as happened in Iran. Iranian students in the US were actively attempting to recruit students from other middle eastern countries, particularly the Gulf states which still had some firm of monarchy.
For some, progress, modernization was too threatening, ad they feared too much losing their identities as peoples.
Frankly it is not that different than what is happening here with the rise of Christian Nationalism. Here, the rise of the religious right is much more about money though.
I will be quite open: I have had quite a number of Muslim friends and co-workers, mostly from Middle Eastern countries. When I first started working in a workplace where most of the employees were Muslim and only a handful were American, I found it overwhelming because for brief amount of time, all I saw were differences. As I had more conversations and as relationships grew, I came to realize that basic core values were pretty much the same no matter where people were from or what their religion. We all valued our families, valued hard work, honesty, respect, gratitude. Some approaches were quite different t: they were a bit scandalized that my infant son slept in a crib in his own room abd that I did not have ‘someone’—a grandmother or auntie or some girl who wa ted to learn English live with us abd sleep in the baby’s room. They found that quite barbaric. The fact that we had not nearly enough money to afford that nor a big enough apartment for that they saw as no barrier: of course the girl would be happy to work for free, to learn English. At the time, we were vegetarian and I didn’t go out after work but returned home to my husband and child to them made me a very religious person, although of course i was not at all religious. However, we had very little money for things like ‘going out’ and frankly I missed my husband and baby —and transportation was a bit rough after rush hour. ( public transport— no car). Later I began to notice some big differences in world view but the core values were the same: family, honesty, hard work, respect, kindness and generosity.
Those values I’ve seen shared between many different t cultures, no matter what continent people originated from or what their religious persuasion, including none.
We are more alike than different in the ways that are most important
