[lit-ideas] Re: Feminism's Failed Agenda?
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 07:04:45 +0900
Without endorsing what Phyllis Chesler has to say (the bits quoted
suggest the usual overblown stereotyping characteristic of politicized
debate), I, for one, will note, as I have in several contexts for many
years now, the profound contradiction between the doctrine of
individual human rights, in which rights are attached to human
individuals and demands for equity rooted in attacks on categorical
discrimination, and extreme forms of multiculturalism that attach
rights to "cultures" conceived, like nations or corporations, as
hyperindividuals to whom real individuals are subordinate like cells
in an organism.
To me, the legitimate claims of multiculturalism are rooted in respect
for individuals. No one should be excluded from a job, a legal
protection, or respectful attention to what they have to say because
they are stereotyped in advance as a woman, a member of this or that
racial or ethnic group, a believer in some religion, etc.
To a fellow who left his parents' church and went off to study
philosophy and anthropology, the notion that parents (or other
authorities who place themselves in local parentis) should have the
authority to impose their views and/or rituals on their children is
profoundly repugnant.
To mistake a "culture" for a parent who can demand respect for himself
while bullying his children--that's absolutely ridiculous.
John
On 3/9/06, Eric <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education,
> Phyllis Chesler argues that the "multicultural
> feminist canon has not led to independent,
> tolerant, diverse, or objective ways of thinking.
> On the contrary. It has led to conformity,
> totalitarian thinking, and political passivity."
>
> [EXTRACT of "The Failure of Feminism"]
> http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=pXgdqcZYzSdrCxdn2ytfR4qnjmpj85xm
>
> <MAJOR SNIP>
>
>
> Nevertheless feminists are often perceived as
> marginal and irrelevant; and in some important
> ways the perception is accurate.
>
> Today the cause of justice for women around the
> world is as urgent as it has ever been. The plight
> of both women and men in the Islamic world (and
> increasingly in Europe) requires a sober analysis
> of reality and a heroic response. World events
> have made feminism more important — yet at the
> same time, feminism has lost much of its power.
>
> To my horror, most Western academic and mainstream
> feminists have not focused on what I call gender
> apartheid in the Islamic world, or on its steady
> penetration of Europe. Such feminists have also
> failed to adequately wrestle with the complex
> realities of freedom, tyranny, patriotism, and
> self-defense, and with the concept of a Just War.
>
> Islamic terrorists have declared jihad against the
> "infidel West" and against all of us who yearn for
> freedom. Women in the Islamic world are treated as
> subhumans. Although some feminists have sounded
> the alarm about this, a much larger number have
> remained silent. Why is it that many have
> misguidedly romanticized terrorists as freedom
> fighters and condemned both America and Israel as
> the real terrorists or as the root cause of
> terrorism? In the name of multicultural
> correctness (all cultures are equal, formerly
> colonized cultures are more equal), the feminist
> academy and media appear to have all but abandoned
> vulnerable people -- Muslims, as well as
> Christians, Jews, and Hindus to the forces of
> reactionary Islamism.
>
> 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." Postmodernist ways of thinking have
> also led feminists to believe that confronting
> narratives on the academic page is as important
> and world-shattering as confronting jihadists in
> the flesh and rescuing living beings from captivity.
>
> <SNIP>
>
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--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd.
55-13-202 Miyagaya, Nishi-ku
Yokohama 220-0006, JAPAN
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