Feminists Protest Against Liberating Women

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http://www.cblpolicyinstitute.org/feministsiraq.htm

 

OK. Those feminists have a problem. The Iraqi MUST be freed from such [INSERT SOMETHING HERE] even, if it means supporting Bush. I'll stop, beofre I swear an oath to murder those perverts in Iraq.

Stalks off, while sharpening Carsomyr

 

Why am I not surprised...?

 

The Code Pink/NOW types of feminist subcultures don't speak for the majority of feminists. They seem to think they do, and that they have the right to police the thoughts of more progressive feminist scholars. I wish we could stop dignifying them with the once-noble name of "Feminist". They are giving the rest of us a bad name.

 

I have never had much respect for NOW; their habit of ignoring the plight of some women to further their political goals is perfectly displayed by this article. REAL feminsts care about all women; political whackos, well, we just saw what they do.

 

Don't forget that NOW also advocated using the post-partum depression argument in Andrea Yates' defense. Talk about setting women's rights back 100 years with a single stroke!

 

Alright, I just got around to reading the article, and why isn't anyone else talking about what a god awful source it is? Did anyone else not think that there was a single piece of support in that diatribe or wonder at the very short quotes and wonder about how they were being twisted out of context to support what is obviously a predetermined conclusion?

Look at the website. Its stated purpose is: "to prepare young women for effective conservative leadership and to promote school choice opportunities for all K-12 children in America." The stated mission of this site coupled with what strikes me as a long line of hyperbole leads me to doubt anything that they could right with regards to a feminist agenda they are obviously adverse to.

Take a look at other articles on the website. There is one about how Take your daughter to work day is "breeding victimology in girls and leaving boys behind in the name of equality." Another article claims that NOW "rejects plans that would give financial freedom" nevermind that social security privatization is highly complex and no less celebrated ERISA and Social Security experts such as Stein oppose privatization. There is the obligatory article attacking Hilary Clinton, scratch that, there are two. There is an article praising Rush Limbaugh and attacking the NEA (didn't bother reading the whole thing, once I saw where it says the NEA is advising that teachers teach that no one group is responsible for Sept 11th in quotes, and then goes to non-quotes to say 'except America' I stopped. See, that's how they work, they take a quote and then combine it with an unsupported assertion to make it appear that the person/group they are attacking have adopted an untenable position.)

Looking closer at the particular article -- there is nothing in the first paragraph other than unsupported diatribe that feminists support the subjection of Iraqi women to brutality. The second paragraph takes a couple of short quotes that are obviously out of context and, well, that's about it. The next paragraph (skipping the one sentence above it that stands alone) quotes NOW's president as decrying what she considers to be Bush's disregard for international law and the loss of American civil liberties. Notice how that quote has nothing to do with the state of women in Iraq and how there is no indication it came from any discussion touching on the matter? The next paragraph goes on to state that feminists would rather allow torture of women in Iraq than support Bush, doesn't this scream false dichotomy? The next paragraph talks about some of the horrors Iraqi women face but once again, in no way indicates feminists support this. The next paragraph wants to take a quote where NOW stated that in secular Iraq the welfare for lot for women is better than it is in Saudi Arabia. Well, duh! Remember the short lived outrage of the Saudi girls being burned in a school because they weren't allowed outside unless dressed correctly? Well, guess what, women in Iraq probably are better off than women in Saudi Arabia or other nations nearby. This is because Iraq is secular. Does this mean that NOW and others support the torture of women in Iraq simply because they want to point out how ridiculous it is to suggest that action in the middle east is due to women's rights -- otherwise Saudi Arabia would be our first target? In the rest of the article there is no support, merely conclusory statements which we all know the targeted feminists would deny.

Step back a second. Look through the threads on this page. Look to what France, Germany etc are saying regarding the now imminent conflict. Then go back to the article. Can't you take every quote attributed to NOW or others in the article and find a similar quote either here on this site or in the news from France or Germany? Everyone here who has written or thought that the conflict in Iraq shouldn't occur unilaterally, does that mean that you support the torture of women? No, of course not. But I guarantee you a similar hatchet job could be done to you if you wrote these thoughts down on paper.

While I may not agree with NOW and their sisters, that site was disgustingly misleading.

[ March 18, 2003, 04:34: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

I hear what you're saying about the source, Laches, and I agree with you that they aren't the best source of unbiased information on what mainstream feminists/NOW are up to.

But I still agree with them that Code Pink is a co-opting of the feminist cause for an unrelated issue. It's part and parcel of the way NOW has created an umbrella of other beliefs you need to subscribe to in order to be a "real" feminist: you must be a socialist, pro-union, pro-abortion, etc. Now you have to be anti-Iraqi-war too. If you want a more unbiased source, Code Pink apologists speak for themselves in the current issue of the Utne Reader. It doesn't sound any more appealing from their own mouths.

In my college days, when the definition of feminist was more generally along the lines of "commitment to improving gender equality around the world", the organisations like NOW were screaming their heads off that we needed to go into Afghanistan with guns blazing and burn every burkha in the country. I wonder where those writers are now? In a pod under Gloria Steinem's bed?