Gender Apartheid- – Not Our Agenda. (Updated: A Universal Doctrine of Women’s Rights)

By Phyllis Chesler and Marcia Pappas

Gender Apartheid- – Not Our Agenda.

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The issue of Islamic/Islamist gender apartheid is one of epidemic and global proportions. Although it has reached American shores, the feminist establishment here remains tragically ambivalent about how to deal with forced veiling, arranged marriage, separatism, and honor-related violence, including honor killings. Many feminists fear that, were they to tie the subordination of women to a particular religion or culture, especially to Islam, that they would be perceived as “racists,” or “Islamophobes.” This fear trumps their sincere concern for womens’ rights and womens’ lives.

The issue, quite simply, is whether or not non-Muslim white folks can discuss Muslim-on-Muslim crime or black-on-black crime or whether only people who share the same faith and skin-color are allowed to raise this issue.

The issue is also whether American feminists really support an American foreign policy, which both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have indicated can or should be tied to womens’ rights. Feminists viewed President Bush’s post 9/11 invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as morally outrageous and as far more hurtful to Afghan and Iraqi women than was their pre-existing subjugation. Some feminists believed that women had been better off, at least, in Iraq, before the American invasion. We may disagree with this analysis but, nevertheless, why would American feminists hesitate to condemn crimes against women which are being committed on American soil by immigrants, including Muslims, from Third World countries?

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A Universal Doctrine of Women’s Rights.

It is time for feminists, both women and men, of all faiths, and of no faith, to stand together for a womans’ right not to be murdered in the name of family honor. Indeed, we welcome men and women of all faiths, including Islam, to stand with us against female genital mutilation/castration, forced veiling, child marriage, arranged marriage, polygamy, and “honorcide,” and in favor of a woman’s right to live as a westerner in the West without being threatened and beaten for refusing to wear hijab, wanting to have non-Muslim friends, wear makeup, attend college, drive her own car, or end an abusive marriage. Muslim and Sikh women have been honor murdered in North America for all these alleged crimes against their religion and their culture.

Here are some specific examples of how American feminist leaders have addressed the problems of Third World women, including Muslim women, both here and abroad. Despite exceptions, most feminists seem to feel more comfortable criticizing their own government. They hesitate to criticize foreign, Third World governments, lest they be demonized as “crusaders” or “politically incorrect racists.”

In the 1980s, feminists respected Alice Walker’s brave stand against female genital cutting/mutilation. Walker focused on perpetrators who were usually women of color, in the Middle East and Africa, who were savagely mutilating their own daughters and granddaughters to render them “marriageable” for men. As an African-American legend, perhaps Walker was viewed as morally “entitled” to criticize foreign, including African, sexism. (Walker finally published her book about this, Warrior Marks, in 1993). NOW national and state Presidents also spoke out against female genital cutting/mutilation in the 1990s…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>