The discussion is getting more absurd as it continues, and I’m short on time today, so I’m not planning to wade into it again, but one tweet addressed to me does seem worth disputing, because it encapsulates a trope that’s being recycled a lot.
Beard Nihilist @borednihilist
One can dislike Islam as a religion, as both I and @OpheliaBenson do, but criticizing an individual woman’s choices seems anti-feminist.
Really?
So if a couple of friends discuss a mutual friend who has made the “choice” to (say) marry a man who has repeatedly beaten her up, and the friends criticize her “choice”…that’s anti-feminist?
I don’t see it. Feminism isn’t agreeing with all women no matter what. Feminism isn’t endorsing every choice every woman makes no matter what. Feminism is in fact all about being critical of some choices and endorsing others.
If a woman makes the “choice” to become a Quiverfull Christian, or an obedient, anti-birth control, anti-abortion, anti-ordination of women Catholic, or an ardent fan of Sarah Palin or Ann Coulter…It’s not anti-feminist to criticize her choices.
Feminism is substantive. It considers some things better than other things. That’s the point of it. That means it is going to be critical of some choices, including some choices made by some women. I’ve been critical of the choices made by Phyllis Schlafly for decades; ditto Anita Bryant; ditto Laura Bush. That’s not anti-feminist.
That’s the broad general point, but there’s a narrower one that should perhaps be even more obvious. What was at issue in this discussion wasn’t just an individual woman’s choices, but an individual woman’s public writing about her choices. Her discursive essay on the subject; her arguments; her goal of persuasion; her advertisement and promotion of her choices. I don’t mean advertisement and promotion in a pejorative sense, just a descriptive one – she was laying out her point of view on a subject to make some points. That’s often what people are doing when they write; it’s usually what I’m doing when I write; there is nothing whatever wrong with that. But it is what it is: it’s about persuasion and/or argument.
So how could it possibly be anti-feminist to reply to it or comment on it or dispute it?
It seems to me it’s a great deal more anti-feminist to claim that feminist women can’t dispute other women’s claims because feminism means never criticizing an individual woman’s choices or even her blog posts about her individual choices.
It goes with the trope that every-damned-thing a woman does is “empowering” including pole dancing and working as a Playboy bunny.
This is beautifully put. Thank you.
If you mean that part of feminism is to consider wearing a Hijab a worse choice than other personal choices made by women. Why does it sound like you are proving Hijabinist’s original point about Feminism having Islamophobia of its own?
Could you re-phrase that so that it’s clearer?
@vexorian
‘islamophobia’ is a word intended to prevent useful discussion. Please use a term with a clear meaning, for example, ‘criticism of Islamic teachings/customs’ or ‘demonisation of Muslims’, or whatever you feel is appropriate yet descriptive, so that your point is clearer.
I still go back to this article on Feminist Current, on exactly this issue. It’s a few years old, so you might have seen it already, but I thought I’d drop the link.
Quote: “As of late, though, it has become standard to talk about ‘choice’ in terms of individual choice rather than collective choice (and collective freedom). As though ‘MY CHOICE’ could not possibly affect anyone in the world except for the individual who is making it. And, as though ‘HER CHOICE’ can somehow negate any justifiable criticism or questioning of said choice or the context within which said choice was made. Used in this context, it is a way a shutting down the conversation. And where would feminism be (and where will it go) without conversation and critique?”
One can dislike Islam as a religion, as both I and @OpheliaBenson do, but criticizing an individual woman’s choices seems anti-feminist.
So no woman could have criticised Margaret Thatcher? Or Sarah Palin? The choices some make can effect the choices other women are allowed to make.
‘islamophobia’ is a word intended to prevent useful discussion. Please use a term with a clear meaning, for example, ‘criticism of Islamic teachings/customs’ or ‘demonisation of Muslims’, or whatever you feel is appropriate yet descriptive, so that your point is clearer.
Amnesty’s report on anti-Muslim bigotry refrained from using ‘Islamophobia’ for this reason.
Incidentally, big difference between criticising a choice someone makes and denying them that choice.
@Vexorian
Maybe it sounds like that to you because that is what you’re looking for. It’s not as though Ms Benson hasn’t outlined her thoughts on hijabs very specifically in the last few days. It’s not as though anyone throwing the Islamophobe accusation at her has given any rationale for concluding that irrational fears are in play when a feminist atheist has an issue with a religious rule that subjects women to more limitations than men.
When an individual woman’s choices support the exact crap we’re fighting against, I’d say the rest of us have every right (perhaps even an obligation) to point out the harms that are done by making that choice.
Nobody is saying “you can’t do X”.
What is being said is, “you are free to do X, but by doing X you are supporting Y, and here is why that’s a bad thing.”
How, precisely, is that “anti-feminist”?
This is just a moral relativist farce.
As I pointed out last night, for all the pretending that hijab has no inherent meaning, the non-Muslim apologists never seriously consider wearing one themselves. It a garment linked almost exclusively to one patriarchal religion, with some minority cases of wearing hijab due to cultural or political identity.
Even if they called my bluff and did wear one, the non-Muslims would be instantly accused of ‘hijab-tourism’ by an entirely different group of stakeholders, again showing the intense values the garment represents.
Anyone pretending the hijab is simply whatever person X says it is is in complete denial about how symbolism works.
@11 – Yes – thank you – I spent like half an hour trying to articulate that before giving up and refreshing the page.
NP, debbaasseerr.
If Feminism isn’t supposed to criticize women, it must only criticize men. Which instantly turns feminism into the stereotype people have been projecting onto it all this time. Brilliant!
In a BBC documentary, The Making of the Modern Arab World, liberal intellectual Egyptians were observing that as the Muslim Brotherhood gained sway, the hijab became more and more common. At Nasser’s funeral in 1970 very few women were wearing them. So it’s not a meaningless garment, chosen at individual whim.
As secularism and liberalism have died, the hijab has flourished.
@WMDKitty — Survivor
Very well said. I wish I could have articulated something so succinct last night, instead of getting drawn into a pointless exchange.
Sure. The hijab has been hotly contested in many (or most or all?) majority-Muslim countries for decades. Ataturk banned it, Khomeini imposed it, and on and on.
The blogger (who doesn’t give a name, and calls herself “hijabinist” on Twitter, which is gross – reduce yourself to your headgear why doncha) didn’t say why she wears the hijab, despite putting it front and center in what she wrote. She seems to take it for granted that “making a choice” to convert to Islam entails wearing hijab, but of course it doesn’t.
‘What is being said is, “you are free to do X, but by doing X you are supporting Y, and here is why that’s a bad thing.”’
That is beautifully succinct and of course applies to other things besides feminism.
I don’t think an environmentalist would be impressed by “it’s my choice to own 3 gas guzzling cars” as a final conclusive argument, or it’s my choice to go and buy aphrodisiacs made out of rhinoceros horn.
Claims of that type are actually very popular in the US, which drives me crazy. “It’s nobody’s business what kind of car I drive/how fast I drive/whether I eat veal or not/etc.” But not usually in lefty circles. But for some reason in feminism the trope has caught on.
So far we have had “you can’t criticize any woman’s choices” and “you can’t criticize religion” on this topic. What’s next, a blanket “sit down and shut up, woman”?
@ 3 vexorian
I don’t deny the existence of Islamophobia. I have certainly come across people who seem to have an irrational hatred of Muslims.
But the charge of Islamophobia can only be sustained if there are reasonable grounds to believe that Ophelia is applying a different standard to Muslims than the people of any other religion. I’m not aware of any evidence of this, but there is certainly evidence to the contrary. She appears to be entirely consistent in criticising religions that teach that women have a special duty to be “modest” that men do not. Why would you assume she criticises veiling because it is Islamic, rather than because it is patriarchal?