How dare we

I’m seeing lots of consternation and alarm at the fact that some of us disagree with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Dear Muslima or Fallacy of Relative Deprivation or Not serve you cake or Who does the dishes question. How dare we disagree with Ayaan HA on anything, don’t we understand how much worse it is in Somalia or Bangladesh or Saudi Arabia than it is here?

Well, that’s a fatuous question, for a start. Of course we do. I for one write and post about it all the time. But I also write and post about other things. That’s all there is to it, really – we can pay attention to more than one thing, and it’s really not up to Ayaan HA to decide what we’re allowed to pay attention to. [Read more…]

They have faces

More.

d. winny ‏@winmitchxxtk  34 minutes ago
Elizabeth Nyangarora #147notjustanumber #TheyHaveNames

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Elizabeth Nyangarora

d. winny ‏@winmitchask 36 minutes ago
Dadly Mose #147notjustanumber #TheyHaveNames

Dadly Mose

d. winny ‏@winmitchklyv 1 hour ago
Tonie Wangu #147notjustanumber #TheyHaveNames http://notforgotten.co.ke/

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Tonie Wangu

Like what? Who does the dishes at home?

The Daily Beast talks to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and gets yet another scornful Dear Muslima out of her. We get it, Ayaan: you have contempt for feminists in the US. Thanks a lot for the solidarity.

There’s an argument, which I’m sure you’ve heard, that Western women face their own forms of oppression, which are different but may be just as bad, or almost as bad—

Like what? Who does the dishes at home? That’s what it boils down to: How can we balance work-life. [Read more…]

The wages of revenge porn

Revenge porn extortionist Kevin Christopher Bollaert was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Friday for posting naked pictures of women online and demanding money to take them down.

Eight women told Superior Court Judge David Gill how they were victimized by having the pictures appear on the website.

One woman said she received 400 messages on social media after the pictures were shown. She said she was forced to quit college and seek help in a mental hospital.

[Read more…]

It can always get worse

Daesh has overrun the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.

Reports of killings and even beheadings were beginning to circulate on Saturday, worsening what is already a longstanding humanitarian nightmare for the 18,000 residents of the Yarmouk refugee camp.

This won’t end well.

[T]he move suggests that as the Islamic State loses ground in Iraq and northeastern Syria, the most daring response it could muster on the ground was to attack one of the most vulnerable populations in Syria.

Most of all, the attack was a perverse answer to the question of how life in Yarmouk could get worse. Many residents’ very presence there is a scar from a previous war; they are descended from Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war over Israel’s founding.

[Read more…]

Guest post

Originally a comment by Chris Lawson on The worst the Christian community can do in America.

The problem with the Dear Muslima argument:

1. “Dear Muslima” implies that one should only combat the world’s worst examples of a problem and never the less dramatic examples of the same problem immediately around us.

2. “Dear Muslima” minimises the importance of mild and moderate aspects of a problem by asserting that they’re not worth tackling. [Read more…]