UPDATE: This article appeared on the new HuffPo, and after writing this piece I realized I’d criticized the identical article a year ago, here. Well, so I’ve done it twice. My takes aren’t the same, so if you haven’t read the other one, read this one instead. Better yet, read both, as the earlier piece, which is shorter, has other information about the “feminism” of sharia law. The piece shows that PuffHo is brain-dead, killed by Toxic Regressive Leftism.
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Well, I’m sorry folks, but, like a dog returning to its own vomit, I keep returning to the HuffPo, breaking my vow that I was done with them. The laws of physics dictated otherwise: I could not have done other than write this post. And my also-determined justification for returning to that odious site is that HuffPo may be the premier “clicky” source of news for Lefties, since it is puffier and takes less work to read than, say, the New York Times. Also, the Times is more objective, and even has conservative columnists, so if you’re a Trump-hater or Regressive Leftist who wants confirmation of your biases rather than exercise for your brain, you can reliably find that confirmation at HuffPo.
And here’s their latest, one of the most egregious pieces of doublespeak that I’ve seen, even on that site (click on screenshot to go to the article):
Doesn’t that remind you of headlines like “Assad is the true peacemaker” or “Trump is the true progressive”?
Author Gabby Aossey’s claim is that Muslims are the True Feminists because they choose to respect their bodies by covering them, while Western Feminists disrespect their own bodies by showing their skin. Why, there’s even a Free the Nipple campaign in the West, which according to Aoussey exemplifies the goals of Western Feminists: to show skin. As she says:
As American women, many of us have an idea of what feminists are; freelancing women with all the sexual freedom in the world. But this is exactly the problem with American feminism; it is all about sex and the liberation of our bodies. Certainly, things like abortion and contraception is a part of that freedom, but in today’s society the fight has taken on a much different tone.
Hip Feminist campaigns like Free the Nipple only encourage a gullible behavior of disrespect for our own bodies, leading to everyone else around us disrespecting our bodies as well. If we want to be respected as women and taken seriously in all our endeavors we should look to a new source; Muslim women. Muslim women, as well as Muslim men, see every body as a sacred temple, especially the female body. Opposed to exposing themselves, it is through modesty. When we think of modern feminists we should stray away from the new American trends and start looking to what we have always thought as a contradiction; Muslim feminists.
That’s a gross distortion of feminism in the West, whose goal is, for most, simple equality. While that equality includes the freedom to dress as one will in public, it also includes legal and moral equality: the right to be treated with as much respect as men, and to enjoy the same legal rights.
Now Aossey is willfully ignorant of several things. One, of course, is the fact that Muslim-majority countries, many of them governed by versions of sharia law—which DICTATES that women cover themselves—oppress women. But don’t take my word for it. Observe that in Saudi Arabia, a woman can’t go out with a man who is not her relative, or go out unaccompanied, must wear full covering (not just a hijab) when she does to out, and can’t even drive. In Iran and Afghanistan, women MUST cover themselves, and under sharia law have much more restricted legal rights than men (for one thing, their testimony in court is worth only half of a man’s).
And it’s not limited to those countries. Check out the 2013 Pew Survey of Muslim-majority countries (which didn’t even survey more repressive ones like Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia). Here are some statistics showing the “achievements” of Muslim feminism in the Muslim world:
Even the notion that wearing a veil should be a woman’s choice (in principle, of course!) is universally accepted only in a few Muslim-majority countries, and is widely rejected in Africa and the Middle East (note the absence of Iran and Saudi Arabia):
Here’s true equality!:
Women’s oppression is codified in most instantiations of sharia law. Here are the data on those who favor such a law for everyone in Muslim-majority lands. Feminism my tuchas!
To buttress her flawed argument, Aossey calls up the image of Khadija, Muhammad’s first wife, by all accounts a powerful and independent woman. But that was fourteen hundred years ago! Are women in Saudi Arabia and Iran allowed to have such power now? Are they allowed to say whatever they want? You know the answer. Pointing to historical figures whose personalities may be largely fictional is no way to justify Muslim women as feminists today. That much is obvious.
And what happens to Muslim women who become liberals, leave the faith, or speak out against Islam’s oppression of women: liberals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Asra Nomani, or Sarah Haider? Are they heroes, like Khadija? You know the answer. They’re vilified—vilified for opposing the legal and cultural inferiority of women under Islam. People like Aossey ignore this in their mush-brained desire to claim that Muslim women are feminists.
And then there’s the small matter of the hijab. Here’s Aossey’s take:
. . . it’s no surprise to see Muslim woman today modeling themselves after these prominent female figures. Muslim girls look towards these instances of strength for guidance in this scary, patriarchal society. These modern women are not afraid to go against the grain in the name of their belief like wearing the hijab to covey their religious devotion. Hijab is the headscarf that is worn by Muslim woman and no; it is not supposed to be forced on them by their fathers and husbands. Wearing or not wearing the Hijab reflects a Muslim woman’s own a personal choice.
What nonsense! In several countries wearing the hijab (or more covering) is the law, not personal choice, and if you refuse, the morality police will beat some sense into you. In other places, including the U.S. and Europe, social pressure by family and peers ensures that veiling is far from a personal “choice”. I’ve written before about what women’s dress was like in places like Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran before veiling was either common or mandatory. Answer: women didn’t veil as much, and showed a lot more skin. See my posts here, here, here, and here. These days, women must go on websites like My Stealthy Freedom to covertly doff their veils, for they don’t want to wear them!
And remember why veiling exists: it’s based on the presumption that women have to cover themselves to avoid exciting the uncontrollable lust of men, men who would rape them if they saw a knee or even a stray wisp of hair. It puts the onus on women, not men, to prevent sexual assault, and that’s not feminism. In fact, feminists always make the point, correctly, that it’s not women’s responsibility to quash male lust, and they’re right. “Feminist” Aossey, however, has bought into the oppression side:
With all of the pressures in our American society to have a certain physical allure; to have long, luscious hair, a skinny yet curvy body, flawless facial beauty, woman go through hell. With this, we succumb to the pressures that we generally think we are free of; we oppress our natural womanhood with constant worry about how we look to others around us. We do not have the courage to stand up to this societal critique and say ‘my body is not to be ogled at’.
For many Muslim women however, they strive to achieve just that. In this way, they liberate themselves from these everyday pressures. They actually have the courage to say hey, I am not an object of pleasure, I am a woman that commands only respect for who I am and not how I look. They have the power to self-liberate as well as the courage to diverge from the American norms. And they do not get attention from showing off their figure, but they get attention by how they present themselves. Muslim woman get respect and are looked at beyond aesthetics; they are actually taken seriously in their communities.
Isn’t this what feminism should be? Don’t women deserve consistent respect and to actually be listened to without drools or criticisms over our bodies and looks?
That is what the results of feminism should be, but veiling doesn’t achieve that result. Read two articles (this and this) to see how covering a woman does not prevent sexual assault. As Grania said when she saw Aossey’s piece (which, by the way, doesn’t allow readers’ comments):
It’s the woman’s responsibility to protect her temple from the assault of the eyes of evil men who are such dogs that they cannot be trusted. What I want to know is why these candidates for a brain donation aren’t arguing for the full-on niqab? Surely that is the logical next step.
Indeed! Aossey finishes her piece with more nonsense, as if repeating lies makes them more credible:
I realized we have been conditioned to think that American women are the free and that Muslim women are the suppressed, but this is twisted to me. I finally understood who is really oppressed by a patriarchal society and it is us. Woman who wear hijab have freed themselves from a man’s and a society’s judgmental gaze; the Free the Nipplers have not. They have fallen deep into the man’s world, believing that this trend will garner respect.
So I urge my Free the Nipple gal pals to take a look at your Muslim sisters and collaborate with them to create a feminism that treats the female body as a temple and not as a toy. Let us see feminism in a different light—through modesty and the courage to savor our sugar. Let us call on the Muslim feminists of the world.
The female body is not a temple, nor is the male’s. It’s the product of natural selection—the same selection that made us desire members of the other sex.
And can Aossey go out alone, or have an unchaperoned date, or drive? I think so, for she lives in America, not Saudi Arabia. Can she wear anything she wants in public? I think so, for she lives in America, not Iran or Afghanistan. Is her testimony equal in value to a man’s in a court of law? Yes, because she lives in America, not the Middle East. By equating feminism with “modesty”—a modesty forced on women by MEN, often against women’s will—Aossey manages to at once misconstrue and devalue the kind of feminism that calls for simple freedom and equality for women.
I wonder why Aossey doesn’t move to Saudi Arabia, where she must wear a sack so she isn’t oppressed by the “patriarchy.” She’s made the HuffPo look even more stupid and regressive than it already is, and that’s a feat!
h/t: Patrick, Grania
