The peace movement lost a foe in Reagan but has gone on to find new friends in today’s Stop the War movement. Women pushing their children in buggies bearing the familiar symbol of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament marched last weekend alongside banners proclaiming “We are all Hezbollah now” and Muslim extremists chanting “Oh Jew, the army of Muhammad will return.”
For Linda Grant, the novelist, who says that “feminism” is the one “ism” she has not given up on, it was a shocking sight: “What you’re seeing is an alliance of what used to be the far left with various Muslim groups and that poses real problems. Saturday’s march was not a peace march in the way that the Ban the Bomb marches were. Seeing young and old white women holding Hezbollah placards showed that it’s a very different anti-war movement to Greenham. Part of it feels the wrong side is winning.”
As a supporter of the peace movement in the 1980s, I could never have imagined that many of the same crowd I hung out with then would today be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with militantly anti-feminist Islamic fundamentalist groups, whose views on women make western patriarchy look like a Greenham peace picnic. Nor would I have predicted that today’s feminists would be so indulgent towards Iran, a theocratic nation where it is an act of resistance to show an inch or two of female hair beneath the veil and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not joking about his murderous intentions towards Israel and the Jews.
On the defining issue of our times, the rise of Islamic extremism, what is left of the sisterhood has almost nothing to say. Instead of “I am woman, hear me roar”, there is a loud silence, punctuated only by remonstrations against Tony Blair and George Bush — “the world’s number one terrorist” as the marchers would have it.
The author concludes that today's women's movement is "missing in action"; but I think she is being kind for old time's sake. The real problem with modern feminists is that they really are all Hezbollah now--as well as Hamas and Al Qaeda--in every important way.
Today's feminists face a fundamental contradiction between what they say they stand for, and how they actually behave. The women's movement bought into the fundamental premises that motivate the terrorists a long time ago when they adopted the marxist worldview and embraced the victim role; infusing the movement with postmodern rhetoric and politics to further their agenda. And so, they must either acknowledge their symbiosis with terrorism and accept the reality that they have no major philosophical differences with terrorists; or alternatively, deal with the contradictions of the dead-end ideology that underlies both movements.
One could justifiably wonder why some feminists--at least the ones who actually bother to think for themselves, instead of blindly following their blatantly socialist leaders-- may be coming to this realization after all these years?
Better late than never, I suppose. Developing psychological insight and awareness of one's own motivations and biases is an important aspect of maturing and taking responsibility for one's own life.
I wrote in this earlier post on the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of today's left:
...the Feminist Movement of today is a bizarre parody of the women's movement that once supported and encouraged women like me back in the 70's. Like the mother I mentioned above, this group has now become outraged that I and others like me have excelled and dared to have my own ideas about how things should be in the world. Dared to disagree with them. Dared to grow up and live my own life.
Feminists today are not happy campers. In fact, as women advanced and made real progress and became less discriminated against; broke those glass ceilings etc., the feminists that once cheered them on became more and more shrill and irritable. Women’s success and achievement of equality of opportunity meant that the feminist movement itself was becoming irrelevant! That is when the rhetoric began to change. That is when the IDEA of freedom transformed into the IDEOLOGY of victimhood.
Where once they wanted to erase the real barriers that prevented women from being all they could be; now, the feminists demanded that reality itself must bow to their demands. They insist that real biological or physiological differences between women and men don’t exist and that to address these differences is blatant sexism. They have basically identified reality itself as one of the key “oppressors” of women.
To demonstrate their growing estrangement from reality, the American public was subjected to the ridiculous image of a feminist academic actually swooning at the mere mention of the possibility that such biological differences might play a role in women’s lives. You can't make such self-parody up.
Now I ask you. Haven't these women become totally irrelevant? And not only are they irrelevant, but they stand in the way of any real research, understanding, and progress that in the long-run might advance the cause of all women.
To the leaders of today's socialist, anti-war, anti-American, anti-freedom, anti-capitalist, anti-Israeli and truly anti-human feminists, I have only this to say:
You now stand voluntarily on the side of monsters who not only oppose any progess for women rights, but who believe firmly that women are no better than dogs and animals; and are only good for breeding. They and their brothers have deliberately subjugated, oppressed, and humiliated women, stripping them of individuality and rights, just to enhance their own inadequate and pathetic masculinity. If ever there was need of a women's movement, it is to combat this kind of evil in the world.
Instead, you have effectively transformed yourself into a terrorism cheerleading squad, supporting a sick, sexist, racist and morally bankrupt medieval culture.
If you are truly opposed to the victimization and brutalization of women around the world--and in particular under the brutality of Islamic fundamentalism--then you must be willing to confront and correct all those flawed premises that are motivating your betrayal of all that you once said you stood for.
Personally, I don't think you have either the intellectual or moral courage to do it.
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