Feminism is an exaggerated stretch
Posted on 01. Mar, 2011 by Tarik Jan in Opinion
By Tarik Jan
As one of the central issues of our times, feminism is seemingly an exaggerated stretch of what is fair, just, and equitable. And like any other exaggeration, it has its nemesis in the antithesis it creates. Started in response to the dialectics of the Enlightenment era as women’s rights within the societal ambit it has now degenerated into a movement of negation and a cry of angst against what it considers as structural brutality to women.
But despite its shrilling note and an ostentatious oneness, it has diverse permutations that speak of its problems rather than positive diversity.
It would however be unfair to say that it met no success. Both liberals and conservatives in the West have accepted its agenda insofar as it related to allowing women suffrage, property rights, and equal job opportunity, even though these successes were part of the democratic dispensation, which was inevitable in the process of time. Its real success will come though when it would make headway in abolishing patriarchy and marriage, the principal plank of its radical program.
From all counts both are almost impossible to be realized as they are fully entrenched in human nature, supported by utility, social efficiency, morality, and above all honored by time and the wisdom accumulated down the ages in its memory.
What compounds the feminists’ problems are that their alternative suggestions are not only ugly but also distasteful, grotesquely bizarre and even laughable. For instance, in place of marriage between the sexes the radical feminists suggest lesbian relations, against patriarchy they propose matriarchy. Never mind the absence of matriarchy or the lesbianism as institutions in the repository of human experience the feminists are adamantly stuck in their groove for they have nothing else to say – their argument is fragile leaving behind laughable pretty phrases in the feminist literature. For instance, read Monique Wittig “one is not born a woman,” that the sex categories of man and woman are false manufactures of society, even “imaginary formation.” Did matriarchy ever exist? Wittig suggests invent it.
With a Cervantes’ vein in her she suggests overpowering “man as a class for once men disappear women as a class will disappear as well, for “there are no slaves without masters.” Her great classic Les Guèrillères (1976) crosses the limits of absurd, though shining with a prose bordering on poetry: “You say there are no words to describe this time, you say it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent.”
Wittig is not an exception. There is a whole repertoire of phrasal expressions which they use. For example, embrace lesbianism to defeat patriarchy (Rita Mae Brown). Or by default go for sluthood; marriage is legalized prostitution (Mary Wollstonecraft), or the impossibility like detached unemotional women (Suheir Hammad); patriarchy is mythical, developed by domesticating animals (Elizabeth Fisher) and so is heterosexuality which is forced (Adrienne Rich and Charlotte Bunch); the abstract notion that the female can exist without the male (Shulamith Firestone) – in other words they are femisogynist, women by themselves; that the women listening to their biology and tying themselves in matrimonial relationship are accepting slavery, reminiscent of the bourgeois and proletarian equation of brutality and exploitation (Marx and Engels and their female followers). Besides, women can dilute the patriarchal hold by their refusal to give paternity right to men (Germaine Greer). Absurdist of all, religion is patriarchal (Mary Daly).
The feminists themes are mostly faked, rich in imaginary, wrapped in warm as well caustic idiom (e.g., Betty Friedan’s lavender menace), and passionately argued, occasionally tiring for their polemicist texture and exuberant redundancy.
Asma Aftab has done a good job by surveying some of the feminist literature. She has left though some influential works which have shaped the feminist mind in the West like Mary Daly’s Beyond God the Father – Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation; Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics; Juliet Mitchell’s Women the Largest Revolution, and her Women’s Estate; Maggie Humm’s Modern Feminism; Sheila Row Botham’s Woman’s Consciousness, Men’s World; Naomi Wolf’s Fire with Fire; Alice S. Rossi’s The Feminist Papers – From Adams to de Beauvoir and so forth.
The Pakistani Feminist version, which Asma Aftab has dealt at the end, is an awkward development in our society which chews Western themes and need to be exposed further. For example, if Shulamith Firestone (The Case for Feminist Revolution)happens to readKishwar Naheed’s and Fehmida Riaz’s poetry she will be surprised to see her low-grade image in their work. The two may have superficial likeness with Firestone as they belong to the same aberration that ran its course as Marxism in human history. Firestone was though original in the sense that she went beyond Marxism by suggesting that it was important to look beneath the economics of surplus value and means of production to find the capitalist structure resting on sex-class conflict. She blames the female biology for its being unfair, its barbaric pregnancy, which Kishwar Naheed also does.
Or, for example read Kate Millet’s views on the women’s forced silence in a patriarchal construct (A Vindication of Rights): “I’m slammed with an identity that can no longer say a word; mute with responsibility” has its reverberation in the poems of Naheed and Riaz cited by Asma Aftab at the end of her work.
Or, read Germaine Greer say: “If independence is a necessary concomitant of freedom, women must not marry.”
The only difference between the two brands of feminism is that while the West is fluid and dynamic moving beyond the vocabulary of the 1970s, the Pakistani labeled feminism is an echo from the past still chewing the jargons and clichés of the seventies. That it is Betty Friedan’s approach to the feminist scene in U.S. that has become the new face of the feminist movement that does not deny motherhood to women or denigrate the marriage institution perhaps they do not know. There are also voices within the feminist movement calling for respecting the fact that sex roles are genetically determined. Studies after studies are confirming that marriage and children are good for the parents and that the children born to such parents are doing better on a wide range of social indicators (McLanahan and Sandefar, 1994). In a large base study conducted by two prominent academics involving 5000 married and non-married individuals in twenty U.S. cities, 83 percent of mothers were romantically linked with their children’s fathers. All of them were pro-marriage (Sara McLanahan and Irv Garfinkel, 2001, cited by Gordon Bulin in his report to the Senate’s Sub Committee of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, may 2004).
Contrary to this, our feminists are still warped in the time machine. Conditioned by the Marxist vision of social reality, they parrot the mantra that God and religion are dated concepts for they are irrational and exploitative – fixing women in the rigid definition of gender. To them, Marxism is rational and thus scientific and liberating. I wish they had read Albert Camus’ view on Marxism: Marxism, he wrote, is not scientific, it has scientific biases. Needless to say the French Noble laureate Camus belonged to the left.
Not surprisingly, our feminists slam Islam as retrogressive – a call from the past which has fallen discordant with the present. They nevertheless forget that the Western women got their suffrage rights in 1913 (in the U.S.) almost 1200 years after the Muslim women; property rights in 1839 again with almost the same lag.
Muslim women had also something else for which the Western women had to fight – they had the right to deny the law of coverture that banded husband and wife into one common law entity represented alone by the husband. Muslim women had their separate person, keeping their money to themselves. They could also retain their pre-marital names even after marriage.
Unfortunately, the feminists all over the world see a world full of strife, each trying to outlast the other; oblivious of the crucial fact that everything in nature is running by the law of interdependence and cooperation, each having its own distinct role to play. If humans are part of this universe, which they are, then they have to be team players configuring into an organic whole, at peace with one another. The science verdict is that it is a bio-friendly universe; there is symmetry and a systematic elegance to it; otherwise, life would not have been possible. Against such a background of cumulative existence, feminism has to reconsider its basic premises.
In Muslim societies feminism cannot be exclusionary – it has to be inclusionary embracing men as well, for they are not adversary to women but partners in goodness and well being. At the same time, it should affirm women’s uniqueness because they are the fount of life; the maker of families and civilization. Other than their biological makeup they are equal with men in all aspects. They are not men like either nor do they have to become men in order to receive their respect. They are their own person. They are women.
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qsami
01. Mar, 2011
The Prophet prophesied 1400 years ago that women would “… dress like men”. This is already manifesting in the modern feminist revolution. He also prophesied, “… women would be dressed and yet be naked”, indicating that the feminist revolution would spawn a sexual revolution that would culminate with people committing “… sexual intercourse in public like donkeys.” One has to be absolutely blind not to recognize that this prophecy is today fulfilled. Trinidad’s Carnival, for example, is now dominated by women many of whom are bent on parading their nakedness in a truly pagan public display of flesh and vulgarity. And many there must be who participated in Carnival yesterday, but who today turn away in disgust!
http://www.imranhosein.org/articles/women-in-islam/90-the-feminist-revolution-and-the-last-age.html
Rae Gingell
01. Mar, 2011
Original feminism was never about persecuting men, promiscuity or the active promotion of particular sexual preferences. The basis upon which women pursued the quest for equality was through the celebration of the power of women and our rights to take our place in the world which was and still is undeniably a patriarchal one. This original feminist movement was hi-jacked by upholders of patriarchy in the early 60s and feminism became what it is today. There are still some of the original feminists in the world who are intent on expressing the power of womanhood which most certainly is NOT anti-male. Sadly the manipulations which render true feminism almost obsolete are still in place.
Rehmat
01. Mar, 2011
The definition of 'Feminism' in Islam and the West are totally different. As Canadian Jewish academic Henry Makow PhD once wrote that in the West bikini symbolizes women liberation while in Muslim world it's burka-clad home-maker is called feminist.
If Islamic teachings really suppresses women aspirations – why the former dancer, singer, actress and model, Mary Habiba Davidson 27, after converting to Islam, left her successful “modern life-style”. She says: “There are certain thing that I would not do because of my religion now. I would not want to wear a bikini in one of my videos or sing something meaningless. My religion has not stopped me what I can do. It has helped pave my career. It has inspired me in my singing and the messages I want to spread about peace and love”. Her private company has been so successful that she was nominated for the “Business Personality of the Year 2009 Award”.
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/the-gender-jihad/
L.Mehdi
02. Mar, 2011
Feminism is simply the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. What right-thinking person could not be a feminist?
There are always people on the extreme edges of any movement, but those examples should not be used to discredit the movement. And examples not pertinent to the discussion only confuse the issue. (The public displays of sexual promiscuity at the Brazilian Carnival have nothing to do with feminism. In fact, feminists abhor the exploitation of the female body.)
All feminists really want, if you boil it down, is to be equal partners with men in life. Men are not the enemy – but social/cultural rules which allow men to lord over women in any or all walks of life are what feminists want to change. The majority of Western men are accepting of feminist ideas in that they treat women as equals. One reason for this is that most women have careers and have shown they are intellectually and emotionally capable of doing anything men can do. And a happy marriage is desired by both men and women. (Why is that a surprise for the author?) Muslim societies have different dynamics and different world views. But feminism has a place in the ongoing maturation of the societies. The rights of Muslim women vary from country to country and between the social classes within countries. There's capitalism at play, more than anything else, changing the nature of societies.
Misunderstandings of the essence of feminism and the spread of extremist notions do no good whatsoever. Neither do confusing feminism with sexual promiscuity and lesbianism. It's unfortunate that the author of the article presents such a derogatory view of such a positive way of thinking.
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02. Mar, 2011
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02. Mar, 2011
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Hard Truths
03. Mar, 2011
I'm sorry L. Mehdi, but you don't know of what you speak. You spout nice sounding, politically correct buzzwords of progressivism that paint a pretty picture but spell nothing of the ugly flipside of your crusade- *legions* of broken families, bitter distrust between genders, a disintegrating social fabric, feral children,infantilized adults. Like many modern minded people, you espouse something that works far better on paper in lecture halls & ivory towers than in reality itself.
Promiscuity has everything to do with feminism: single mother households (which have skyrocketed in the West after the sex revolution & women's lib) lack strong father figures. Such enviroments will breed imbalanced, self-destructive children: women who will sleep around & men who will act like thugs and be generally disrespectful; Half formed people who never had the strong bedrock of family life & will be dependant on the State. These issues are *deeply* connected to feminism and women's rights. Many Muslims look at the West and marvel at our behaviour. Here I lay at your feet one of the primary reasons for our rampant degeneracy.
Of course Women will deplore the so-called exploitation of the female form & sluthood in general but then they will parade it the very next second as one of their guaranteed rights. 'MY sexuality will not be controlled by any MALE', etc etc. Make no mistake- in the West you live in a virtual ambient noise of soft pornography, if not from the women in your life, than from the magazine covers,billboards, radios, television screens & other media ephemera that espouse the worship of the female & all her superficiality. Women shame themselves with such displays yet get mad when you point out how their own movement contradicts itself in areas such as these; you become a 'woman hater' and are accused of being the worst sort of monster, of wanting to enforce 'Sharia law'. Yet the sad truth remains, woman so often exploit themselves.
Rosycroix
20. Apr, 2011
However, it is very rare (almost impossible) for the same women who expose their bodies in magazines for instance to be against this kind of ‘self-exploitation’; in essence, feminists – as separate from the group mentioned above – are against this as well.
Nenge Mboko
03. Mar, 2011
Feminism, much like homosexuality, is the ultimate state of mental disorder.
X Feminist
03. Mar, 2011
I was an original charter member of NOW when it started in 1972! My entire goal was to have equal wages for equal work for women. The more I listened to these "enlightened" women I realized that most of them were lesbians who hated men, yet wanted to be one. It didn't take long to become a membership in the art of male castration. I guess I lasted about three months before I stopped attending the women's classes and NOW meetings!
I have watched our daughters turn into the ultimate sluts. I watch Hollywood teaching our children from age 6 on how to dress inappropriately and like little hookers! This is the end result of lesbiansim. If you can't convert little girls into whores, you will change them into men!
Disgusting, simply disgusting!
Hayden
03. Mar, 2011
Type your comment here…I'm seventy now. At age eleven Mom advised, "Just don't treat them as chattel."
Banderman
03. Mar, 2011
Feminista's are irrelevant as their message has become an unfair political sledge hammer. Women demand gender equality everywhere but the civil and legal systems. In those venues, women play the system like a violin, expecting to have their cake and eat it, too. After 60 years of non-stop, 'respect us for our minds, not our bodies' that is in direct opposition to their behaviror; I have had enough of hearing them yammer about their perpetual, self imposed victimhood.
Mike S
04. Mar, 2011
Feminism in the US is a complete disaster, men are 2nd class citizens whenever the police or courts are involved, women lie and use violence with impunity, men go to jail on a woman's whim. There is no equality of the sexes in the US, women get special handling with kid gloves every time.
shahid Awan
05. Mar, 2011
Type your comment here…
Tarik Jan makes a very sensible read. For sure, balance and moderation are the secret of life. Thanks. Awan
alex
06. Mar, 2011
Feminism is Marxism for gender (look up Gloria Steinem's connections to the CIA; The commnuist affiliations of many high profile women Lib spokespersons & who ultimately had a hand in fundeding the rotten shebang, all but shoving it down our throats- the Rockefellers & elite rich naturally). One more bit of social engineering to destroy self sufficiency through kin, erase independance & usher in the brave new world of Statism as mother & overseer, chaperone & iron fist. With both parents required to work now & compete with one another, the young are left behind without guidance, orphaned in a cold, inhospitable climate where the closest thing to love will be found in the awaiting arms of the sanctioned indoctrinators of Lennon's brotherhood of maN. One happy family
Imagine.
Alex
06. Mar, 2011
*Excuse me, I accidently sent my last post without a thorough edit.*
Feminism is Marxism for gender (look up Gloria Steinem's connections to the CIA; The communist affiliations of many high profile women Lib spokespersons & who ultimately had a hand in funding the whole rotten shebang, all but shoving it down our throats- the Rockefellers & elite rich naturally). Yes, one more bit of social engineering to destroy self sufficiency through kin, erase independance & usher in the brave new world of Statism as mother & overseer, chaperone & iron fist. With both parents required to work now & compete with one another over the pettiest concerns, the young are left behind without guidance or love, orphaned in a cold, inhospitable climate where the closest thing to warmth will be found in the awaiting arms of the sanctioned stepford indoctrinators of Lennon's brotherhood of maN. One happy family.
Imagine.
Rosycroix
20. Apr, 2011
Apparently, according to my interpretation, the author mistakes liberal feminists with radical feminists and even marxist feminists. Liberal feminists strive for equal rights for women, not matriarchy, and DO acknowledge the improvements and changes in women’s position and rights. However, they still believe full equal rights have not been achieved. (for example, this can be seen in the pay gap between men and women which has decreased, but still has not disappeared – from 30% to 17%)