Feminist Defends Head Scarves and Chadors

Naomi Wolf is a perfect example of why the feminist movement is a sham and has lost all credibility. It has become all about promoting radical left politics and demonizing America, Israel and western civilization and not about the rights of women. Not only does Wolf and her supposed “feminist” cohorts refuse to condemn the enslavement, oppression, brutality and violence against women in the muslim world, but she seeks to attempt to convince us of the orwellian notion that being covered up really means that muslim women are more liberated than we women in the west are and that it is their choice to cover up. Is it also their choice to be genitally mutilated? Does Wolf really think women in muslim countries are free to express how they really feel? I am repulsed by the likes of Naomi wolf. Women suffering in the islamic world can expect no support from western feminists in their struggle. Liberalism has come to such an ugly state, that we now have feminists making the argument that women are responsible for abuse against themselves for choosing to dress provocatively, if that's what you want to call not being covered from head to toe. By defending the islamic practice of women being completely covered rather than on "display" as women in the west are, that is essentially what Naomi Wolf is implying. But as Phyllis Chesler points out, muslim countries do have a rape, porn and prostitution problem anyway and much worse in fact.

You know what's also funny is that liberals always say we are sexually repressive, too religious and puritanical compared to Europe. And then they go and defend these sexually repressive muslim practices and say that we could learn from them in being more modest. Well, make up your minds, which is it? It's come to the point where liberalism is nothing more than being about bashing America and constantly finding fault with us.

The Burqa: Ultimate Feminist Choice?


Naomi Wolf Discovers That Shrouds Are Sexy

Women in chadors are really feminist ninja warriors. Rather than allow themselves to be gawked at by male strangers, they choose to defeat the “male gaze” by hiding from it in plain view.

But don’t you worry: Beneath that chador, abaya, burqa, or veil, there is a sexy courtesan wearing “Victoria Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care lotion,” just waiting for her husband to come home for a night of wild and sensuous marital lovemaking.

Obviously, these are not my ideas. I am quoting from a piece by Naomi Wolf that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago. Yes, Wolf is the bubbly, feminist author who once advised Vice President Al “The Climate” Gore on what colors he should wear while campaigning and who is or was friendly with Gore’s daughter. Full disclosure: I have casually known Wolf and her parents for more than a quarter-century.

Wolf recently traveled to Morocco, Jordan, and Eygpt, where she found the women “as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.” Whew! What a relief. She writes:

“Many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze. … Many women said something like this: …’how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.’ This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognizably Western feminist set of feelings.”

Really? If so, I’m the Queen of England.

Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times. A Westerner, “playing” Muslim-dress up, Wolf claims that hiding in plain view gave her “a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.” In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands.

Marabel Morgan lives! In the mid-1970s, Morgan advised wives to greet their husbands at the door wearing sexy clothing and/or transparent saran wrap with only themselves underneath. Her book, Total Woman, sold more than ten million copies. According to Morgan, a Christian, “It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.”

Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things.

Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police?

Continued