The Feminist Politics of Islamic Misogynycontinue
by Phyllis Chesler
American Thinker
November 13, 2010
Studying honor killings is not the same as sensationalizing them -- but Columbia University professor Lila Abu-Lughod disagrees. Moreover, she believes that indigenous Arab and Muslim behavior, including honor-related violence, is best understood as a consequence of Western colonialism -- perhaps even of "Islamophobia."
On October 25, 2010, at the American University of Beirut, Abu-Lughod admonished feminists who ostensibly sensationalize honor killings, a position which, in her opinion, represents "simplistic, civilizational thinking." She "warned that an obsessive focus on the so-called honor crime may have negative repercussions" and that "people should be wary of classifying certain acts as a distinctive form of violence against women." (Her remarks are summarized in a press release published by the university. According to the university, the article on which the speech is based will be published early next year in Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies.)
Abu-Lughod opposed the "concept of clear-cut divisions between cultures, which she viewed as a form of imprisoning rural and immigrant communities," and suggested that focusing on "honor crimes" allowed "scholars and activists to ignore important contexts for violence against women: social tensions; political conflicts; forms of racial, class, and ethnic discrimination; religious movements; government policing and surveillance; and military intervention."
What kind of feminism does Abu-Lughod represent? She is a post-colonial, postmodern, cultural relativist, a professor of anthropology and women's and gender studies who does not believe in universal standards of human rights. However, her allegedly feminist work primarily serves the cause of one nationalism only -- Palestinian -- and of one tradition only -- Islam/Islamism.
Abu-Lughod has long held the positions she expressed in Beirut. According to her 2002 article in The American Anthropologist, "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?," Abu-Lughod believes that wearing the Islamic veil signifies "respectability" for Muslim women. More, it can be "read as a sign of educated, urban sophistication, a sort of modernity." She writes,
Why are we surprised that Afghan women do not throw off their burqas when we know perfectly well that it would not be appropriate to wear shorts to the opera? If we think that U.S. women live in a world of choice regarding clothing, all we need to do is to remind ourselves of the expression "the tyranny of fashion."
Is she for real in making this analogy? How do you compare Afghan women being forced to shroud themselves whenever they are out in public to being required to dress formally at the opera? In the first place, one has the choice to go to the opera and in the second place, the opera doesn’t require women to be fully shrouded from head to toe. Yes, American women DO live in a world of choice regarding clothing. What would make Abu-Lughod claim otherwise? And finally, the reason women in Afghanistan don’t throw off their burkas is because they would likely have acid thrown in their face. They don’t wear them of their own free will. This abu-lughod is disgraceful in not only lying about muslim women choosing to be veiled but by being an apologist for muslim violence against women. This is what modern “feminism” has come down to, being apologists for the most violent misogynistic culture and ideology in the world. All for the sake of creating an alliance with the islamic world which shares the goal of destroying Israel and America.
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