Feminist Hypocrisy

[Rational Agnostic]

I will begin this thread by stating that I am certainly a feminist in the sense that I believe in equal rights for women. However, the modern feminist movement has become hypocritical for a simple reason. Many feminists in the west fail to realize that the majority of the original goals of feminism have already been accomplished in the west. Yet, they contend that women are somehow still "oppressed" in the United States, and that this nation is a "patriarchy." I agree that there is *some* work to do with regard to women's rights in the West, but, for the most part, equal rights have been attained. At the same time, however, western feminists, while insisting that the United States is a patriarchy, continue to defend the practices of Islam, which is an ideology responsible for the worst abuses of women's rights in the world. The abuse of women's rights in Islamic-majority countries is appalling, yet how often do we see western feminists doing anything to help women who are oppressed in these Islamic cultures? Rarely, if ever. Instead, most of them make nonsensical claims that the hijab is somehow liberating, or even go so far as to state that Islamic-majority countries are not any worse than the United States. Those of us who point out these abuses are often labelled as anti-Muslim bigots by modern day feminists/SJW types. Don't get me wrong, I fully support the rights of Muslims to practice their religion. What I am referring to is the women in Muslim-dominated countries who are forced to abide by Islamic law against their will. This is the type of human rights abuse that the feminist movement should oppose, and they should actively speak out against the misogyny that is inherent in the Qu'ran (and the Bible I will add).

 

[Brickjectivity]

The abuse of women's rights in Islamic-majority countries is appalling, yet how often do we see western feminists doing anything to help women who are oppressed in these Islamic cultures? Rarely, if ever. Instead, most of them make nonsensical claims that the hijab is somehow liberating, or even go so far as to state that Islamic-majority countries are not any worse than the United States.

Is this really common? I have heard of it, but I would appreciate sources to clarify your point. I think that there are a lot of good women who do make efforts to help other women in society.

 

[Kemosloby]

Hubert, You'll get kicked out of the feminist club for criticizing women.

 

[crossfire]

I will begin this thread by stating that I am certainly a feminist in the sense that I believe in equal rights for women. However, the modern feminist movement has become hypocritical for a simple reason. Many feminists in the west fail to realize that the majority of the original goals of feminism have already been accomplished in the west. Yet, they contend that women are somehow still "oppressed" in the United States, and that this nation is a "patriarchy." I agree that there is *some* work to do with regard to women's rights in the West, but, for the most part, equal rights have been attained.

Feminism is an antinomian movement whose goal is to change the ingrained cultural nomos (wiki link for nomos) which feminism refers to as "The Patriarchy." (Antinomian refering to anti-nomos.) So far, there has been quite a bit of progress in curbing the outright oppression, but there is still a whole lot of work to do in transforming the nomos.

At the same time, however, western feminists, while insisting that the United States is a patriarchy, continue to defend the practices of Islam, which is an ideology responsible for the worst abuses of women's rights in the world. The abuse of women's rights in Islamic-majority countries is appalling, yet how often do we see western feminists doing anything to help women who are oppressed in these Islamic cultures?

Oh, I agree that there are some horrific practices going on in both Islamic and non-Islamic countries. Here is one recent example--the local government has taken steps to correct this by arresting the entire village council who ordered it.
Police arrest 25 members of village council who 'ordered rape of 16-year-old girl as revenge for brother's crimes'

Rarely, if ever. Instead, most of them make nonsensical claims that the hijab is somehow liberating, or even go so far as to state that Islamic-majority countries are not any worse than the United States. Those of us who point out these abuses are often labelled as anti-Muslim bigots by modern day feminists/SJW types. Don't get me wrong, I fully support the rights of Muslims to practice their religion. What I am referring to is the women in Muslim-dominated countries who are forced to abide by Islamic law against their will. This is the type of human rights abuse that the feminist movement should oppose, and they should actively speak out against the misogyny that is inherent in the Qu'ran (and the Bible I will add).

I also agree with you that governments should not dictate how women should dress. That would include outlawing hijab here in the west. Oh, btw, did you see this story about the brave Saudi woman who work a miniskirt and was detained by police? She was also later released without charges.
Saudi police release woman in miniskirt video - CNN.com

 

[Revoltingest]

One must be careful.
At my last count, I found about 2 dozen kinds of feminism on the internet.
Some were loopy & hypocritical, but others were sane & egalitarian.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Hubert, You'll get kicked out of the feminist club for criticizing women.

I am not criticizing women, not at all. I am criticizing the hypocrisy of some western feminists (both men and women).

 

[Rational Agnostic]

One must be careful.
At my last count, I found about 2 dozen kinds of feminism on the internet.
Some were loopy & hypocritical, but others were sane & egalitarian.

True.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Feminism is an antinomian movement whose goal is to change the ingrained cultural nomos (wiki link for nomos) which feminism refers to as "The Patriarchy." (Antinomian refering to anti-nomos.) So far, there has been quite a bit of progress in curbing the outright oppression, but there is still a whole lot of work to do in transforming the nomos.

Oh, I agree that there are some horrific practices going on in both Islamic and non-Islamic countries. Here is one recent example--the local government has taken steps to correct this by arresting the entire village council who ordered it.
Police arrest 25 members of village council who 'ordered rape of 16-year-old girl as revenge for brother's crimes'

I also agree with you that governments should not dictate how women should dress. That would include outlawing hijab here in the west. Oh, btw, did you see this story about the brave Saudi woman who work a miniskirt and was detained by police? She was also later released without charges.
Saudi police release woman in miniskirt video - CNN.com

Can't say I disagree with you on any of your points. However, many "feminists" try to deny that Islamic governments are major abusers of women's rights. I recommend watching the video where Bill Maher schools some SJWs on Islam.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

People are more likely to protest issues near them.
Sure, I could go try to create awareness regarding Female Genital Mutilation in North Africa, but my activism would do literally nothing for Northern Africa, and wouldn't actually be changing any minds as the vast majority of people in the west already reject FGM.

I disagree. I would imagine that there are many charities that raise money to rescue women and girls from societies such as those. Raising awareness in the west would help encourage people to make efforts to help women in those countries.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Is this really common? I have heard of it, but I would appreciate sources to clarify your point. I think that there are a lot of good women who do make efforts to help other women in society.

Of course there are lots of good women who help other women. That's a good thing. What I am referring to is the continual failure of many (not all) western feminists to condemn the abuse of women in Islamic-majority nations. I have personally interacted with many "social justice warrior" types who immediately call someone a bigot when they point out the fact that Islam is a misogynistic religion and that countries dominated by that religion are the worst abusers of women's rights in the world. In fact, just recently, Doctor Richard Dawkins was banned from speaking at Berkeley because his truthfulness about Islam was labelled as "hate speech" by the university. Thankfully, the fine man Richard Dawkins never backed down or apologized, and called out the university on their idiocy. As little as 10-20 years ago or so, liberals were very rational, but now, it seems that they have regressed into policing of free speech. Don't get me wrong, I am no fan of Trump either.

 

[SomeRandom]

I can kind of agree. I don't get on well with the third wave intersectional brand of feminism. Sometimes it seems kind of..... Whiny in a first world problems kind of way.
That's not to say there aren't still real issues being brought up and discussed in modern feminism. Just an observation.
Also the hesitation to criticise Islam is a bit hypocritical. I mean it's no holds barred on Christianity. But Islam gets a free pass? I'm sure there are plenty of Muslims willing to engage in civil discourse and perhaps have issues of their own. There are women activists, both who stayed Muslim and those who didn't, that fought against the patriarchy. So there is at least a bit of rebellion in that sense.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

I will begin this thread by stating that I am certainly a feminist in the sense that I believe in equal rights for women. However, the modern feminist movement has become hypocritical for a simple reason. Many feminists in the west fail to realize that the majority of the original goals of feminism have already been accomplished in the west. Yet, they contend that women are somehow still "oppressed" in the United States, and that this nation is a "patriarchy." I agree that there is *some* work to do with regard to women's rights in the West, but, for the most part, equal rights have been attained. At the same time, however, western feminists, while insisting that the United States is a patriarchy, continue to defend the practices of Islam, which is an ideology responsible for the worst abuses of women's rights in the world. The abuse of women's rights in Islamic-majority countries is appalling, yet how often do we see western feminists doing anything to help women who are oppressed in these Islamic cultures? Rarely, if ever. Instead, most of them make nonsensical claims that the hijab is somehow liberating, or even go so far as to state that Islamic-majority countries are not any worse than the United States. Those of us who point out these abuses are often labelled as anti-Muslim bigots by modern day feminists/SJW types. Don't get me wrong, I fully support the rights of Muslims to practice their religion. What I am referring to is the women in Muslim-dominated countries who are forced to abide by Islamic law against their will. This is the type of human rights abuse that the feminist movement should oppose, and they should actively speak out against the misogyny that is inherent in the Qu'ran (and the Bible I will add).

As an egalitarian I cannot disagree with the "spirit" of feminism, however as it is practiced today I am totally against it. I think how feminism is taught and how it is practiced are two different things and I tend to believe as feminism is practiced, I think it has a lot to do with eurocentrism for western white women. There are certain issues women of color face that many white feminists rarely address (even issues with men of color as well). I believe modern feminists cherry pick battles and tend to seek out to uproot women of different cultures to have them change to adopt their way of thinking. As you mentioned the hijab. Well, the hijab is no more oppressive than the hair coverings of Jewish women, and the same can be said of nuns, Philosophically speaking, I believe feminists should abandon the title all together and just be referred to as an egalitarian.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

I can kind of agree. I don't get on well with the third wave intersectional brand of feminism. Sometimes it seems kind of..... Whiny in a first world problems kind of way.
That's not to say there aren't still real issues being brought up and discussed in modern feminism. Just an observation.
Also the hesitation to criticise Islam is a bit hypocritical. I mean it's no holds barred on Christianity. But Islam gets a free pass? I'm sure there are plenty of Muslims willing to engage in civil discourse and perhaps have issues of their own. There are women activists, both who stayed Muslim and those who didn't, that fought against the patriarchy. So there is at least a bit of rebellion in that sense.

Please believe me feminists criticize Islam but it's often a negative judgment of the entire faith, and a lot of these discussions are in academia not necessarily on television or in the media. I think because there is such a large population of people ignorant of Islam and Islamic law, often times the criticism of Islam are done by armchair scholars and not people who actually studied the faith and the roles women play.

 

[SomeRandom]

Please believe me feminists criticize Islam but it's often a negative judgment of the entire faith, and a lot of these discussions are in academia not necessarily on television or in the media. I think because there is such a large population of people ignorant of Islam and Islamic law, often times the criticism of Islam are done by armchair scholars and not people who actually studied the faith and the roles women play.

Maybe so for academia, but the accusation of Islamophobia is thrown around so often in layman discussions that the word has pretty much lost it's punch.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

"Modern feminism" can describe probably a dozen or more individual feminist movements, adding to the individuals to consider themselves unaffiliated with any modern feminist movement but still identify under the term 'feminism.' And this is a generalization of the vast majority of feminist perspectives on oppression in the modern world, patriarchy in the modern world, Islamic (or other religious culture) in the modern world, and why domestic issues dominate the speaking floor more than international issues.

Like @Sartre said, our ability to impact international women's crisis is incredibly limited compared to domestic issues. Charities are often mismanaged, resources and funds go to criminal institutions instead or corrupt governments, or the charitable organizations are simply blocked from entering and speaking. Or worse, attempts to 'help' just solidify the icon of meddling Western governments and make things even harder for women looking to escape.
The ability to impact things like African FGM is much, much more difficult and complicated than something like the Husband's Stitch, which we can not only create awareness on but also create ethical guidelines, oversight and legislature.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Maybe so for academia, but the accusation of Islamophobia is thrown around so often in layman discussions that the word has pretty much lost it's punch.

Perhaps it has a lot to do with the mistreatment of people of Arab/Indian ethnicity and how people were physically harming people based on fear and anger. I remember after 9/11 happened a lot of Indians from India were being assaulted, not to mention Muslims being stopped by air marshals on planes because of how they looked.

 

[SomeRandom]

Perhaps it has a lot to do with the mistreatment of people of Arab/Indian ethnicity and how people were physically harming people based on fear and anger. I remember after 9/11 happened a lot of Indians from India were being assaulted, not to mention Muslims being stopped by air marshals on planes because of how they looked.

That was indeed a dark time. I assume, not being American, we didn't really engage in such shenanigans. Race riots sure, but that was a separate thing entirely. And you still find that in layman discourse over here the same overreactions, so how do you explain that?

 

[Stevicus]

I will begin this thread by stating that I am certainly a feminist in the sense that I believe in equal rights for women. However, the modern feminist movement has become hypocritical for a simple reason. Many feminists in the west fail to realize that the majority of the original goals of feminism have already been accomplished in the west. Yet, they contend that women are somehow still "oppressed" in the United States, and that this nation is a "patriarchy." I agree that there is *some* work to do with regard to women's rights in the West, but, for the most part, equal rights have been attained. At the same time, however, western feminists, while insisting that the United States is a patriarchy, continue to defend the practices of Islam, which is an ideology responsible for the worst abuses of women's rights in the world. The abuse of women's rights in Islamic-majority countries is appalling, yet how often do we see western feminists doing anything to help women who are oppressed in these Islamic cultures? Rarely, if ever. Instead, most of them make nonsensical claims that the hijab is somehow liberating, or even go so far as to state that Islamic-majority countries are not any worse than the United States. Those of us who point out these abuses are often labelled as anti-Muslim bigots by modern day feminists/SJW types. Don't get me wrong, I fully support the rights of Muslims to practice their religion. What I am referring to is the women in Muslim-dominated countries who are forced to abide by Islamic law against their will. This is the type of human rights abuse that the feminist movement should oppose, and they should actively speak out against the misogyny that is inherent in the Qu'ran (and the Bible I will add).

It may be hypocrisy, there's enough of that to go around at all ends of the spectrum. Why shouldn't feminists be any different than the rest?

There are some pretty horrific human rights abuses in some Muslim-majority countries, and one might well wonder why the West doesn't do more to work against such abuses. There is some hypocrisy inherent in our entire foreign policy, where we've historically been woefully inconsistent in condemning some nations for human rights abuses while giving a free pass to other nations for the same (if not worse) abuses. It just depends on which nations are more friendly to US business interests.

Our foreign policy and national security aspirations as dictated by the political establishment would indicate a general desire to be friendly and amicable towards most of the Muslim-majority nations, in order to keep them in the Western fold. It could be argued that taking an activist and hostile stance against those nations for their human rights abuses probably won't do any good for the people who are suffering, and it will likely alienate those nations and throw them into the arms of America's rivals.

I'm not sure if that's how feminists see it, although I can see that it can be considered "practical" by some, at least in the short term. It's hard to imagine just what feminists would be able to do about the problem just by themselves, especially if our own leadership and foreign policy "experts" aren't willing to go up to bat in favor of human rights.

 

[Sunstone]

Feminism in the West still has some battles to fight.

 

[crossfire]

<...>
Philosophically speaking, I believe feminists should abandon the title all together and just be referred to as an egalitarian.

I've considered doing just that, but after careful consideration, I've decided against it. It would dismiss the other side of feminism that is needed to transform the cultural nomos.

Namely, if women want to transform the Patriarchy, they must first transform themselves.

Women must develop their Jungian animus past the thug stage (those stuck at this stage are the ones who enforce the misogynistic practices of the nomos/patriarchy; for example it is women who perpetuate female genital mutilation,) past the hero/warrior stage (the SJW types everyone complains about,) to at least the professor stage, aiming towards the spiritual guide.
The Animus stands between the Personal Unconscious and the Collective Unconscious. Developing your own Animus steers the Collective Unconscious of what it culturally means to be a man. If most of the women are stuck in the thug stage, then the thug stage will be the glorified image of what it means to be a man in the Collective Unconscious, and we will be stuck with glorifying the Peter Pan syndrome as being manly. If enough women develop their Animus to Professor or Spiritual Guide stage, then intellect and wisdom will be glorified as the hallmark of what it means to be a man within the collective Unconscious.

Merely enforcing human rights is only a temporary measure at best, as there is no real transformation accompanying it. This is the Thug approach, not the Spiritual Guide approach. Dropping the feminist label in favor of mere egalitarianism is like dropping the need for personal transformation and transformation of the nomos--which is the real goal.

Anima and animus - Wikipedia