Exposing the Hypocrisy of Leftist/Liberal Feminism

I recently had the opportunity to read a book excerpt from Jamie Glazov’s book entitled United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror, published by WND Books, 2009. The excerpt was in the April 22, 2009 issue of the National Post. You can check out Glazov’s credentials on Wikipedia or other internet sources. Here is the bottom line as I see it:

Glazov talks about Islamic gender apartheid as being marked with ‘honor’ killings, mandatory veiling, forced segregation, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and rape as punishment. He goes on to postulate that one would assume most feminists would find such things horrible, causing violent feelings of extreme loathing. Yet, he says leftist feminists have remained silent when it comes to what is happening to their sisters in Islamic countries. He sees what these feminists are doing as a perfect process of self-deception complete with all three necessary stages – denial, excuse, and justification.

While they screamed, and continue to scream, “inequality” with respect to how women are treated in their own countries, these feminists seem to be denying the existence of any injustice towards women in Muslim countries. They simply seem to act like sisters participating in a ‘sworn to silence’ retreat at a convent. They may as well be denying the holocaust ever happened.

And why may that be? Well, for starters, the majority of these feminist liberals are Anti-American and everything America (and we in Canada) stand for. But unfortunately that in itself is not satisfying. So, if you’re going to be Anti-American, you have a lot more fun being pro-something. Again the majority of these feminists end up being pro those that are America’s enemies – and most recently, that has been a number of countries that, rightly or wrongly, seem to represent the Islamic world. If you’re going to be pro-Islamic, you can’t possibly be seen to be against what Islamic nations allow men to do to their women.

The problem is more complex, however, for the liberal feminist. How do you really balance: anti-Americanism and pro-Islamism, while at the same time desperately trying to hold on to the traditional trademark of a liberal feminist – the victimization of women. If the female victimization occurs as it is known to occur in Islamic countries, then feminists would need to face the fact that perhaps what goes on in western societies, yes with their capitalism and various degrees of imperialism, is not all that bad. And in fact, may indeed be, relatively speaking, a much better deal for women compared to what is going on in nations of Islam. We couldn’t have those kinds of admissions, now could we?

So what does Glazov think the liberal feminists are thinking? Well, it goes like this: Feminists believe it is better to let women suffer as we described above than to have to admit that western cultures are superior, having something to teach those anti-American nations.

But surely, these feminists have to accept the documented evidence of how women are treated in some Islamic nations? Glazov agrees, but he suggests that when faced with such evidence, liberal feminists then move to stage two of the self-deception process, that of ‘excuse’ or ‘men are violent towards women because the devil made them do it’. One example, according to Glazov goes something like this: leftist feminists admit that Palestinian men are abusive, but only because of the oppression and humiliation they experience under Israeli ‘occupation’”. My, wouldn’t Freud have liked that!

Taken one step further, men in Middle East societies who were ‘traumatized’ under some form of colonial rule in their past, have no choice but to traumatize their own women. Really now? I can think of several western countries (many parts of Europe during the two major world wars) and even one Middle Eastern one (Israel) that have suffered a lot of trauma who never ended up traumatizing their women. Sorry, blaming imperialism and western capitalism in some cases as the cause of female abuse just doesn’t cut it for me. But to the liberal feminists, it’s more important to oppose capitalism than to protest against what women are subject to in some eastern societies.

Glazov also points out a politically driven double standard. Liberal feminists argue that no one can really say what is right and wrong in a given culture when it comes to enforced veiling and ‘honor’ killings. But when it comes to how Hollywood objectifies the female body, they forget about the role of culture and depict such actions as immoral, emblematic of capitalism, patriarchal, heterosexist, and homophobic attempt to marginalize women to powerlessness. There may be an element of truth to that, but the hypocrisy in the two positions is unacceptable.

Is it possible that by essentially justifying the Islamic horror with respect to the treatment of women, liberal feminists are aligning themselves with the Taliban and others not just because they are anti-American and want to support America’s enemies, but because they secretly like what the Islamists are doing? Let me explain. They secretly like the burka because by forcing women to wear it, eastern men facilitate a liberal feminist’s belief that under no circumstances should men appreciate women’s bodies for their beauty or sexual appeal. Glazov suggests that is why many leftist feminists “de-feminize” and “de-beautify” themselves. The Taliban and others, by forcing women to cover up, are indeed helping the liberal feminists accomplish in eastern societies what they yearn for in their own western society. [Of course, they forget that even the Taliban have their women uncover in the privacy of their own home.] While the burka and other such enforcements are very helpful to the liberal feminist movement, is the cost involved, paid for by the women in eastern countries, really worth it?

I don't have the answer to the Middle East crisis, or to how we can make America and the West lovable again, or how to stop both economic exploitation of women in the West and physical abuse of women in the East. But as a Christian, I know many men and women who found Jesus's teachings on the man-woman and husband-wife issues most liberating, allowing both sexes to find fulfillment in their unique roles, together.

At least that’s the way I see it (with both Glazov’s and the Bible's help). Until next time, keeping on thinking.

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