I repeat: We should have a back-up

submitted by WildApples from self.GenderCritical

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[–]jkfinn 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

I find Ovarit more difficult than GC reddit. There's something less controlled, and more arbitrary about the threads... I don't want to sound like a bore, but radical content is very minimal (according to my book) and liberal content maximal. I just find it harder and harder to get into it and the place makes me wonder where all the radical feminist positions on world politics have gone... i seem to get scorned for defending middle east countries (even including Palestinians) or explaining Islam even in a slightly favorable light... such a pro Western place (in my experience).

I have no idea what's better, but there's gotta be some site that insists on radical politics. At this point, I don't even care if it's just plain radical as opposed to radical feminist. I'm open to finding either--because there shouldn't be much difference betwixt the two.

[–]Archie 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I'm sorry to bother you with this here but I have a hard time to reconciliate your two critiques. Usually, libfems are less critical of Islam, while radfems are extremely critical of all religions including Islam for its oppression of women in all aspects of life.

Either they're both more radical and more critical of Islam, or more liberal and less critical. Surely?

[–]jkfinn 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

No, I was saying that radical feminism (at least second wave) had a far more sophisticated knowledge of politics, and international politics, in general--no way they would attack Islam on its sexism without also grasping that this criticism could easily used by the West to further its own racism--and colonialism. Also, any critique of sexist Islam would, of course, be accompanied by the same for all dominant religions. I don't know what you call attacks on Islam along with defenses of Christianity and the West, but i would call that some form of liberal/conservative thinking--it surely isn't radical because the thought behind it is superficial and self-serving.

Yeah, a good example in the U.S. was the sharp difference between the radical feminist response to the Afghanistan War and that of liberal feminists. The rad’s was both all-out opposition to going to war and to the save-the-Afghan-women-from-the-Taliban pretext for that war, while liberals conveniently agreed with the pretext so that they could support the war.

[–]BEB 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

I was shocked at the threads on Ovarit about Israel's over-the-top destruction of the Gaza Strip with its targeting of doctors and their families, and wanton slaughtering of other innocents; the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Sheik Jarrah; the Israeli attack on worshippers at the Al Aqsa mosque, etc.

Too many Ovarit posters seemed to feel that Israel was in the right, whereas I (and I had to pay attention to the Middle East for my job) was horrified.

IIRC, these Ovarit posters were really cold-blooded IMO in claiming criticism of Israel's actions was "anti-semitic" even though children trapped in the open air prison that is the Gaza Strip were being bombed into pieces including with banned chemical weapon, white phosphorus. Using American (my) tax dollars.

Even though Israel routinely attacks the Gaza Strip - bombing hospitals, power and water treatment plants, etc., and expands its settlements into Palestinian areas expelling the Palestinians, treating them like vermin, etc., I will never not be outraged by the callous, homicidal and systematic way Israel violates the Palestinians.

So I felt deeply uneasy that I share my passion for women's rights with these women who I now kind of consider monsters. I feel after we beat back the gender ideology threat, I don't want to be associated with these women.

Also, I too have noticed the tendency among some radical feminists to constantly attack Islam while leaving Christianity, Judaism and other religions alone.

And note that Ovarit bans "anti-semitism" but not attacks on any other religion (the last time I looked). I put "anti-semitism" in quotes because the definition of "anti-semitism" that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance wants to make standard would be an attack on free speech to me.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/international-holocaust-remembrance-alliance-definition-of-anti-semitism

But it goes further than that - I feel that some GC feminists, especially some of the Brits, feel as if Muslims are sub-humans. For instance, I've noticed quite a few GC twitter accounts make horrible comments about Arabs ,including Palestinians, and Muslims, as if every Arab, every Muslim, every Palestinian, was responsible for the actions of extremists.

As an American who is constantly and loudly appalled at my country's endless wars, I cannot and will not blame one Muslim for the actions of another, or one Palestinian for the actions of another, or of their countries.

Also some GC twitter accounts (including WoLF's) constantly platform Iranian activist Masih Alinejad, who is tied to the US-Israeli neo-conservatives trying to goad or trick the US into attacking Iran.

GC feminists cheer on Alinejad's anti-hijab work, which irritates me because to many Muslim women the hijab is voluntary, but also the brutal US sanctions on Iran are much more damaging to Iranian women (as well as all Iranians) than a fucking head scarf. Where is WoLF and other GC feminists' outrage at that?

So yes, by supporting Masih Alinejad, GC feminists are witting or unwitting tools of ruthless US-Israeli neo-conservatives hell bent on destroying Iran, including the women of Iran.

And so many GC feminists were OUTRAGED -FREE SPEECH!!!! - at the French teacher being killed for the prophet Mohammed cartoon (which was outrageous and tragic) but I saw nary a peep when the French government would not allow protests against the Israeli genocide (which one?) of the Gaza Strip and then attacked the protesters when they marched anyway. Where were the GC feminists demanding free speech?

So it saddens me that GC / rad feminism seem to have an element that hates Muslims, Palestinians, Arabs... and that seem comfortable with genocide, colonization and war, if done by the "right" group. I don't want any part of that, so once the Gender Mob is beaten back, I'm probably out.

[–]jkfinn 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

YES. There should be no need at all in a “radical feminist” space, to even begin to explain one’s position on Israel& the Palestinians. And not up until maybe the last 7-8 years (my experience) had this been at all necessary, because the foundation had been very long and firmly established. One key thing that changed the situation was the rise on feminist social media of exiled Middle East feminists, whose assimilation to the West and western values seemed all too successful. In fact, their fierce critique of Islamic sexism seemed to be their calling card within feminism---in other words, it worked. But not with me--the voices seemed too irate, too ahistoric, too clinging to western values. So ever since way back when (2015 maybe) I’ve been regularly downvoted for offering any kind of polite and measured context for the Islam they hated, which was very often the same Islam that the CIA had promoted for purposes of division.

Another impetus to this reactionary move has been through feminist Phyllis Chessler, who started attacking Islamic sexism (I think around 2015). This was picked up by many young feminists, some GC feminists, and adopted. I finally left Feminist Currents over the debates over her positions, but at least here it was two or three of us against everyone else (things only got worse for me at other sites) The whole damn thing seemed almost as NUTS to me as transgender itself--I literally felt like I was losing my mind, but ended up blaming it all on the superficiality of social media (no time for history, no time for thought, no time for radical analysis, no time for books or delving into the second wave etc) Anyhow... same stuff at Ovarit-- my last few such comments on the subject (erased) I was, as usual, the only downvoted commenter (not a single upvote) in a bobbing sea of plus votes, and that’s as you point out, as the Palestinians, once again, were being basically massacred.

[–]BEB 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for your interesting insights - I had no idea about this background. So is Meghan Murphy also a Zionist? Were your pro-Palestinian comments actually erased at Ovarit? Wow.

I too am shocked that women who claim to be working for the benefit of all women somehow become blind, if not outright bloodthirsty, when their own pet causes are involved.

For my job, I had to pay attention to the incredibly powerful US pro-Israel lobbies' work; the "Gender Lobby" as I call it, uses some of the same tactics. It's almost as if the Gender Lobby learned from the masters. I would suggest anyone interested in the power of the pro-Israel lobbies in the US read "The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy" by Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the Univ. of Chicago, both considered giants of US foreign policy.

In fact, the only two groups that I can think of off the top of my head that are allowed to encroach upon the US's cherished First Amendment right to free speech are the Israel lobbies and the Gender Lobby.

The tin foil hat part of me (and some conspiracies do have a grain of truth) is starting to suspect that the Israel lobby (the non-Christian Zionist part), especially in the UK, might even be secretly allying itself with radical/ GC feminism via individual feminists. There just seem to be too many influential GC feminists on the warpath against Islam while ignoring all sorts of other horrors tied to religion, or culture, faced by women around the world.

I have no particular fondness for any religion, but I've seen women treated like utter crap in many countries, including in countries that have no ties to Islam - so why do so many GC feminists ignore all the other horrific things happening to women globally to focus on Islamic repression?

Like the Gender Lobby, the non-Christian Zionist part of the Israel lobby pours money into media, organizations, politicians, academics, etc., in order to astroturf pro-Israel sentiment. Maybe it's giving some GC feminists a little cash too?

However, I think it's more likely that the GC feminists who are vehemently Zionists are Zionists on a personal level. And that disturbs me, because what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, and to its neighbors, and what its operatives/ fan club in the US get the US to do, is often horrific. How can women who call themselves "feminists" support the murder in cold blood of the elderly, non-combatants, women and children?

BTW: Ovarit also seems to have an ovary-on for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, another charlatan IMO - was she one of the exiled feminists you were referring to? So irritating that no fan of hers at Ovarit seems to be capable of a simple web search on her...

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

JKfinn can you specify the time period you're speaking of when you refer to "the Afghanistan War" and feminists' response "to the-save-the-Afghan-women-from-the-Taliban pretext for that war"? I think the events you are referring to occurred in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Which is rather late to the game, so to speak.

[–]jkfinn 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not sure what you mean by "late in the game," but I'm referring to the fall of 2001 when most of this debate was going on in the US media. Radical feminists had been in contact with the major women's groups in Afghanistan and were working in consort with them at this point and earlier. And if you want to go back further, it had always been a position of US rads to counter and call for an end to all US wars with the understanding that this is what EMPIRE does--eternally go to war, and beat the hell out their outclassed, out-tecked, and under-armed foes.