I repeat: We should have a back-up

submitted by WildApples from self.GenderCritical

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[–]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...