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[–]Archie 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 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 -  (2 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.

[–]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.