Wendy McElroy wrote an essay back in March on the likely effects that the war on Iraq would have on feminism in the United States. McElroy argues that the war will have the same impact on feminism as the Civil War (which led to feminism’s narrow focus on the right to vote) and the Vietnam War (which transformed feminism into a largely Left wing enterprise).

McElroy argues that as predominantly Muslim countries liberalize, the conflict between the emerging Islamic feminism — which situates a call for equality within the confines of Muslim beliefs — will come into conflict with Western feminism — which, if not atheistic, is extremely hostile to religion — and lead to a transformation of feminism.

McElroy writes,

Most Islamic feminists base their demand for equality upon the teachings of Islam. They do not separate themselves or their identity as women from the larger context of religion. To them, the current inequality results from a misinterpretation of the Koran.

By contrast, Western feminists reject a religious basis for equality and argue from an entirely secular perspective. Indeed, they are hostile to religion, and especially to Christianity, which is viewed as an institution that oppresses women.

McElroy argues that Western feminists will end up simply ignoring and/or mischaracterizing Islamic feminists.

But then what happens to Western feminism? The September 11 terrorists attacks were the beginning of the end of Left wing feminism. The wide gulf between the small number of women who are involved in the feminist movement and women as a group in the United States has never been more obvious in last 18 months.

On the domestic side we’ve seen national feminist figures engage in handwringing and protests over two successive wars that enjoyed overwhelming support from women. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have done more to help women in those countries than all of the protests by feminists. In fact, the toppling of the Taliban regime seemed to both outrage and embarrass feminists. After all, it’s hard to portray the United States as being on the verge of A Handmaid’s Tail-like future when a Republican president is on national TV denouncing and then removing a regime that was absolutely hideous toward women.

Source:

Iraq war may kill feminism as we know it. Wendy McElroy, FoxNews.Com, March 18, 2003.

The Wendy McElroy on the War’s Effects on Feminism by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.