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droid
Guest
I gather Im supposed to be outraged by these people, but I havent yet heard a convincing reason why. Non-violent, non-state, radical feminist protest seems like a good thing to me (no leeching please).
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
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droid
Guest
Im sure they could be accused of entrenching views within Islam, and of course, the 'appropriation of agency' accusation is inevitable, but surely the potential for solidarity and inspiration of protest with the Islamic world must supersede these concerns.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Not sure tbh.
Haven't dug too deep but reaction has been widely negative from a fairly broad bunch I would consider sound on this stuff and the many interlocking & orbiting issues. Been hugely impressed with the feminist upswing we've seen in the last few years and if there is anything to take from it is how mindbogglingly oppressive things are here before you even begin to start looking half way round world. Not at all suggesting links and ideas shouldn't be shared obviously but I don't buy this rescue angle being a main focus whether it's directed at Pakistan or Peterborough.
We've seen thousands of women marching in Homs, Tahrir, Manama etc
Meanwhile the spectre of a Hilary administration.
Haven't dug too deep but reaction has been widely negative from a fairly broad bunch I would consider sound on this stuff and the many interlocking & orbiting issues. Been hugely impressed with the feminist upswing we've seen in the last few years and if there is anything to take from it is how mindbogglingly oppressive things are here before you even begin to start looking half way round world. Not at all suggesting links and ideas shouldn't be shared obviously but I don't buy this rescue angle being a main focus whether it's directed at Pakistan or Peterborough.
We've seen thousands of women marching in Homs, Tahrir, Manama etc
Meanwhile the spectre of a Hilary administration.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Well you'd hope so, wouldn't you?
I dunno, I mean obviously
is a clumsy wording, but I don't see that there's much to be gained from refusing to acknowledge that traditional gender roles are more traditional in some places than others. And the Ukrainian woman who said that was after all criticizing the culture of her own country - from the reaction by the author of that CiF piece, anyone would think she was gearing up for some sort of femino-imperialist crusade against the entire Arab world.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
FEMEN's leader weighs in on HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/inna-shevchenko/femen-topless-in-the-country-of-hijab_b_3034211.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/inna-shevchenko/femen-topless-in-the-country-of-hijab_b_3034211.html
Patrick Swayze
I'm trying to shut up
seems like a pretty simplistic understanding of conflict
Patrick Swayze
I'm trying to shut up
I'm not sure religion is the root cause or whether sectarianism is just an easy way to frame something more complex.
do the victims of Mao's China or Stalin's Russia not count as victims of Atheism in some sense - human life being reduced to numbers/economics/five year plans etc...
and deities being replaced with cults of personality
do the victims of Mao's China or Stalin's Russia not count as victims of Atheism in some sense - human life being reduced to numbers/economics/five year plans etc...
and deities being replaced with cults of personality
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
On one hand it does look as if she's falling into the Dawkinsian root-of-all-evil fallacy, but on the other hand, you can't deny that religion is a cause of or at the very least an excuse for an awful lot of shittiness. And with regards to women's rights/gender equality in particular, none of the major religions, at least in their more literal interpretations, are particularly friendly to feminism.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
See how much religious identity is tied up in Nationalism for example. Alabama, Tel Aviv, Sana'a, Dublin. Faith is just one tool or convenient cover isn't it. It was easy present Northern Ireland as a religious conflict to play down the maze of issues on the ground. Much of the world is unrecognisably secular compared to a few decades ago and no more then here all the old oppressive attitudes remain in one form or another.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Whereas in much of the Islamic world the exact opposite is true. Edit: plus a huge resurgence in popular support for the Orthodox Church in Russia and elsewhere in the former USSR, which seems to be a big factor in this new wave of East European feminism.
Of course you can still have patriarchy without a religious establishment, but the two nonetheless tend to go together, don't they? I don't think it's controversial to say that, in general, secularism is conducive to feminism - or rather, religious conservatism is extremely unconducive to feminism.
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Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Exactly so was it the cause or just one manifestation here.
No doubt they go hand in hand. Fetish of the nuclear family etc, not denying that but it will just as easily take on less overt forms if religion was strictly out of the public sphere.
The issue is explicitly targeting religion as the bogeyman ignores or devalues all the other stuff. You see lots in Atheism adopting feminist or other points of conflict and the actual issues aren't long taking a back seat to the relish of attacking particular targets.
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Patrick Swayze
I'm trying to shut up
I'm just not convinced that the slow progress of secularisation (and the de-secularisation/theocratisation of certain countries in the mid twentieth century - Iran, Afghanistan...) is so much the result of populist movements in the Middle East than a response to Western economic policy. The same policy which has hugely benefited the middle and upper classes in parts of the former USSR.
Also we prop up the regime in Saudi Arabia which is an anchor for religious fundamentalism in the wider Arab world, and Christian extremists have an astonishing amount of power in our supposedly 'secular' West.