The rights of women
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The West Maghreb Dialogue
Dec 14, 2007, 5:24:12 PM12/14/07
to USA Maghreb Dialogue
The rights of women
Noorjehan Barmania
Friday December 14, 2007
Guardian
It was Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation last month, who made me
see it. Pollitt, a noted feminist writer, wondered why the American
liberal-turned-neocon David Horowitz - founder of the bizarrely named
Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week - had suddenly developed an interest in
the rights of women. Specifically, Muslim women. "Life is not a picnic
for women in China, India, Africa and Latin America," wrote Pollitt.
"Why no interest in them?" She speculated that by focusing on the
oppression of women, Horowitz had found an easy way to target the
Muslim world.
In his "age of horrorism" essay last year, Martin Amis also developed
a feminist sensibility. Amis, whose novels so often feature flat,
cartoon-like women, connected the failure of Islamic states with the
"obscure logic that denies the Islamic world the talent and energy of
half its people ... the suppression of its women". Well, there is
definitely work to be done regarding the rights of Muslim women, but a
lot also needs to be done for all the non-Muslim women oppressed
around the globe.
The Muslim world is not without its problems. But to suggest that
substantial sections of it are "Islamofacist" or "Islamist" (labels
with an indistinct etymology, beloved by those looking to define a
discrete "enemy") and therefore oppressive of women, is flawed.
Individual Muslims, like Christians or Jews, have differing thoughts
on women's status, ranging from orthodoxy to emancipation.
These "new feminists", like Horowitz, might read Nobel laureate
Amartya Sen's book Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. He
cautions against reductionism, "the assumption of singular
affiliation" when it comes to specific groups of people, because "we
are all individually involved in identities of various kinds". I, for
instance, am a South African, a Londoner, an Asian, a quantity
surveyor, a writer, a feminist and Muslim. Not one of these identities
is all-consuming. And there are a great many Muslims like me.
Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
Noorjehan Barmania
Friday December 14, 2007
Guardian
It was Katha Pollitt, writing in The Nation last month, who made me
see it. Pollitt, a noted feminist writer, wondered why the American
liberal-turned-neocon David Horowitz - founder of the bizarrely named
Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week - had suddenly developed an interest in
the rights of women. Specifically, Muslim women. "Life is not a picnic
for women in China, India, Africa and Latin America," wrote Pollitt.
"Why no interest in them?" She speculated that by focusing on the
oppression of women, Horowitz had found an easy way to target the
Muslim world.
In his "age of horrorism" essay last year, Martin Amis also developed
a feminist sensibility. Amis, whose novels so often feature flat,
cartoon-like women, connected the failure of Islamic states with the
"obscure logic that denies the Islamic world the talent and energy of
half its people ... the suppression of its women". Well, there is
definitely work to be done regarding the rights of Muslim women, but a
lot also needs to be done for all the non-Muslim women oppressed
around the globe.
The Muslim world is not without its problems. But to suggest that
substantial sections of it are "Islamofacist" or "Islamist" (labels
with an indistinct etymology, beloved by those looking to define a
discrete "enemy") and therefore oppressive of women, is flawed.
Individual Muslims, like Christians or Jews, have differing thoughts
on women's status, ranging from orthodoxy to emancipation.
These "new feminists", like Horowitz, might read Nobel laureate
Amartya Sen's book Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. He
cautions against reductionism, "the assumption of singular
affiliation" when it comes to specific groups of people, because "we
are all individually involved in identities of various kinds". I, for
instance, am a South African, a Londoner, an Asian, a quantity
surveyor, a writer, a feminist and Muslim. Not one of these identities
is all-consuming. And there are a great many Muslims like me.
Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
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