I read this article by Katha Pollitt earlier this year and it has yet to leave me. In Whose Culture? Pollitt responds to an essay by Susan Okin and agrees that multiculturalism and feminism are, if not in tension, often opposed to one another. Pollitt doesn’t understand how this can be considered controversial, but I find it awfully provocative.
Pollitt says,
How can this be? I wondered. Academic feminism and academic multiculturalism seem to be two branches off the same tree. Further, Pollitt frames feminism as a superior philosophical mode in a way that makes me rather uncomfortable. I want gender equality, but I don’t want to erase the cultural traditions that only I deem deserving of respect.
But in some sense, Pollitt is right. Look at sati, the French banning of headscarves, the global wish for daughters to marry rich over acquiring education.
My mentor, Dr. B, recently wrote on the practice of female genital mutilation/female circumcision:
It’s not even that I think that this would be a moment of epiphany, but I think that it would/could work better than the “you are all stupid savages” approach. People are people and rebellious by nature. If you tell people that they can not do something that they see are being a cultural or religious right they will automatically tune you out and move forward with renewed vigor (or maybe that’s just me). I think that the story about hospitals practicing FGM/FC is proof of just that.
Teacherly moments are the times in which a facilitator attempts to resolve a tension by exposing and revealing the incongruities between two lines of thought, a method employed by Lindon Barrett in his book comparing African-American pedagogy with traditional “white” pedagogy. This moment of juxtaposition between those who willingly inflict FC on themselves (and those who inflict it on others) with the Western ideal of free female sexuality is one in which it becomes far too easy to demonize and name-call the Other. In other words, it’s a perfect teacherly moment.
FC and phenomenon like it are problems in themselves, but more widely, are symptomatic of the larger propensity for an androcentric, patriarchal worldview in which women are othered and mystified, and that imagined female otherness and mystery must be contained.
For me, the education against FC and other symptoms of patriarchy is not so simple. It comes to this: the line between “education” and Western indoctrination is very narrow once it crosses the border. In addition, the difference between rightly educating a community and operating from a xenophobic, racist space is also a strong concern. We must educate ourselves to avoid the mischaracterization of the communities we attempt to reach, and as Dr. B says, “learn the other folks’ rules.”
From over here, snug in my windowless office in Collegetown, USA, it is easy to forget that in any area where oppression occurs, there is usually a counter-movement already in place working from within to change the minds and experiences of the oppressors and the oppressed. Rather than swooping down and inflicting their movement with my urgency, I lend my economic and emotional support from afar.
Lauren, great post.
I recommend another response to Okin by Bonnie Honig:
Rather than vigorously interrogate the spurious excuse “my culture made me do it,” Okin accepts the claim–she sees the misogynist actions she’s addressing as symptomatic of the (“foreign”) cultures to which the actors are connected–and so she comes, unsurprisingly, to the conclusion that feminism demands that we get rid of the offending cultures or aid their transformation into more familiar sexual and familiar practices. But the cultures Okin mentions are less univocally patriarchal than she suggests. And the unfamiliar practices she labels sexist are more complicated and ambiguous than that label allows. These limits of Okin’s approach are evident in her reading of the three major religions:
Honig goes on to discuss these issues in more detail. While there is truth to the possible conflict between feminism and multiculturalism, we must be exceedingly careful to not let local patriarchs define other cultures any more than we want them to define ours. A willingness to not equate feminism with “western feminism” and consider other types of feminism emerging in response to the particular challenges of patriarchy in other cultures is important. Honig, again:
But many Moslem feminists (they do exist, but are obscured by Okin’s liberal feminist lens in which liberal brands of equality and individualism are equated to feminism) see veiling as an empowering practice. Veiling allows upwardly mobile professional women to move from the familiar settings of their rural homes and “emerge socially into a sexually integrated” urban world that is “still an alien, uncomfortable social reality for both women and men,” says Leila Ahmed.
This is a dilemma. I tend to agree with Katha Pollitt in the sense that almost all cultures have traditionally had a lot of misogyny as one of the central building blocks, and I cannot respect those building blocks in any culture.
But I agree that externally imposed definitions of feminism also don’t work. The interesting theoretical question is whether there is some concept “feminism” which is somehow more primary than its actual form in any one tradition, including the Western ones. I think that there is some such concept, but I’m not sure if its existence could ever be “proven”. This is one of those debates my philosophy professor called impossible to debate, because the conclusion depends totally on your premises.
Anyway, if one doesn’t believe in such a concept, then discussing feminism across cultures becomes very difficult if not impossible, because it’s not clear what is being talked about.
And as a comment to the previous comment (an interesting one), I think that traditional cultures are nearly always defined by the patriarchal leaders. This is, in fact, part of the tradition itself. Thus, if we respect the culture, we respect its patriarchal nature. To question who would define the culture is feminism in itself, but not necessarily multiculturalism.
Couldn’t you simply define feminism as a movement within a particular culture, rather than a cross-cultural phenomenon? An Islamic feminism would look very different from a Thai feminism would look different than an American feminism, etc. That would seem to be the only option that doesn’t entail being culturally supremacist.
I have no objection to being culturally supremacist, but I imagine lots of y’all do. ;)
Yay! I’m so glad you’re posting on “Alas!”
And, that said, I’m going to disagree with you. :-)
I don’t think that conceptualizing things as “teacherly moments” – a conceptualization that makes westerners the teachers, and folks from other cultures the students – is any less condesending or western-centric than just saying “FGM is wrong and should be outlawed.”
I tend to agree with Pollett – and even more so with Honig. If we want to beleive that women (and men) have a universal human right not to be mutilated against their will, not to be raped, not to be enslaved, etc., then we have to believe that some cultural practices are simply better than others.
Echidne’s criticism of Honig is really strong. Nonetheless, even people who aren’t given the power to set the standards for their culture, or represent their culture, are nonetheless still part of their cultures. So we can at least say that the idea that FGM should be eliminated is not foreign to cultures that practice FGM; it’s just a minority view (or perhaps an isufficiently majority view).
Finally, it’s interesting that most of the Muslim writers I’ve read who object to feminism because faminism is western thought have no problem embracing aspects of Marxist analysis. Hypocripsy is multi-cultural, clearly.
To add to my previous post, I think that you do acknowlege that “teacherly moments” can easily include assumptions of western hegemoney (sp?), for instance when you write “the difference between rightly educating a community and operating from a xenophobic, racist space is also a strong concern.”
However, if I’m not misreading you, you seem to see some possibliity for “teacherly moments” that doesn’t assume Western superiority in the area being taught. I’m not sure that’s true.
However, I do accept that in particular instances – such as the issue of FGM – western thought is, in fact, superior. So for me there’s not really a conflict to resolve there – it’s just a question of strategy. What is the morally acceptable way to convince cultures that practice FGM to cease doing so? To me, the approach of trying to support dissidents within the culture seems best, both moreally and stratigically.
Spelling fairy: hegemony.
When I talk of “teacherly moments” I’m referring to the discussion of language that calls these practices barbaric, savage-like, etc. It’s certainly a question of rhetoric and strategy, and as Dr. B points out, the tendency to do so likely pushes those who practice this kind of thing toward more vigilant measures. Again, it’s the question of “good” education operating with a full and distinct understanding of the culture in which it is practiced.
When I generally hear FGM discussed, there is only a brief mention of the overarching modes of patriarchy that divorce women from their potential instead of an understanding of the complexity of the issue at hand. Understanding and publicly speaking of patriarchy has become so tired to so many folks that it is difficult to approach the subject among non-feminist company. But it is necessary to work against the forces that allow these practices to continue by reticence or by outright encouragement. That FGM is now institutionally practiced in hospitals seems a symptom to me that we’ve been framing our educational efforts in a bad way.
Again, though I feel a sense of urgency to work against these kinds of measures, there is a pre-existing movement that is already working for the changes I wish made. While I can support their efforts, the urgency I feel to end FGM is akin to attempting peace with armored tanks. (no joke)
Where Pollitt and I are in complete agreement is the notion that feminism is in opposition to most cultures, as most cultures treat women as second-tier citizens. In this sense, feminism and multiculturalism cannot coexist (nor can practices like FGM).
Also, while I agree that the feminist view in this situation is superior, Pollitt seemed to argue that the feminist view is always superior to one of multiculturalism. I personally find that offensive.
Perhaps I’m missing the subtle point, but I’m not exactly sure where there is even an argument here that multiculturalism and feminism are compatible. The options appear to be that feminism actively “opposes” the other culture, or else feminism works “with” the other culture in an effort to get it to change itself.
Since the ideal end result of both approaches is the same — the other culture changes — it seems to me that the debate is merely one of methodology. Picking sides in another culture’s “civil war” seems just as anti-multicultural as fighting directly.
Put another way, does it matter whether the CIA “lends economic and emotional support from afar” to the Contras, or fights the Sandanistas directly? Is one putting pro-Americanism and mulitculturalism in harmony, while the other puts them in conflict? Or are they just different means of resolving the conflict that exists in both?
Not up for an in-depth discussion, but just thought I’d pass along that there are indigenous women’s groups working in East African countries to end the practice of FGM. In the examples I have read, Imams or other Islamic authorities are enlisted by women’s groups to talk to the women who perform the practice and make them understand that Islam does not require this, in fact, Islam apparently has lots of tenets about respecting the integrity of the body. From what I understand, the women who engage in this practice are frequently very well respected “elders” who earned their stripes by doing it on their own children. In some cases, they are the most significant breadwinner for their household, and have status akin to a healer.
I agree with Lauren’s conclusions. However, I would like to say that these conclusions do not justify holding individuals to different standards of criminal or civil liability if they engage in practices that are culturally or legally verboten in their place of residence (e.g., FGM, spousal abuse, honor killing).
The only way it can work to change cultural practices that harm women is from the inside. FGM is a prime example. In Egypt the small successes they have started to have in discouraging the practice have come from women’s NGOS — indigenous ones. Some did get foreign funding/training but they are the ones providing the “teacherly moments” to the grassroots communities — not Westerners. Also a lot of these cultural harmful practices are carried out by women themselves and they have to be the targets of the “teacherly” interventions. I’d also note that FGM is not to be conflated with Islam. Non-African Muslim countries, be they ever so conservative, don’t practice it; and many non-Muslim African people do (for example in Nigeria it was widespread not just among the Muslim Hausa but also the Christian Ibo tribes). It is strictly an African thing. Also, to make it even more confusing, it is tied to some African cultures’ female rites of passage so that means you have to approach it from within and try to find alternate ones. So it is an oversimplification to tie it to patriarchy and assume it’s the men who need reforming. In general, I find that if by “multiculturalism” you mean “cultural relativism” then it can be harmful, but if you mean that you must work within cultures to change harmful practices, then it only makes sense. How would Americans feel if a Muslim NGO from Saudi Arabia started telling them they were too consumerist and needed to combat female objectification thorugh modesty in dress? They would laugh them otu of town if they didn’t tar and feather them. Well, that is the same reaction that Western feminists get when they try to impose their values on another culture. But that does not mean they have to see the other culture’s practices as OK. Just that they have to work with people WITHIN that culture to confront / find alternatives/ educate etc.
Perhaps I’m missing the subtle point, but I’m not exactly sure where there is even an argument here that multiculturalism and feminism are compatible. The options appear to be that feminism actively “opposes” the other culture, or else feminism works “with” the other culture in an effort to get it to change itself.
i think this may be a problem only if one imagines that such thing as a singular “culture” exists… an entity that can be opposed or supported, as for instance one can describe opposing or supporting the CIA which is arguably a singular entity. but cultures are not so simple. we can generalize all we want about Islamic, Thai or Western culture but such have to be recognized as just that: generalizations. and generalizations largely based on what people (men) in power have asserted is reality. as Echidne stated above.
I think that traditional cultures are nearly always defined by the patriarchal leaders.
and the definition goes both ways. the inheritance of a body of anthropological knowledge generated almost entirely by men has produced a catalog of scientifically cubbyholed little monisms known as cultures, so we think we know all about them. and how do we know that such anthropologists got it right? cuz they talked to the #1 guys in each culture! y’know: the whole”take me to your leader” thing – sort of like going to George Bush to talk about America. you might get an interesting, even hilarious, story. but that doesn’t mean you then know what US culture is like
of course, the first disturbing realization this anthropological activity produced, quite unintended, was the realization that cultures weren’t necessarily as unified or discrete as we once imagined. moreover, cultures weren’t all that different either (so much for the savage/civilized distinction). this in many ways formed part of the fuel for the later multicultural movement.
and then, sometime a bit after the first manly excursions, some women started going into the field, and started asking the women there questions, and all of a sudden the earlier definitions seemed more than a little inadequate… what? you talked to the chief? oh, he’ll say anything, the big liar!
this was another disturbing realization. you mean we entirely missed a whole population in our census? oh, right… the women. always seem to forget them. but surely they just do what men do, what men tell them to do? that’s what the guys say after all. no? they’ve got their own perspectives? damn!
one of the strengths of feminism is its capacity for cross-cultural critique, for the way in which it opens space for new understanding of already existing phenomena. in other words, feminism helps us to recognize voices that are already there.
so does multiculturalism, at least in certain forms. i mean, sure, if we’re talking about a simplistic form of multiculturalism, wherein all cultures are exempt from any critical consideration of any sort, well then yeah, fuck that. but who the hell is promoting that?
from my understanding, when multiculturalism first arose as a social and cultural movement it was about recognizing voices previously ignored. it was about coming to terms with the deformations of culture & society that things like imperialism, racism, colonialism, etc had produced. it was an effort at reclamation, just as feminism was – of reclaiming space to speak of different understandings, different experiences, different memories. more simply, it was a recognition that history, the telling of history, is a political act.
in this sense i can’t see the conflict between feminism and multiculturalism. it’s not like the US or Western society invented either concept out of whole cloth. women have been speaking up and asserting their independence throughout much of recorded history (as any good feminist history will show). and the idea that peoples across the world all have worthwhile things to say is pretty much also in evidence. of course, not always by the people in power, but then the rise of multiculturalism has also produced quite the revolution in the practice of history, so other voices are being heard.
in fact, i can’t see how feminism and multiculturalism (the smart kind – like the one Anna describes above) can exist without each other. what would feminism look like today without acknowledging the contributions of a variety of cultures? what would multiculturalism look like without acknowledging and respecting women’s voices?
like Ms. Lauren says at the end of her post there is usually a counter movement already in place working from within to change the mind and experiences of the oppressors and the oppressed
how would we even begin to recognize, from our particular and varied cultural nexus, such counter movements without the contributions of both feminism and multiculturalism?
I assume you’re referring to Susan Okin’s very good, but poorly titled essay “Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?”…
I agree with Ampersand. Multiculturalism is very desirable–I’ve lived in Miami for the last 10 years and find myself bored with racially homogenous cities. Multiculturalism is the first step to cosmopolitanism.
Having said that, it is fundamental for multiculturalism to work, not only that we accept others into our society but also that those whom we accept feel an equal respect for us. There are certain values–which happen to be western–that are unimpeachable and supersede whatever desire we might have for multiculturalism. (I honestly don’t understand how people like Will Kymlicka could disagree with this.) And in this sense, we have to make cultural value judgements. Whether it’d be culturally condoned or not, poligamy is wrong; female circumcision is wrong; the general opression of women and the impellent force to have them be subservient to men are wrong.
“There are certain values–which happen to be western–that are unimpeachable and supersede whatever desire we might have for multiculturalism.” I agree — is it possible that there is a sociological justification for dominant cultures?
Andy and Keith, those values have not always been western. The Greeks (just to go back in time) treated women rather abysmally. As did most of the rest of the western world for much of recorded history. Try to remember that the Married Women’s Property Act was passed only in the 19th Century, and women didn’t get the vote in the U.S. for almost another century.
It’s not all that important that we ascribe the values of equality and freedom a home culture, or that we get credit for them, but it is important to understand, and hopefully encourage, the forces at work in society that generally result in higher status for women (and minorities).
Being careful to be step into matters of colonialism, I think so. We live in a world where the dominant societies are liberal and have a certain degree of respect for individual rights and minority rights.
However it is important to discern between value judgement and the more nefarious cultural discrimination. I suppose in a way I’m advocating a benign bastardization of the odious Christian adage “we hate the act, not the person.” That is, I think it is acceptable to condemn certain values, like female circumcision and poligamy while being careful not to make it a referendum on the culture as a whole. I do think we can extricate these practices from a religious dogma without destroying a cultural identity.
I have to agree with jam above–WHY on earth should we let patriarchs define other cultures by fiat when we don’t let them define ours. Rather than being respectful of other cultures, I think it’s disrespectful to do so. It implicitly re-enforces the silencing of those silenced by patriarchs.
I think this whole debate about “western” feminism is rather semantical. If we take “western” feminism to be the position that one gender shouldn’t be systematically and structurally unequal, then I’ll cheerfully endorse “imperialism” on it’s behalf. (Note that this is not an endorsement of any and all imperial action to enforce this position–just an assertion that value systems that affirm this view are in some real sense ‘better’ than those that don’t. What to do about it is a much more complicated question that involves balancing with a number of other values like self-determination, etc.) If it is a series or more specific positions, complaints, priorities, etc (ie, western feminists telling their islamic counterparts to fight the hijab), then it crosses a line it shouldn’t cross. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Two things: Susan Okin is talking about multiculturalism within our own society–and the interplay between our values and those of incoming cultures. Not shaping societies abroad. We must remember that there was no legislation in the United States regarding FGM/FC until the early ’90s, if my memory serves me right.
There’s also the question of degree. We just can’t go around nation building every country (or any country probably) which practices FGM/FC as abhorrent as it might be.
Even within our own country we see these situations play out where a culture is permitted to mistreat its members with full impunity while we “respectfully” stand by and watch. Particularly in the case of certain “Christian” sects such as the Amish, backwards and mysoginist practices are allowed by state government and local law enforcement in order to maintain their status as a quaint and upstanding tourist attraction. Personally, I’m outraged by stories like that of Mary Byler, who was molested and raped by her amish father, her brothers, and her cousins, with full knowledge of the church and her own mother, but was excommunicated for going to the police. Apparently this situation is rampant in Amish communities. http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2005/feature_labi_janfeb05.html
“How can we sit here, as Westerners who haven’t been able to come to a firm conclusion on whether Western-style dress is empowering or oppressive, sit in judgement of what other women choose to wear (and that’s the thing — some women do choose it). Granted, if they are not given a choice, that is a different matter altogether. But we have Western Feminists ready to force other women to do what they want — and how is that any better than Muslim men doing it?”
Thank you, Bean! You gave me a sort of entry into the idea that’s been going round my head about this topic.
I do agree with some of the points being made here, such as, Western culture does have valuable things to add, we shouldn’t define other cultures wholly by their patriarchal practices,etc. And before I go on, I want to stress that I do not support the idea of cultural relativism.
But, whenever this sort of topic comes up, I feel like we back ourselves against a wall in some way. And I feel that this is at least in some part due to some bad information and bad ways of looking at things that we all have internalised.
I’m still working this out in my head, so please bear with me: OK, the issue of FGM has come up yet again….as it should, as it is an important feminist issue. But it seems to me that whenever I personally have seen this point discussed, it’s always in some sort of isolation from Western cultural practices. I mean, isn’t plastic surgery an ever-booming industry in the West? Aren’t boob jobs commonplace? And I seem to recall reading more than one article on how cosmetic vaginal surgery was the New Big Thing, and surgery to move the clitoris so that it’s “more accessible” to penile stimulation during intercourse (the Only Form of Real Sex, as we all know) has been done for years.
Now, in some ways we can say that these practices are not the same as FGM, as they aren’t done explicitly to reduce women’s capacity for sexual pleasure, but the underlying reason for them IS the same: making sure that women’s sexuality is something that is defined and controlled by men. When you get a boob job, you are allowing your sexual self to be defined not what you feel, but by how others’ eyes see you (plus, from what I understand, a good percentage of boob jobs do result in reduced capacity for sensation….and even total loss of sensation–in other words, women are risking giving up an important site of sexual pleasure just in order to *look* “better” for someone else!!). When you get your vagina “prettied up”, it’s the same thing, and when you move your clit to make it more convenient for a man, you’re allowing your sexual pleasure to be nothing more than the by-product of your partner’s. And none of that even covers the dangers of surgery: risks of infection, complications from anaesthesia, etc.
The real difference (and it is an important one) is that surgery is optional–though I guess we could argue the ways that women are under increase pressure to have it–while FGM is often forced. But again, that is in line with the Western philosophy of oppression by propaganda rather than by violence.
The reason I bring this up is not to (yet again) shift the focus of feminism from women in other parts of the world who need our support to Western women, and it’s not to engage in simple statements of “yes, X is bad, but Y is bad too, so there”. The reason is that so often when Westerners try to engage with these topics, we do so from the position that other cultures really are “backward” in ways that ours just isn’t. It’s like the way in which politicians talk about “bringing democracy” to “Third World” nations while conveniently ignoring the facts that a) some of these “backward” nations HAD democratically-elected governments in place before we stormed in and forced dictators on them and b) that most Western nations aren’t doing very well promoting democracy at home.
I guess what I’m trying (very clumsily) to get at is that we should see things like FGM as belonging not to isolated Other cultural practices, but to a whole constellation of misogynist practices that include things common in our own cultures. Like seeing the Islamic fundamentalist obsession with covering women up as the flipside of the Liberal Western obsession with stripping women naked: different practices, same basic idea–women’s bodies are property that rightly belong to men.
Again, I’m NOT saying we should see these practices as equivalent, or saying that just because we do bad things, we can never criticise someone else’s bad things, but that there are links to them that we need to keep in mind.
In my mind, there has to be some room for empirical evidence in determining whether a given practice is oppressive and should be banned. If half the girls in France where headscarves out of personal religious conviction, while half do it out of paternalistic oppression, then banning the practice for all seems wrongheaded. If the breakdown is more 95% due to paternalistic oppression, and 5% out of personal religious conviction, then my opinion would be different.
Practices that are overwhelmingly oppressive sometimes have to be banned, because there is no way to fix the problem “incrementally.” Like with FGM, the reason that most parents (including mothers) support the practice is because without it, their daughters will be shunned and unmarriable in the community. Why marry the only uncircumcised girl when there are hundreds of others to chose from? So the practice as a whole should be banned, even if some consenting adults want to engage in it for themselves.
bean: OK, the issue of FGM has come up yet again….as it should, as it is an important feminist issue. But it seems to me that whenever I personally have seen this point discussed, it’s always in some sort of isolation from Western cultural practices. I mean, isn’t plastic surgery an ever-booming industry in the West? Aren’t boob jobs commonplace? And I seem to recall reading more than one article on how cosmetic vaginal surgery was the New Big Thing, and surgery to move the clitoris so that it’s “more accessible” to penile stimulation during intercourse (the Only Form of Real Sex, as we all know) has been done for years.
I hear this analogy all the time. I think there is a point worth making here, but I don’t think it’s a very minor one. The debate at this point often turns to how invasive the practice is, and how damaging, and so on. Rather than go down that road, I suggest a different comparative point: at whage does the mutilation typically take place? I think if we don’t take harms done to children as a fair bit more problematic than harms adults do to themselves. Yes, adults are subject to all manner of personal and social pressures then shouldn’t be. But to not treat this as a major and important difference is to deny that the agency adult women have is relavent at all, which is fairly insulting.
Very interesting conversation. My first thought is that it’s gonna take all sorts in this world to sort it all out in this world, so I welcome people who focus more on multiculturalism while I focus more on feminism.
I took the Meyers Briggs personality test at my job and a quote that went with my character was, “Tradition is for people too lazy to come up with their own way of doing things.” It’s good to recognize that’s how I approach situations at the same time I have to keep in mind there are character types for whom such traditions are very important and my way of doing things can seem dismissive of their entirely valid desires. But the world needs people like me pushing for radical change just like it needs people pushing for certain rituals to survive into modernity, and I’m loathe to insist one way is definitively better than the other, though of course I prefer my way. ;)
my previous post was a response to Crys T, not bean. My apologies.
“The debate at this point often turns to how invasive the practice is, and how damaging, and so on. Rather than go down that road, I suggest a different comparative point: at whage does the mutilation typically take place?”
No, that wasn’t the point I was trying to make at all: I was pointing out that when we discuss (what we consider) Other cultures, we often do so with tunnel vision, ignoring or downplaying other, similar trends in our own culture.
For example: since 9/11, Islam has been a bigger target than ever for accusations of “backward” thought and just general yuckiness. Every time Bush decides to invade a different Muslim-dominant country, the plight of the women living there is hauled out in order to galvanise all right-thinking people to approve the slaughter. How much time has there been over the past 3 years devoted to discussion of how benighted Muslim attitudes towards women are? Tons. And yet, Muslim attitudes towards women come from the same original source as Christian & Jewish attitudes do. Yes, there are some differences, BUT you can’t compare Islamic fundamentalists to secular society, or even a laid-back group of whatever Protestant sect is considered to be the grooviest (insert appropriate name here: I don’t know, I come from a long line of [coerced] Catholics), you have to compare them to fundamentalist Christians. And when you do, it becomes obvious how minimal most of those differences are. Yet, every time Islam or Arabic-speaking nations are brought up, even in supposedly “enlightened” circles, I keep on hearing arguments that pit fundamentalist Islamic culture (as if there were no other type of Muslims or Arabs than religious extremists) against secular Western culture, as evidence that All That Is Western is just “naturally” more advanced.
And, this is a separate point, but still an important one: I’m still wondering how a religion founded in the Middle East by Jews, whose God and highest prophet/divine being were also Jewish, somehow managed to become the symbol of What Makes The West Just So Damn Superior To Everyone Else.
“Yes, adults are subject to all manner of personal and social pressures then shouldn’t be. But to not treat this as a major and important difference is to deny that the agency adult women have is relavent at all, which is fairly insulting.”
Actually, at no point do I suggest that these differences AREN’T major and/or important. But I repeat again, the fact that the West frowns on coerced genital mutilation of children while simultaneously putting emotional pressure on adult women to choose genital mutilation as a “lifestyle choice” is more about the way in which Western oppression works by playing on fear and insecurity as opposed to using brute force. I don’t think it indicates any real underlying difference in how women and their sexuality is seen.
Crys T, I hope I didn’t come across as accusatory. I think you have a fair point. I’ve heard the comparison between cosmetic surgery, etc in the west and FGM many times in many contexts, and I almost never see people discussing the age difference, which to me is a (perhaps the) crucial difference. So just wanted to make that general point.
I want to quarrel with one statement of yours:
the fact that the West frowns on coerced genital mutilation of children while simultaneously putting emotional pressure on adult women to choose genital mutilation as a “lifestyle choice” is more about the way in which Western oppression works by playing on fear and insecurity as opposed to using brute force. I don’t think it indicates any real underlying difference in how women and their sexuality is seen.
First of all, I think it is a mistake to talk about “the west” doing this and that. I’m “of the west,” and I strongly disaprove of FGM, and in point of fact donate money to groups that combat this practice. I make every effort to not exert pressure on women to have cosmetic surgery or alter their appearence to better approximate stupid adolscent fantasies about what women look like. “The West” is no more an agent than Islam; it’s big, complicated, multi-faceted and contradictory. If we treat it like an agent we’ll confuse important issues.
And as to your last sentence, I do see a big difference between the views about women and sexuality behind them. If the case of cosmetic surgery, the message is “Women’s bodies should be altered to conform to an idiotic, adolescent male fantasy.” In the case of FGM, the message is “Women’s bodies should be altered to prevent them from enjoying sex, thus making their sexuality easier to control.” There are similarities in these messages, regarding male control of female bodies, etc. But there are also important differences. Just as all feminisms aren’t the same, neither are all forms of gender oppression.
I’ll agree somewhat with djw, that treating “the west” as a single, unified agent is a mistake. But it’s worth considering exactly why it’s a mistake: because those in power in the US and elsewhere want everyone to see their nation-state as the natural agent of social change.
The Bush administration is quite happy to chatter away about sexism in Afghanistan and Iraq — never mind that, for instance, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan opposed the US invasion, and has documented how sexism has gotten worse in Afghanistan since the war.
It’s a mistake to say that “the west” is progressive relative to another place, because “the west,” which means for all practical purpose the governments of the US and its allies, is not really progressive. They’re actively hostile to *any* oppressed group gaining greater freedom locally, and only talk about oppression elsewhere as a means to disorganize dissent and pull the liberals in line behind whatever the real agenda is.
“I think it is a mistake to talk about “the west” doing this and that…”The West” is no more an agent than Islam; it’s big, complicated, multi-faceted and contradictory. If we treat it like an agent we’ll confuse important issues.”
I understand your point, but despite the reality that any group of people or community is multifaceted, we DO talk about Other cultures as if they were monolithic & homogenous. When we discuss FGM, it’s in terms of what They do as opposed to what We do. I don’t see that it’s good for us to insist that We be seen as multifaceted while simultaneously not calling ourselves out on our own short-sightedness in our discussion of others.
Also, though I agree we must keep these points in mind, we have to be careful about letting our “fairness” blind us to the fact that people do live in communities. There are individuals in these communities, but they also function as cohesive units in some ways. To illustrate, just how irritating is it for us feminists when a man comes along and says, “You can’t put all men in the same bag: not all of us engage in street harrassment/rape/etc., so you have to look at us each as individuals, blah, blah, blah….” What that does is eliminate any chance of seeing how sexism actually works, because if you remove the ability to see men as a group, you remove the ability to see their privilege. The same thing goes for “the West”. Not every Westerner is oppressive, just as every man or every white person isn’t oppressive, but we all belong to that social construct of the West. And I don’t feel we can cop out on that any more than those of us who are white can cop out on dealing with white privilege or men on dealing with male privilege.
“If the case of cosmetic surgery, the message is “Women’s bodies should be altered to conform to an idiotic, adolescent male fantasy.” In the case of FGM, the message is “Women’s bodies should be altered to prevent them from enjoying sex, thus making their sexuality easier to control.””
But WHY do they feel they have the right to decide that women’s bodies should be altered into any sort of fantasy at all? Because women’s bodies and women’s sexuality belong rightly to men. That’s why they have the right to determine what fantasy they should conform to or whether their sexual pleasure should be controlled. It does come from the same original premise, even though it plays itself out in different ways.
“Just as all feminisms aren’t the same, neither are all forms of gender oppression.”
Again, I didn’t say they were equivalent, only that, IMO, these specific examples come from the same underlying reason.
When all five-year-old girls in America are forcibly given boob jobs, I think we will have a better analogy to FGM.
the other culture changes
Cultures always change.
I think Crys T’s point is a good one.
All too often, “Westerners” try to pretend that they’re the “good guys” — out to save the world from the oppressors. But those same people are so quick to ignore the oppression that exists right here — that they, themselves, may be engaged in.
Cosmetic surgery, sexual objectification of women, pornography, sexually-revealing clothes. These are the flip side of the FGM, hajib-wearing coin. Sure, there are differences, but only enough to put them on the other side of the same coin, not a different coin altogether. It all comes down to patriarchal control of women’s bodies and women’s sexuality.
Mythago, you expose my unnecessary wordiness.
Crys T: I understand your point, but despite the reality that any group of people or community is multifaceted, we DO talk about Other cultures as if they were monolithic & homogenous. When we discuss FGM, it’s in terms of what They do as opposed to what We do. I don’t see that it’s good for us to insist that We be seen as multifaceted while simultaneously not calling ourselves out on our own short-sightedness in our discussion of others.
Um, I’m equally opposed to treating other cultural designations as active historical agents, and I myself don’t do it. That other people make this epistemological error is no reason I, or anyone else, should.
Also, though I agree we must keep these points in mind, we have to be careful about letting our “fairness” blind us to the fact that people do live in communities. There are individuals in these communities, but they also function as cohesive units in some ways. To illustrate, just how irritating is it for us feminists when a man comes along and says, “You can’t put all men in the same bag: not all of us engage in street harrassment/rape/etc., so you have to look at us each as individuals, blah, blah, blah….” What that does is eliminate any chance of seeing how sexism actually works, because if you remove the ability to see men as a group, you remove the ability to see their privilege.
I think you’re confusing a couple of different issues here. Paying attention to social dynamics/forces/interactions that go beyond the level of the individual is crucial for any meaningful social understanding, as any sociologist and anthropologist will tell you. But it’s a big, big step to go from their and treating a cultural unit as an agent–an entity capable of wanting things, doing things intentionally, etc. This is common in our speech, but it makes a fundamental error. When we say “the west want X” or “Islam wants Y” or something, what we’re really saying is “Powerful group within Islam, purporting to speak for all of them, want X.” It presumes a false unity. It’s not just sloppy, it’s sloppy in a way that privileges traditional/patriarchal elites. The rich and invigorating history of feminism in the United States shows that our “cohesive” society was never as cohesive as some pretended, and that plenty of people who purported to speak for all of us did no such thing.
My critique is not of sociological or even structural analysis per se, but rather of the functionalist and as yet unjustified move toward attributing agency to non-agentic aggregations.
Or as I’d put it, supporting “the west” in a struggle against “the veil” is often used as an explicit argument why people should support the US wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US government is sexist, and actively promotes a sexist agenda. Aside from the objections to imperialist war, and that the US government’s claims of promoting freedom for women in other countries is an outright lie, there’s the problem that if anti-sexists commit to supporting the US government in its wars elsewhere, it undermines their ability to confront the sexist agenda of the government in the US itself.