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SirTweek
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A year ago, when women's rights and peace advocate Hibaaq Osman was giving a speech at the United Nations, she cited only one cause for which the use of military force might be justified: to oust the oppressive Taliban regime from Afghanistan. Now that the bloody effort is under way, however, Osman, who heads the Center for Strategic Initiatives in Washington, feels differently.
"I said it, but I was just making a point," a distraught Osman recalls. "This predicament is a test for feminists. We have seen our worst nightmare—women being dehumanized and shot in public—and it makes us more radical. It makes us angry enough to entertain the idea of war. But do I support war?" Osman pauses to consider her own country, Somalia, with its brutal history, before bursting out with an emotional "No. No. No. War is not OK under any circumstances," and then concluding, "The whole thing simply breaks my heart."
From the Village Voice November 6, 2001
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SirTweek
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quote:
Feminism was hijacked
By MINDELLE JACOBS -- Edmonton Sun
Women used to proudly call themselves feminists. These days, they're just as likely to blanch at the term. Sunera Thobani's anti-western diatribe is a good reason why.
As a women's studies professor and former head of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Thobani is considered a leading voice of contemporary Canadian feminism. And what does Thobani, a modern women's libber, believe?
That the U.S. "is the most dangerous and the most powerful global force unleashing horrific levels of violence."
That "there will be no emancipation for women anywhere on this planet until the western domination of this planet is ended."
And that the West represents "the most heinous form of patriarchal racist violence that we're seeing on the globe today."
The women in Afghanistan, suffering under the most brutal repression of human rights in the world, would be surprised to learn that the West is the great oppressor.
Afghani women would think they'd died and gone to heaven if they had even the simplest of freedoms that women in liberal democracies enjoy.
In Afghanistan, women aren't allowed to work or go to school. They're forced to wear a head-to-toe burka with a piece of mesh fabric covering their eyes.
They are housebound unless accompanied by a male relative and the windows of their homes must be painted so no one can see inside.
Women are prohibited from laughing loudly (as if they had anything to laugh about) and they aren't allowed to make noise when they walk. They can't practise medicine but male physicians are banned from treating women.
Make no mistake. These gross human-rights violations have nothing to do with Islam. The maniacal mullahs who rule Afghanistan are simply using religion as an excuse for enslavement and misogyny.
The same is true for much of the Arab world. Banning women from driving? That's repression, not religion. Honour killings? Simply a convenient way to hide rape and control women's sexuality.
Banning women from voting and forbidding them from travelling abroad without their husband's permission? That's male elitism, not Islam.
Thobani is an educated woman but, somehow, she has failed to understand that it is not the West's fault that much of the Third World is a political, social and economic backwater.
In her speech Monday, she said she felt the pain of the thousands who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks in the U.S.
But then she went off the deep end, suggesting that U.S. foreign policy is more of a global threat than terrorism.
In their warped minds, the madmen who caused havoc in the U.S. three weeks ago envisioned an Islamic jihad against the secular world. But in Thobani's eyes, the battle against terrorism is the "fight of the West against the rest." The U.S. merely wants to dominate the planet, she declared. "The woman's movement has to stand up to this."
Oh really? If this is what passes for feminism now, it's no wonder women are shedding the label in despair.
Feminism used to mean the struggle for equal rights, and those battles have largely been won over the past few decades.
Our physiology no longer dictates our destiny. Women in the West have the freedom to choose any path. To be sure, there are still glass ceilings to be broken but the days of state-sanctioned sexism and discrimination are over.
You'd think at a conference entitled "Women's Resistance," Thobani would have spoken up for Afghani women and denounced the Taliban.
Instead, she demonized the West. Feminism has been hijacked by a bunch of nuts who have fetishized victimhood. It's enough to make real feminists want to wring their necks.
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SirTweek
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quote:
Thobani's an insult to western feminists
By RACHEL SA -- Toronto Sun
After a year of Women's Studies at U of T, feminism won me over. It did take some coaxing, but eventually I began to think of myself as a feminist and I still do. And, as a feminist, I was angered even more to hear the words of Sunera Thobani this week at the "Women's Resistance Conference."
Most of the public and media ire was sparked by Thobani's anti-American statements and the reaction (or lack thereof) by Multiculturalism Minister Hedy Fry, who was seated on stage for the speech.
Speaking to an audience of about 500, Thobani, a former head of the National Action Committee (NAC) on the Status of Women, implied the United States deserved what it got on Sept. 11 when she said: "Today in the world, the United States in the most dangerous and the most powerful global force unleashing horrific levels of violence. From Chile to El Salvador, to Nicaragua to Iraq, the path of U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood ... "
After those words, Thobani must forgive the general public for glossing over her sentiments about feeling the pain of the terrorists' victims "every day."
I bristled when Thobani described the American people as "bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood. They don't care whose blood it is, they want blood." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the U.S. government seems to be taking great pains to find very specific blood - the blood of the terrorists who murdered more than 6,000 of their innocent citizens and attempted to destroy their way of life. I call that justice, not a people who are "vengeful" and "calling for blood." But I digress ...
Obviously, this sort of anti-American (and indeed, anti-North American) rhetoric is, to say the very least, ill-timed in the wake of Sept. 11 and Hedy Fry should have immediately made an effort to distance the government from Thobani's comments (though at least she kept her seat during the standing ovations to voice her protests).
But what made me fume and sent me running to the keyboard was Thobani's claim "there will be no emancipation for women anywhere on this planet until the western domination of this planet is ended."
Could you back that up a little? Let me get this straight: the western world - where women enjoy more freedom and power than anywhere else - must disappear before women can be free?
How Thobani could attack a society as oppressive, even as she was exercising her right within said society to speak her views and make her voice heard across the nation, is maddening. The implication that the women of the West require "emancipation" is insulting, not just to the women of Canada and the United States, but to those women in the world who suffer true oppression.
We may have yet to achieve a utopia of women's rights and equality in the West, but we are free to speak out for the changes that still need to be made. We are free to work for them. North American women enjoy rights, freedoms and opportunities that others only dream of. We are free to educate ourselves and work in fields of our choosing. We are free to speak our minds.
While North American feminists do fight against very real injustices, such as lingering inequality in the workplace, in other parts of the world it is impossible for some women to leave their homes unaccompanied by their husband.
If Thobani wishes to attack a country that truly oppresses its women, then she should look to Afghanistan where women are denied such basic rights as education and access to health care and can be murdered if they are accused of impropriety.
Inflammatory words such as Thobani's do not help, but hinder, the feminist movement in Canada. Such anti-western rhetoric as this was often spouted in my Women's Studies classes, and it frustrated me to be told over and over how "oppressed" I am by my country. I strained to get a new perspective and learned that, beneath the extremist rhetoric that turns many people off, there still remains work to be done for the women's movement in Canada.
Unfortunately, not everyone can move beyond the rhetoric to see that. Too many women think "feminism" is a four-letter word, an outdated movement clung to by radicals and extremists who do not speak for the rest of us.
Women jump to deny being "feminists." With her words, Sunera Thobani ensured that the trend will continue.
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This is the last bit I will quote I think I proved my point.
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SirTweek
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How many pieces would you like me to cite, 10, 20, 100 before you will accept it as fact that these things were said? Hmmm....A couple of extremist feminists, for one both peices were about the same person (did you actually read them?) this was at a confrence attended by at least 500 delegates from diffrent Canadian feminist groups where Thobani was given a standing ovation for her speach. How about the peice about Hibaaq Osman supporting war on Iraq before Sept. 11, then the quick change in attitude when the war started.
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:26
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quote:
Originally posted by SirTweek
How many pieces would you like me to cite, 10, 20, 100 before you will accept it as fact that these things were said? Hmmm....A couple of extremist feminists, for one both peices were about the same person (did you actually read them?) this was at a confrence attended by at least 500 delegates from diffrent Canadian feminist groups where Thobani was given a standing ovation for her speach. How about the peice about Hibaaq Osman supporting war on Iraq before Sept. 11, then the quick change in attitude when the war started. |
Where did I deny these things were said? I was pointing out that these things were NOT indicative of the positions taken by the major feminist organizations. I asked you to cite sources from such organizations stating those as their positions, and you haven't. Your accusation that NOW was "backpeddaling" is simply not true, as they never called for war on the Taliban.
Again--individuals giving speeches is different than organizations issuing position statements and their stances on public policy. Find me a statement from NOW, or the Feminist Majority, or some major feminist organization in which they called for war on Afghanistan pre- sept. 11th, and then show me a change in policy after it. I don't think you will be able to, because their positions have been consistent.
Mainstream feminist organizations don't go around calling for war on other countries.
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SirTweek
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The Feminist Majority board member Mavis Leno has agreed with the war on Afghanistan, she also believes the United States should set up a constitutional democracy in Afghanistan, she has also said that there is no other way but war to remove the Taliban. Other members of the Feminist Majority agree with her but I suppose to you these are just extemists or 'fake' feminist individuals like Hibaaq Osman and those who applauded her at her UN speech. This is par for the course, feminazis are almost constantly backpeddaling. In the usual US posting manner it seems to you that only US feminist orginizations matter, you realize there is a whole world outside of america.
quote:
Boris:
conservatives were branding feminists as demonic lesbian radicals when the movement began. |
quote:
The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist." (National NOW Times, Jan.1988). |
quote:
"Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole... patriarch!" (Gloria Steinhem.) |
Now I really don't care who a person chooses to sleep with and overthrowing captilism is a good idea but it makes me wonder is it the conservatives 'demonizing' or are the feminazis doing it to themselves. Of course there are many more quotes from feminazi leaders and orginizations along a similiar vein and much more hateful towards men then the two I mentioned above.
When the movement began it had nothing to do with lesbianism or overthrowing captilism it had to do with establishing women as equals to men. Neither has every feminist followed the course of orginizations such as NOW.
Lets look at a quote from Erin Pizzey the women that opened the first shelter for victims of domestic violence in the world.
quote:
In 1971, I opened the doors of the first shelter for victims of domestic violence in the world. Men, women and children came to my door. The feminist movement hungry for funds and public recognition, hi-jacked my movement and turned it into a war against men.
I recognised that children born into violent and dysfunctional families were most likely to grow up into violent and dysfunction adults. I realised that both men and women who were not able to make harmonious and loving relationships needed help.
The feminist movement's agenda was to declare all men as potential rapists and batterers. Under cover of the shelter movement which gave them funding and accommodation to wage their gender war against men, they began to disseminate misleading information. Legislation against fathers was put into place and family courts became hostile to men.
Horrified by these atrocities I travelled to America and tried to make my views known. NOW issued an edict warning all NOW groups to ignore my arrival. A film of my work (the first film on domestic violence in the world), was fronted against my wishes by Gloria Steinem thus putting the film into the feminist camp....
Over the last thirty years the American people bowed meekly to the savage onslaught meted out by the hate-crazed movement. Feminists declared a 'gender war' against men. |
Then I suppose Erin must be a conservative demonizer as was Mindelle Jacobs in the previous opinion peice, oh and the village voice too  .
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07-03-2003 12:18
. I expected one star. And no I have not voted on this thread yet.
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