No More Harems: The Hidden History of Muslim and Ex-Muslim Feminism
Tunisia’s Minister for Women’s Affairs, Lilia Labidi
I love Muslim and ex-Muslim feminist women. They are so earthy, womanly, passionate, knowledgeable, beautiful, and eloquent — so emotionally present, so incredibly brave. Smitten? I guess I am, I always have been — ever since I began moving in Muslim circles 50 years ago.
Take Tunisia’s minister for women’s affairs. Amidst the mayhem and madness, Lilia Labidi just up and walked out of the United Nations meeting. Unlike Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was “waxing enthusiastic about the success of the Arab uprisings,” Labidi’s “giddy exposure to the UN rapidly dissipated. Her own appeal to the gathering (of powerful women presidents and secretary of states) for help in consolidating gains for women in Tunisia elicited little reaction.”
And so, Labidi decided to go home. She said: “I cannot live here in such luxury,” and she noted that her $700.00 a day cost of staying in New York “would be better spent on a project for rural women.” Labidi was offended, frustrated, that the entire UN seemed to care only about the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and had absolutely no interest in the needs of women, neither in Tunisia nor anywhere else.
Labidi, a professor of anthropology and clinical psychology, may be the only honest diplomat in the joint.
We are in the midst of an Islamic and ex-Muslim feminist uprising. Some names are known to Westerners: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, Irshad Manji, Azar Nafisi, Taslima Nasrin, Asra Q. Nomani, Wafa Sultan — grave, elegant, impish, and fiery spirits who live in exile from their countries, communities, families, or even faith.
These heroic feminists have been systematically demonized as “racists” and “Islamophobes.” Yes, even those whose skin colors may be brown, black, or olive; some are still religious Muslims but most are secularists, atheists, or apostates. These are high crimes according to Shari’a law. CAIR and the Muslim Student Association have stalked Darwish on campus. They are doing so right now in regard to her upcoming lecture on October 5th at George Mason School of Law in Virginia. Once Darwish’s appearance has been announced, CAIR has been known to bombard the campus group to either disinvite her or to cut into her time by having another speaker appear simultaneously to rebut her points about Islam’s relationship to women and jihad.
Some of these women are theatrical divas, starring in the stories of their own lives which they tell to rapt audiences again and again. In exile, they write books and articles and deliver stunning speeches. Some have begun to create foundations and organizations which are meant to go beyond personal stories, beyond collective trauma, to inform, console, and act as role models for other endangered Muslim women.
Many more such heroes have risen up. They are not yet known to us in the West: Ida Lichter, in Muslim Women Reformers, has written the biographies of more than 100 such “inspiring voices,” mainly female, but also male, from 23 Muslim countries and from Israel, the (disputed) Palestinian territories, the United States, and France.
Many of these vibrant voices are the heirs to an indigenous historical Muslim feminism as well as the heirs to western First and Second Wave feminism. They are my heirs in terms of my commitment to universal human rights and specifically to women’s rights. They are not “multicultural relativists.”
Nonie Darwish
On September 19, 2011, three Canadian Muslim women: Natasha Fatah, Marina Nemat, and Raheel Raza, spoke in Toronto at a panel titled: “Islamism’s war against women.” The event was organized by Meryle Kates and moderated by Barbara Kay.
The audience overflowed the space. Yet, the Canadian mainstream media (Globe and Mail, Toronto Star) did not cover the panel. The National Post had a brief editorial which described something of what the women said:
Journalist and activist Raheel Raza argued that the legal code known as sharia has no basis in religion –but rather is a political artifice created as a means to leverage the Islamic faith into a tool for totalitarians and misogynists. Marina Nemat, an Iranian-Canadian woman who was tortured at Tehran’s Evin prison as a teenager, described how Iran’s revolutionaries exploited Islamist fervor to transform her pluralistic, cosmopolitan nation into a medieval prison state. Finally, broadcaster/activist Natasha Fatah lamented that even now, and even in Canada, we often are blind to Islamism’s true face: In the name of “tolerance,” we permit the sort of degradation of Muslim girls women that would be completely unacceptable if perpetrated against whites.
American women know so little about the trials of muslim women. I’m sorry i refuse to give muslim a cap ‘M’. What i’ve read has forever radicalized me against this cult masquerading as a religion. Its followers to me are less than animals, and should not be accorded any societal niceties. It is not enough to say they are ‘uneducated’. Even the most stupid will eventually realize they are intentionally hurting another – unless they are psycho- and sociopaths to begin with. Americans MUST oppose all muslim actions into our United States, beginning with local madrasas and mosques. They MUST be driven out of America, back to the 6th century sand holes they came from. Americans also MUST offer these women protections from their “loving families” who only wish to kill them because they have learned to live in the world.
I COMPLETELY agree with you. No mosques, no muslime immigration.
Wonderful article! I just finished a book on women in Afghanistan, so it is very timely for me. One correction, though: It is GEORGE Mason School of Law, not just Mason. It is my alma mater, and I wish I were back at campus so I could go to what I’m sure will be a great speech.
Anti-Christian, sharia loving Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, stated, a recognized role for sharia law seemed ‘unavoidable’.
STOP THE HATE FOR WOMEN!
Rabidly pro-Islam European governments have unjustly allowed the setting up of many supremacist Islamic sharia law courts. There are 85 sharia law courts in the UK revealing Western leaders’ utter contempt for the Western justice system of equal rights for all under the law. Under Islamic law, women are inferior and non-Muslims have no human rights.
The establishing of Islamic sharia law courts in our countries makes a mockery of the many brave heroes who fought and died in the world wars so that we could live in freedom and safety.
Unless a drastic change occurs, due to extremely high Muslim immigration and very high birth-rate, Muslims will become the majority and cruel sharia law will completely replace Britain and Europe’s justice system.
Some day people will wake up and realize that we’re trying to save a society from devolving into hatred. A son or a daughter who grows up thinking that brutality against family members is normal will also exhibit that same brutality toward others outside the family.
It is evil. It is wrong. I want my children of both sexes to grow up as strong, capable, well educated, and caring people. We should fight any culture that imposes such hatred upon others. We should not leave those Feminists in these countries stranded.
They deserve better than just a happy article.
Ms. Chesler, thank you for a wonderful article. I have been thinking and saying these same things for quite a while now. I’m middle-aged, and returned to college to finally finish my degree. Can you imagine my disgust (sidling up to horror) when in a “Gender & Communication” class the focus was on: a mid 19th cent. woman being persecuted for perhaps being lesbian, how the Mary Tyler Moore show only cont’d the patriarchy, etc., etc. Yeah, all the topics were that relevant and timely.
I am one of those “2nd wave” feminists, and have been appalled at the lack of concern for women being forced into compliance and acceptance of their standing as sub-human, worthless things that matter to no one. And you didn’t even touch on their genital mutilation. I have *never* been a man-hating feminist; all I ever wanted was for women not to have artificial barriers thrown up in front of them. For women to have the same access to educational, career, and esp. financial choices and opportunities as men. You are absolutely correct that in the name of misplaced “alterity“, “respecting the Other” and “cultural diversity”, western women have ignored the plight of all females under the thumb of ONE religion (and I use that word loosely) for fear of being called racist. Better being called a racist than perverting our democratic ideals! Cultural relativism be damned.
I think every one of the women mentioned in your article are heroes in the greatest and grandest sense of the word. How we’ve let so many women world-wide be subjugated even unto death makes a mockery of feminism and western politics.
To men believing in this sordid, sick way of life: What kind of children will you have with a sub-human? What does that say of *your* intelligence, that you’d even consider having sex with an unthinking, undesireable, unclean, wounded thing? What makes you so infallible that YOU decide life and death, when those decisions are CLEARLY in the hands of Allah you profess to love so much?
Again, thank you for stating things so boldly and clearly.
I was scrolling down the list of articles at PJM, and about to navigate to another site, when I saw the byline. I thought, Phyllis Chesler is writing, I’d better read it.”
I’m glad I did.
Islam is a death cult, ever seeking to advance politically. It caters to all that is base and degenerate in man. The general idea is to get them as boys and make sure they are fully corrupted to carnal standards.
In this endeavor to offer a smorgasbord of all perversion for the male; the female presents a ‘problem’ in that she would more often than not object.
Therefore it is crucial to this effort that the female be hidden or unseen and unheard. She must be very tightly controlled, beaten and threatened constantly with violence.
She MUST accept from a very young age that she is worthless, stupid and not entitled to a afterlife heaven. She is to be ‘punished’ by being robbed of all rights as a human being. This has been the method favored by Islam to subjugate women into the base and corrupt perversion of Islam.
My question to these women; why do you continue to cling to this cult? What can it ever offer a female, except to stand by and what this evil imposed on her children.
I meant to have this as a “reply” up here:
So far as I can see, Islam is not a faith-based religion, and not a religion at all, but only a kind of criminal arrangement in a pattern of behavior, invented by bad men, and for bad men. Being fettered with the anchor which Islam is physically and intellectually, I don’t see how ideas of the modern world can continue into realization. I see no answer except that, as completely warped and irredeemable, a great many of them will have to be killed. And as appears, the largest part of them have declared was on the West, or wish to do so, so that, in all probability, the killing of them will proceed as an unavoidable and gladsome eventuality, . . .
It is my belief that when women appear to ‘cling’ to these murderous groups who claim to be Muslim, they do so because 1. it is so impossible for most to get out, 2. they are successfully brainwashed into believing what they are told, and have no access to see anything different.
Here in Western Canada, I had an experience 2 days ago where a muslim couple, he dressed in jeans and a western shirt, no head covering, and she with only her face from her eyes to her chin showing, walked past me, with my hair flying, and glared at me in apparent anger. I do not know who they were. I imagined that she gained ‘points’ with her husband for joining him in glaring at a western woman, or maybe she still did not glare enough, or was not quite covered enough, and was punished when they returned home; I will never know. I do know that it may be impossible for me to reach that woman or that man to change their views and actions, and that is the sad part. I left feeling sorry for that woman. I will never join the condoning of the veil or the hijab. I will continue to speak against the imprisonment of women in their homes and in their heavy, hiding, clothing. I will continue to speak for women’s access to equal rights in family and personal decisions, to equal rights in governance, religion, and business.
As a Canadian with American relatives and friends, I see how our justice systems still favour men who abuse women in the name of religion especially. This is so in western style polygamous sects, and in Muslim-style religious sects; women and men need to stand up to these much more openly in Canada and the USA. This is most poignant for women and girls who have left their captors, only to be found dead later, murdered by a henchman of the captor and his friends. This is not acceptable and must stop! It must be punished very very severely so the message is clear that it must stop, that you cannot get away with murdering women. In Canada, we have another group of women who are targets for murder – it is because they happen to be native; this also must stop, and the perpetrators, all of those involved in any murder of this type, must be so vigorously sought and punished that it stops being a way for some western Canadian men to take out their rage at women! It is the same phenomenon, only a different group of women as the target.
In memory of bMeena Keshwar Kamal founder of RAWA.
In addition to the courageous women you mention, all of whom deserve our attention and appreciation, there is a courageous Egyptian man in jail and now on a hunger strike. He dared to write pro-Israel comments on his blog.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=240532
Burqua = a “movable prison”.
BRILLIANT!
Islam is a “moving prison”, using taqqiya (lies) and Sharia law, along with terrorism, anti-semitism, anti-Christianity, etc. as their weapons. The oppression of women within Islam is just one manifestation of its’ medieval mentality and practices.
That these brave Moslem women who have spoken out against Islam’s barbaric practices, have been attacked and killed, even in liberal/leftist Canada, is a stain on Western Civilization and those who have allowed it.
The spirit of Neville Chamberlain and Munich is alive in the Liberal/Marxist Left as well as the fact that they are anti-human rights. Hypocrisy and stupidity from the Left has no limits.
The “real Feminists” are those who have spoken out for basic human rights, not those who burn their bras and spout marxist propaganda about feminism.
I’m with Steve Colby. Nice to hear your voice Phyllis. Must be lonely out there for an American feminist who hasn’t been suborned by the left. A genuine awakening among Muslim women could spark a revolution that might yet make Islam a civilized religion. Hard to believe but hope springs eternal. Keep slugging.
The only way for Islam to become a “civilized religion” is for 60% of it to be removed. Not going to happen. Maybe you should read it sometime.
Your math is off. The correct figure is 100%.
We help no-one by pretending.
A Bosnian harem.
a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/…/nato-free-oric-srebrenica-massacre.html
By Bruno Beloff, The Scotsman, July 13, 1994
Vahida Dedic says she was raped and beaten by a gang of men led by the Bosnian Muslim commander of Srebrenica, Naser Oric, then rejected in her own town with no-one to turn to. For her, crossing the lines into the hands of the Serb army which was shelling the people around her, was the only means of escape.
A rotund, gentle, elderly man, a lawyer from Belgrade, sits in the cramped dusty office of a disused factory in the Bosnian Serb town of Bratunac… The lawyer is present to take a statement for Yugoslavia’s own war crimes tribunal. Vahida Dedic, visibly in pain and with one side of her face swollen with toothache, tells her story.
“I was desperate. I realized that I couldn’t live there anymore and was thinking of committing suicide.” As fighting spread across Bosnia-Hercegovina, Vahida and her family had fled from their village of Pobudje to the nearby Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. Vahida, initially in makeshift refugee accommodation, found space in a house in the centre of Srebrenica. It was there that she met the town’s commander.
“Every second evening or so, Naser Oric used to come, usually with a different woman. He was always followed into the house by three Muslim soldiers. On March 27, they came again. I made coffee, as the housekeeper told me to. Then the three soldiers ordered me to another room. I knew their names: Safet, Serd and Ibro, boys of 20 years. When I entered the room, the soldiers told me to strip off, lie down on the bed and have sex with them. I started protesting. I tried to free myself. At one point, I tried to jump through the window: this was upstairs.
“Safet caught me and started to beat me on the face and body. Then all three started to to beat me and take off my clothes. That’s how they stripped me naked. Safet was the first to rape me. After that, Serd and Ibro raped me as well.”
“By the end, I was unconscious. I came round before dawn. I realized that I was alone and naked, and the door of the room was open. The rape started around eight in the evening. I don’t know when they left the room. At first, I couldn’t stand up. Then I dressed, and went to find the housekeeper. When I found her I told her what had happened, but she just laughed at me.
“In the morning, Commander Oric came back, so I told him what his comrades had done to me. He hit me and swore at me.” … I went to the Muslim police, to complain to them. But when I told them what happened, they shouted ‘Get out of here!’ and threw me out of the police station. ‘You have complained to Naser,’ they said. ‘If he didn’t help you nobody can!’” Naser Oric, the 24-year-old army commander of Srebrenica, first came to prominence in March 1993… …Oric said he would prefer a human shield of 9,000 civilians for Srebrenica’s 8,000 fighters. Under Oric’s instructions and with the active compliance of the UN, Srebrenica had effectively become a prison. The girl’s walk was potentially suicidal.
“The only way out was down the main road from Srebrenica to Bratunac… UN guards prevented us from going on and told us that they would shoot at us. They ordered us to go back to Srebrenica… but we didn’t want to go. “So, we crossed a stream about five kilometers from the UN post and went on our way to Serbian territory… At about half past twelve a Serb soldier saw us and beckoned. Then we saw that we were in the middle of a minefield. We asked the soldier to come and take us out… so that we didn’t step on a mine. He came and took us to the Serb guns. The Serb soldiers gave us food. Then they took us to Bratunac by car. Serifa was taken to hospital, she was pregnant.” The lawyer completes his notes. The statement is concluded.
On the basis of a PHONY massacre US/NATO knew never took place, US/NATO waged cruel war for their top favorites, KLA Muslim terrorist organization, against Kosovo’s Christian Serbs, delivering up Kosovo for Islam. US/NATO show no mercy for innocents.
Thank you Phyllis for writing about this meeting and its participants. These women are an inspiration. They are brave, honest, and intelligent. One Passover after hearing Wafa Sultan’s famous interview on Al Jazira, I added a glass of water to the seder table for Miriam, as a small tribute to the strength of determined women. I hope they inspire young Muslim women who wish to remain Muslim but not oppressed.
Persevere Phyllis. This was a good one.
Welcome back, Phyllis.
Thank you, Phyllis Chesler, for standing up for human rights.
Unlike the pseudo-feminists who hurt women every day they remain silent, you defend the rights of women and humankind alike, when you educate about the abuses of Islam. We need to hear from you – and I am grateful for your eloquent voice.
Two things to be pointed out:
the UNVEILED Arabo islamic feminist
who left the room against THE VASTE of money by fews, while the majority (of humanity, NOT SOME ARABO ISLAMIC WOMEN ONLY) is living in harsh poverty;
one might take into account the fact that in the West Arabo islamic women are HIJABIZING society, and they certainly are not feminists (which is meant to mean: fighters for human rights for women);
Arabo islamic feminists alone can do a little against … (worldwide, crosscultural) MISOGYNY …, as well as Non arabo islamic feminists only can do a little against it.
The feminist hawk by Bosh Fawstin, despite I forward him my compliments for his drawing skills, looks too much aggressive and masculine. This usually DOES NOT encourage … men/males … to join the battle (usually boys prefer to look at a dolly than hawk, they prefer female sweetness than female aggressivity). What about a (future) FEMINIST OWL?
Many compliments dr. Phyllis Chesler and to the other sincere feminists, undependantly from their racial/ethnic (back)ground, age, colours, political belief, religious affiliation, and Light, Love and Energy to you and to your supporters. Kindest regards.
So far as I can see, Islam is not a faith-based religion, and not a religion at all, but only a kind of criminal arrangement in a pattern of behavior, invented by bad men, and for bad men. Being fettered with the anchor which Islam is physically and intellectually, I don’t see how ideas of the modern world can continue into realization. I see no answer except that, as completely warped and irredeemable, a great many of them will have to be killed. And as appears, the largest part of them have declared was on the West, or wish to do so, so that, in all probability, the killing of them will proceed as an unavoidable and gladsome eventuality, . . .
Even feminists don’t fight for feminism any more. Much less such an oxymoron as (ex)muslim, past or present, being ‘feminists.’ The only thing feminists fight for now is to prohibit conservatives regaining any ground politically. You can be a anti feminist socialist with no problem. But you can’t be a pro-female rights conservative.
Dr. Chesler has once again put to paper truths that are scalding, but shamefully almost completely ignored by Western media, pundits and so-called human rights persons.
She unearths the histories, praises the pioneers, and remonstrates against the lashes and shackles of medieval think that still bruises the women behind the veil of shame, muslimism and grief that is their lot.
As a trailblazer for many years, she is owed much for her vibrant, unceasing efforts to shine the huge wattage of her intellect on this dungeon pattern of behavior and thinking. May she find the bright acceptance and understanding of the Western men and women who ought to know better than to be torch-bearers for blight and betrayal of half the human race.
Bless you Ms. Chesler. These brave women deserve better. I continue to write to and forward these articles to the Prime Minister, Justice Minister, Minister of State for the Status of Women and my Member of Parliament. I look forward to mealy mouthed responses from their secretaries.
How is it possible that governments ignore the polygamy, torture, and killing of their own citizens? We are not third-world nations in the West, why do we allow this 7th Century barbarism to continue on our shores?
The people who are courageous enough to speak about it are the ones who are most at risk! Why aren’t we all defending these women, and their children, against brutality? They are our neighbours!
And why aren’t the bold and honest words of Phyllis Chesler written in every major newspaper in North America, to let readers know that we must all demand our politicians and media take notice. Thank you, Phyllis Chesler, and Pajamas Media, for keeping us informed!
Thank you so much for reporting and commenting on these subjects. I am grateful to PJM for providing a forum for such reporting. Conservative and Christian women need to take up the cause bigtime. Apparently no one else will.
Godliness is the only thing that overcomes ungodliness.
The prophet, Jeremiah was instructed to write a book with all the words that had been given to him concerning Israel and Judah which was to be read in the ears of the people, so they could avoid the coming judgment,much as is being done today.
Jer 36:21 So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll: and he took it out of Elishama the scribe’s chamber. And Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king.
22 Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him.
23 And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.
24 Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words.
25 Nevertheless Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll: but he would not hear them.
This did not annul the judgment that was passed and the people lost their freedom. Once again we are determined to repeat this history. Our leaders are doing just as this king did.
Take a look at God’s order and consider what care we are to have for one another and the high place it holds women. That authority is given to the man should not weigh heavy on the woman since they are free of that responsibility. If we are to love our wife as our own body how can we beat and slap it around. When we make a mistake do we not endeavor to justify that mistake and take steps to make it right.
How much more so when the wife makes a mistake? Do we deal with it with love our with severity?
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
As stated in verse 30 it would be hard to be more similar yet the Lord did not create us male and
female to be just alike.
The carnal mind is not governed by the Spirit so those who are carnally minded, regardless of spiritual affiliation, will use carnal judgment.
The Muslim is a religion of works, demanding prayer and many other action so as not to anger Allah but love is not required. We should take heed to what Phyllis Chesler and the comments are telling us.
To be carnally minded is death.
Sad but hardly surprizing, is the fact that the moveable prison rides on the backs of female toddlers as well as grown women. I, once again, witnessed something so hideous yesterday a few blocks away from my home–a very young girl, all of perhaps two years of age–attempting to run across the street; she was covered from head to foot. I shook my head from side to side in visible disgust, in the hopes that her equally veiled mother would notice.
These are times of the most bald hypocrisy. “Feminism” remains a joke with its adherents being nothing more than sycophants of the Left as well as the holy, sanctified Third World, where anything goes. After all, it’s all sprinkled in angel dust. Only western caucasians do bad things.
Ms. Chesler is a truth teller. I’ll stand by that any day.
I applaud your message, but there is a lot you could be doing to help these women.
It is a new world out there where one person can make a difference through the internet, through commenting on articles, through writing thousands of small articles and reaching the masses, through YouTube videos. Please come forward and fight your battle through the internet.
The Muslim Brotherhood realizes this and is waging internet war to promote the takeover of the Middle East by the Muslim Brotherhood through Obama.
But they have no force trying to stop them on the internet. The Muslim Brotherhood is easy to defeat simply by repeating facts every time they try to promote their message to control another country.
The American Primaries are starting for the 2012 elections and one of the key points is that Obama and his administration is supporting and promoting the Muslim Brotherhood. Tunisia has scheduled elections for October 23. Egypt will be holding parliamentary elections on November 28.
You are not powerless in this new age. You can do something.
Such brave women. I pray for their safety and success.
These barbaric atrocities were brought to our shores of Canada, America, and England by power hungry men. Don’t they realize that the killing of women and girls will stop births? Are they really that stupid? The women who are putting up with this treatment need to get a backbone and collectively come together and put a stop to it. There have been, there are now, and there will always be, more women then men in the world. This treatment probably cannot be stopped in Arab lands, but surely when you have American/Canadian born women, they can see what other women are doing. Why they continue to put rags on their heads and body is beyond me. The Koran never said to cover yourself from head/and or to toes with rags! It said to dress “modestly.” How hard is that to understand? The problem is, most Muslim women – and men, cannot read. And for sure they haven’t read their Koran or they would know better. How on earth does a mother allow her children to be used as suicide bombers? Or human shields for the so-called “men” in the group.
I pray that women everywhere start opening their eyes to what is going on around them, and put a stop to all these killings of God’s children!
And not ONE of these courageous fighters for human rights was included in the three-women-from-Muslim-world Nobel Peace Prize! I wonder why? (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)
I think Ms. Chesler is being foolish and naive. Of the 650 million Muslimas on the planet, the article may have named the totality of a dozen willing to grant Jews/Zionists equal human rights, including the right to self-determination.
The majority of male Muslims hate me violently because I am Jewish, Zionist, and female. The majority of female Muslimas hate me violently because I am Jewish and Zionist. I don’t see much difference.
“These barbaric atrocities were brought to our shores of Canada, America, and England by power hungry men.”
I dispute that. FGM, honour killings, and suicide terrorism are generally encouraged as much by Muslima females as by Muslim males. Just ask Shabak.
You mention harems a number of times but fail to mention that even into the early 20th century harems housed not only women, but men who had been castrated against their will. As a man who has had to have his testicles removed surgically I can only shudder at the barbaric methods of castration used at the time. Unlike modern times these eunuchs had no access to hormone replacement therapy and were unable to have sex, suffered muscle loss, and experienced symptoms similar to menopause. Not to mention the shame they must have felt at being “unmanned” and surrounded by women who might very well have found the concept of eunuchs amusing.
I just wanted to point that out. I acknowledge that women today still experience great injustice at the hands of men. Female genital mutilation is in every way the equivalent of castration. Honour killings are horrific and highlight the barbarity and backwardness of the perpetrators. Very seldom are men victim to women.
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