By M.G. Oprea
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Late last year the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, openly discussed what he considers an obvious “fact”: that men and
women are not equal. He argued that Islam has made it clear that a woman’s
primary role is motherhood, which is not equal to a man’s role.
This was widely reported in the media, but did not
provoke the kind of indignation one would expect. There were no long
commentaries decrying this speech, or tirades against the patriarchal culture
of Muslim-majority countries. There was just dispassionate reporting and a few
angry tweets. The leader of Turkey thinks men and women aren’t equal. Where is
the outrage?
Unfortunately, this lack of reaction is the norm, not the
exception. No American bands cancelled concert dates after an Imam in southern
France preached that women are fundamentally selfish. Nor have there been calls
to divest ourselves from Saudi Arabia over the recent sentencing of a woman to
70 lashes over “insulting” her husband on WhatsApp. There is a disturbing
resistance on the Left to criticizing Islamic societies for their treatment of
women. In fact, it’s barely up for discussion. This stubborn denial of women’s
rights in Islamic societies reveals a cognitive dissonance on the left, where
two of their most closely held beliefs come into conflict: feminism and
multiculturalism.
Multiculturalism Means Suspending All Criticism
The multicultural project, which came out of our
universities in the 1950s and ’60s, seeks a world where there is no right or
wrong, only different. Believing that all religions and cultures are absolutely
equal means reserving judgment. No society is better or worse than the next.
Out of fear of seeming critical of other cultures, or worse, seeming to echo
the rhetoric of colonialism, the Left falls over itself to avoid even a trace
of criticism.
Nowhere is this truer than with Islam. This is why the
Fort Hood massacre was labeled workplace violence and almost no one in the
media mentioned that Major Nidal Hasan had been radicalized and was committing
Jihad against America for its wars in the Middle East.
The dedication to the multicultural project clashes most
regrettably with feminism. The Left, which everywhere sees gender inequality
and a war on women in the West, has a blind spot when it comes to Islam.
Whether it’s about pay inequality, nursing in public, or the latest FX series,
“Fargo,” there is always somewhere an outcry of sexism in America. Gender
inequality, while certainly still existent in America, has become an obsession.
Take the Hobby Lobby decision last year, which exempts some businesses from
having to provide certain kinds of contraceptives. It provoked accusations that
the ruling was going to send us back to the biblical times of stoning and
genital mutilation. But what about Islamic societies, where stoning and genital
mutilation still occasionally happens today?
But Islam Deserves Some Criticism
Given the dedication, sometimes to the point of
absurdity, to defending equality, particularly among academics and social
activists on the Left, it’s shocking that these are the very people who reject
the proposition that there may be a chronic problem with women’s rights in
Muslim society, where there are frequent reports of forced marriage, honor
killings, and cases of stoning and burning women alive, not to mention daily
sexual harassment on the streets. To deny that there is a problem is a slap in
the face to the women who are victims of this type of violence. Worse yet is
when western states ignore these problems at home, as happened with the
Rotherham gang rapes.
In addition to the outright violent acts committed
against women in the name of Islam, there are the more subtle and insidious
institutional inequalities in Islamic societies. Most Islamic countries base
their family law on an interpretation of Sharia, the Islamic moral and
religious code. Morocco, arguably one of the most westernized Islamic
countries, only recently reformed theirs, changing the legal age of marriage
from 15 to 18, outlawing most cases of polygamy, giving women the right to ask
for a divorce, outlawing repudiation, giving women more inheritance rights, and
ending the need for permission from the wali (either the father or brother of a
woman) to marry or obtain a passport.
In many countries, Sharia is used to justify the forced
marriage of rape victims to their attackers. This was the case in Morocco until
last year, when the law was repealed after a 16-year-old rape victim killed
herself with rat poison to escape her abusive attacker-turned-husband. Although
the law has since changed, a significant and important step, culture is slower
to adapt. Just last November, a rape victim who was made to marry her rapist
tried to file for divorce. In response, her husband disfigured her with 50
slashes of a razor blade to ensure that no other man would take her once they
were separated.
Yet to say there may be a problem with women’s rights in
these countries violates the dogma of multiculturalism. So the West remains
silent.
Middle Eastern Versions of ‘Feminism’
Those who deny inequalities between men and women in
Islamic countries, including some Middle Eastern feminists, claim that it is
merely a different kind of society where the conception of equality is
different. Men and women are equal, but women just can’t drive in Saudi Arabia.
They argue that “western feminism” doesn’t apply to Middle Eastern culture, and
we shouldn’t force it there. To them, women’s rights are not a universal truth.
In Islamic society, the home sphere is the territory of
women while the public sphere is the territory of men. A common defense of the
treatment of women in the Middle East is that women are not less than men, they
just operate in different spheres. It’s ironic that the societal restriction of
Muslim women to the home is acceptable to liberals, and yet, in the 1950s and
’60s this was the very problem against which the feminist movement in America
fought. Even if the law didn’t keep women in the kitchen, Donna Reed-style, it
was a cultural problem that we had to grow out of. If only liberals fought for
the same liberation for women in all countries.
But they have more important things to do like unveiling
the ugly truth about the underlying sexism in the marketing of Luna bars to
American women.
Women’s Affairs in the West and Middle East Are Not the
Same
It’s difficult not to reflect on the relative radio
silence on these issues in the West while at home we scour American campuses
for signs of a rape culture in the “patriarchal” fraternity system. Of course
rape happens on U.S. campuses, and of course it is terrible and needs to be
legally pursued. But compare the outrage on Twitter and in the media at merely
questioning the fuzzy facts behind an allegation of rape, to the utter lack of
reaction about the fact that women who are raped in Islamic societies are often
seen as bringing shame to their families, are considered un-marriageable, and
are sometimes even killed by their family to restore honor.
Few are willing to ask what it is about Islamic culture
that consistently produces these inequalities for and abuses of women. Ayaan
Hirsi Ali was made the pariah of commencement ceremonies because of her
advocacy for women in the Middle East, and just last week the Muslim Students
Association at Duke University tried to shut down a talk on women in Islam.
Mona Eltahawy found herself in a firestorm after publishing an article in
Foreign Policy titled “Why Do They Hate Us?” She was accused of perpetuating
stereotypes that are hurtful to women.
I am not arguing that all women in Muslim societies are
oppressed. Many have found support in their family for enjoying a free life and
lifestyle. Nor am I saying that there are not still inequalities in the West. I
am rather pointing out that there is a gap in the conversation on women’s
rights, a fact that ought to spark a discussion on why this is the case.
Unfortunately, this article, rather than helping create that spark, will most
likely bring accusations of orientalism and cultural colonialism.
Either Women’s Rights Matter, Or They Don’t
What we believe about women’s rights should either apply
everywhere or it should apply nowhere. It’s either true that men and women
deserve equal treatment or it isn’t. If it’s not a Truth, with a capital “T,”
then we act falsely when we decry the injustices of gender inequality in
America. We are hypocrites. Discrimination and harassment toward women, just
like racism, should be met with intolerance regardless of culture, religion, or
colonial history. There should be no such thing as “western” feminism when it
comes to women’s rights. There is only feminism.
Every society and culture deserves scrutiny, from within
and without. This is the foundation of a healthy and fertile civilization. If
we don’t debate and criticize others and ourselves, in a respectful manner, we
will never be able to refine and improve. When debates about certain countries
and societies are off limits, we rob everyone of the opportunity for
self-reflection and to experience change and reform.
Two strongly held progressive ideals, multiculturalism
and feminism, are in conflict when the topic of women’s rights in Islamic
societies comes up. The Left cannot reconcile its need to accept all cultures
as equal with its “fierce” defense of gender equality. They have to choose one
over the other. Sadly, they have chosen the appearance of pious multiculturalism
over the rights, health, and freedom of many Muslim women. Multiculturalism, it
seems, trumps women’s rights.
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