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We need more JK Rowlings (AFP via Getty Images)
If 2022 has been the year of the âwomanâ, it is a tale with two different final chapters: one hopeful, one less so. The first is set in a distant country, where an archaic, theocratic regime threatens to be toppled by women throwing down their hijabs and demanding their emancipation. The second plays out in a more familiar setting but in an unfamiliar language; a Western nation where the word âwomanâ itself no longer has any meaning, its definition rewritten to include âan adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birthâ.
This is the paradox of the past 12 months: the existence of women is being questioned in the very place where female emancipation has come furthest, while in places where women remain shackled to medieval notions of honour and chastity, true feminism is at its strongest.
Why should we worry about dictionary definitions, when everyone knows what a woman is anyway? This may seem like a fair question. Yet simply dismissing the erasure of a word as a âculture war issueâ misunderstands the forces that drive it. As Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay noted in their 2020 book Cynical Theories, language is now viewed as a tool of oppression, and thus must be altered in the name of so-called âliberationâ. These arguments over the word âwomanâ, then, have wider repercussions: they are fronts in a greater war that will determine how language itself is used.
Those who would divorce âwomanâ from its biological implications often present their ideas as innocuous. They are, we are told, simply champions of âinclusionâ. But their ideology is hardly uncontroversial, and surrendering to it is not harmless. The past year has seen reports of transgender women attacking women in female-only spaces and unfairly winning trophies in womenâs sports. The spirit of these failures was perhaps best-distilled in the words of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in March was unable to define what being a woman entailed during her Senate confirmation hearing. âIâm not a biologist,â she said, as if one needed to be a professional scientist to know basic biological facts.
A word of clarification. I am immensely sympathetic to the plight of transgender people and believe they ought to have the same moral and legal rights as everyone else. To be against militant trans activistsâ gender ideology is not to be transphobic. Rather, it is simply to agree, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie succinctly put it, that âtrans women are trans womenâ. Adichie was savaged for this and other statements evincing wrongthink, but acknowledging that trans women are distinct from women, that there are potential conflicts between their rights, and that gender ideology opens the door to abusive men masquerading as women, should not be controversial. Standing up for the rights of transgender people should not mean pretending sex does not exist altogether.
Indulging in this fantasy can have perverse, and dangerous, repercussions â both at home and abroad. Here in the West, it culminates in a myopic worldview which holds that a bestselling author (and domestic abuse survivor) should be trolled for funding a women-only service for victims of sexual abuse. Elsewhere in the world, the erosion of our understanding of what it means to be a âwomanâ has more immediate consequences.
Consider what has taken place in Kenya, Iran and Afghanistan in just the past two months. In Kenya, while women in America debated what we should call a person born with a cervix, FGM has taken a new and insidious form. In Iran, the female-led protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested for breaking mandatory dress code laws, have been met with an equally inhumane response. Reports abound of Iranâs security services raping protestors and shooting at the faces and genitals of female protesters. And in Afghanistan, the Taliban government reintroduced Sharia Law, meaning women are now barred from walking outside without a male relative and must cover up with a burqa or hijab when outside the home. Earlier this month, a woman was publicly flogged for entering a shop without a male guardian. Last week, the Taliban banned women from studying at university
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SubscribeThis goes immediately in the “best of 2022” list.
“If 2022 is the year of the âwomanâ, letâs hope 2023 will be the year when we can delete those quotation marks.”
One of the best quotes ever.
Anyway, not much to add to the article except thank you and “Amen”!
Hear! Hear!
God bless Ayaan. First she helped awaken us to the darker side of unreformed radical Islam and the cruelties inflicted on millions women by it and the associated ultra patriarchal cultures. Now she rightly points the finger at another more modern absolutist ‘supremacist’ ideology, bent on crushing freedom of expression and our subjugation to a warped credo in the West; the toxic identitarianism of the so called progressives (how I hate that they are called as such). Too many Western ‘feminists’ have totally betrayed Islamic women, turning their backs on their suffering. Where are the protests to match George Floyd? 350 girls are shot. Yet they stay silent about the revolution in Iran. Why such cowardice? Firstly, fear of violence. Second, because the Elect identitarians have a demented Hierarchy of Greviance & Privilege and Victimhood, and being critical of Islam is a greater more raycist sin than condemning trans ultras bullying women. Black victimhood tops both. Both of these anti modern anti women credos must be called out. Both are totalitarian and a threat to all our freedoms. Heed Ayaan’s words.
The problem with assuming the trans stuff will go away is that itâs an establishment ideology, pertaining to be the ideology of the downtrodden. I donât think trans activists were arguing that transwomen were actually women a few years ago, there was merely a push to make the GRC easier to obtain – for instance it used to force a divorce, by necessity, prior to gay marriage.
Meanwhile most Oxbridge undergraduates believe in it, and many are trans themselves of course, where that mostly involves a guy putting on a wig, declaring himself a woman and having a âlesbianâ relationship with his female partner. This makes the Cambridge undergraduate not just more interesting than before, but heâs now oppressed by the porter who is no doubt a cis male. The undergraduate is no longer a cis white male (a formula of words that removes class and nation anyway) but an oppressed transwoman.
Whoâs oppressing him? Women and working class folk mostly.
Good luck with reversing that ideology without an actual revolution.
It’s quite simple really.
An entire interconnected apparatus was developed in the West to fight for women’s rights as well as gay rights…young people started working for the causes with strong ideals…then the passage of time happened…
…kids came along, hobbies were acquired, car loans and expenses multiplied….
But what happens when a cause is won? What happens when the oppressed get what they wanted?
Women now outnumber men in the college-educated workforce. More women go to college too. Gays can marry with much fanfare. DIE programs promote such categories more quickly than white men who are now stuck in dead-end jobs at the bottom of the social latter. This trend is projected to continue for many decades.
So what happens when many LGB and women stop sending checks to those organizations that fought for and won their rights? What happens when LGB and women lose interest in following the cause after they’re full fledged members of society?
The workers within these activist organizations (and the PhDs in academia) have sticky expenses. Mortgages haven’t gone away, kids are still young, hobbies and pursuits still beckon.
But the bills aren’t getting paid anymore. And their “community organizer” skill-set doesn’t transfer well enough into a sufficient number of corporate-paid jobs. They can’t just lay down their swords to go make an honest living…
…so they become mercenaries.
The leaders in these organizations need to find another source of income, which means new causes with money backing those causes.
So women and gays now follow their forebears (i.e.white men) into the world of ‘toxic’ stereotypes as they are set aside for the new victim class.
Follow the money and none of this is a surprise.
DIE instead of DEI…perhaps a Freudian slip? đ I’ll leave it unedited.
Nice, you should get Unherd to let you write this up into a fully fledged article.
DIE instead of DEI…perhaps a Freudian slip? đ I’ll leave it unedited.
Nice, you should get Unherd to let you write this up into a fully fledged article.
It’s quite simple really.
An entire interconnected apparatus was developed in the West to fight for women’s rights as well as gay rights…young people started working for the causes with strong ideals…then the passage of time happened…
…kids came along, hobbies were acquired, car loans and expenses multiplied….
But what happens when a cause is won? What happens when the oppressed get what they wanted?
Women now outnumber men in the college-educated workforce. More women go to college too. Gays can marry with much fanfare. DIE programs promote such categories more quickly than white men who are now stuck in dead-end jobs at the bottom of the social latter. This trend is projected to continue for many decades.
So what happens when many LGB and women stop sending checks to those organizations that fought for and won their rights? What happens when LGB and women lose interest in following the cause after they’re full fledged members of society?
The workers within these activist organizations (and the PhDs in academia) have sticky expenses. Mortgages haven’t gone away, kids are still young, hobbies and pursuits still beckon.
But the bills aren’t getting paid anymore. And their “community organizer” skill-set doesn’t transfer well enough into a sufficient number of corporate-paid jobs. They can’t just lay down their swords to go make an honest living…
…so they become mercenaries.
The leaders in these organizations need to find another source of income, which means new causes with money backing those causes.
So women and gays now follow their forebears (i.e.white men) into the world of ‘toxic’ stereotypes as they are set aside for the new victim class.
Follow the money and none of this is a surprise.
â we need more JK Rowlings and fewer Ketanji Brown Jacksons.â
THIS!!
A great point made in the article about feminists still allying themselves to âprogressivesâ, which is often echoed in the comments on Unherd.
It begs the questionâŠâŠ.When something âradicalâ becomes accepted in society, like feminism and homosexuality has been for decades now, then is there a time when these newly forged conformists should move over to the conservative side of society to protect their new found rights?
Two thumbs up. Thank you so much for this piece.
Hear! Hear!
God bless Ayaan. First she helped awaken us to the darker side of unreformed radical Islam and the cruelties inflicted on millions women by it and the associated ultra patriarchal cultures. Now she rightly points the finger at another more modern absolutist ‘supremacist’ ideology, bent on crushing freedom of expression and our subjugation to a warped credo in the West; the toxic identitarianism of the so called progressives (how I hate that they are called as such). Too many Western ‘feminists’ have totally betrayed Islamic women, turning their backs on their suffering. Where are the protests to match George Floyd? 350 girls are shot. Yet they stay silent about the revolution in Iran. Why such cowardice? Firstly, fear of violence. Second, because the Elect identitarians have a demented Hierarchy of Greviance & Privilege and Victimhood, and being critical of Islam is a greater more raycist sin than condemning trans ultras bullying women. Black victimhood tops both. Both of these anti modern anti women credos must be called out. Both are totalitarian and a threat to all our freedoms. Heed Ayaan’s words.
The problem with assuming the trans stuff will go away is that itâs an establishment ideology, pertaining to be the ideology of the downtrodden. I donât think trans activists were arguing that transwomen were actually women a few years ago, there was merely a push to make the GRC easier to obtain – for instance it used to force a divorce, by necessity, prior to gay marriage.
Meanwhile most Oxbridge undergraduates believe in it, and many are trans themselves of course, where that mostly involves a guy putting on a wig, declaring himself a woman and having a âlesbianâ relationship with his female partner. This makes the Cambridge undergraduate not just more interesting than before, but heâs now oppressed by the porter who is no doubt a cis male. The undergraduate is no longer a cis white male (a formula of words that removes class and nation anyway) but an oppressed transwoman.
Whoâs oppressing him? Women and working class folk mostly.
Good luck with reversing that ideology without an actual revolution.
â we need more JK Rowlings and fewer Ketanji Brown Jacksons.â
THIS!!
A great point made in the article about feminists still allying themselves to âprogressivesâ, which is often echoed in the comments on Unherd.
It begs the questionâŠâŠ.When something âradicalâ becomes accepted in society, like feminism and homosexuality has been for decades now, then is there a time when these newly forged conformists should move over to the conservative side of society to protect their new found rights?
Two thumbs up. Thank you so much for this piece.
This goes immediately in the “best of 2022” list.
“If 2022 is the year of the âwomanâ, letâs hope 2023 will be the year when we can delete those quotation marks.”
One of the best quotes ever.
Anyway, not much to add to the article except thank you and “Amen”!
Yesterday’s article on “American moms” led to comments being put forward that took issue with the rights of women to pursue their lives and careers as they saw fit. One comment even suggested it was a “capitalist plot” that sought to bring women into the workplace. That comment was supported whilst counter-arguments weren’t.
The rights of women to be women and to live their lives on their terms are indivisible. No man, or other woman, should seek to deny them that right. I compared those supporting the denial of such rights with the Taliban. This article by Ayaan brings into timely focus precisely that point. Seeking to deny women, and their rights, is the start of a slippery slope towards ideological authoritarianism.
âcomments being put forward that took issue with the rights of women to pursue their lives and careers as they saw fit.â
I donât believe that was the case. Most comments seemed to be that women had been pushed into the workplace, away from home and family, against their will, which they believed was detrimental to the health of the family itself. There are women who have careers and their are women who work to make ends meet in jobs that offer nothing but drudgery. What has happened in regard to the ârights of women to be women and to live their lives on their termsâ is that economics has taken that right away. They cannot stay home with their children because they must work. No one is seeking to deny their right to work. Theyâre seeking the rights for those women who want to to raise their children full-time. It seems to me that making it more difficult to be a mother is a slippery slope. Unless having redefined a women we then redefine a mother.
Contrary to popular opinion, women have always worked, and not just in the home, but in the fields, in cottage industries, and only latterly in organised places of work. Coal was extracted by hand from mineshafts by women, and children. What has changed is the ability of women to have far greater choice and to compete on equal terms and for equal pay. If many women have chosen to take up that option, it’s not up to you, or me, or anyone else to second-guess them.
Nor have we redefined a woman, although some elements would seek to do so, but they won’t succeed. Mothers can, and will, figure out for themselves how they should be defined – again, not by you, or by anyone else.
Many men would seek to control women, for pretty obvious reasons. It’s also apparent that women are, in fact, outcompeting men in education and in many areas of the knowledge-based economy. We should be very careful not to use arguments that seek to change that for nefarious reasons.
I think your comments on the American mom thread were down voted not so much because the men on here wish to control women and more that you implied that women who donât choose work over motherhood will be subjugated in the home. You used the phrases of chained to the kitchen sink and the taliban would approve when members posted about putting family first before career as if there is no other way. Itâs either work or the way of the taliban! It also ignores that some women actually really enjoy being stay at home mums.
I wish I could have afforded to be a stay at home mum – at least for the pre school years – and my daughter in law – about to give birth to our first grandchild – wishes she could afford to be a stay at home mum too.
Even as a dad, the sole breadwinner and in a good job, I wish I could afford to be a stay at home dad.
And that’s a sentiment repeated by at least 2-3 of my male friends, who are in high paying and prestigious jobs.
Even as a dad, the sole breadwinner and in a good job, I wish I could afford to be a stay at home dad.
And that’s a sentiment repeated by at least 2-3 of my male friends, who are in high paying and prestigious jobs.
I was replying to someone who claimed that the fight for female emancipation was a “capitalist plot”, which is the perfect example of a nefarious argument being used in the debate, and which i’m warning against supporting.
I asked the writer of that claim what his alternative was, and cited those quotes you mention as examples in a spirit of enquiry. The ability to follow a particular line of reasoning is essential in order to have a useful debate.
It should also be noted that the “plot” claim was supported. It was like watching an episode of the Handmaids Tale!
As long as the rest of us donât have to keep them. If we do, then it is not a valid choice. Every adult has a duty to work and contribute to society. Looking after children that you have chosen to produce is not a contribution.
There are no state benefits for being a stay at home parent, hence the comments about wishing to be able to afford to do it.
I would also argue that good parenting that isnât undermined by the guilt of being too busy with work to be more involved helps produce better quality children who grow to become better quality citizens and therefore is most definitely a contribution. Children raised by schools/state are emotionally neglected and vulnerable to exploitation.
When you think about it, society picks up the tab for all the consequences of bad and poor parenting decisions, one way or another. Maybe if it instead invested in good parenting and supported the family in the first place, millions could actually be saved! Pounds and people!
Interesting. My understanding is that we work to live rather than the other way round. Unless we produce as individuals then there is no development of a society as there would be no people would there. So, we all do work and if we are sensible and flexible and do not consider a 9 to 5 career or money to actually be the meaning of life we do certain things throughout our lives not related to such things. Being a parent entails being half of a whole; being a child is a learning experience; being old is a time of giving, to family and society for no money return. Finally, I disagree with your final sentence in its entirety and regret the mistaken reasoning for its construction.
There are no state benefits for being a stay at home parent, hence the comments about wishing to be able to afford to do it.
I would also argue that good parenting that isnât undermined by the guilt of being too busy with work to be more involved helps produce better quality children who grow to become better quality citizens and therefore is most definitely a contribution. Children raised by schools/state are emotionally neglected and vulnerable to exploitation.
When you think about it, society picks up the tab for all the consequences of bad and poor parenting decisions, one way or another. Maybe if it instead invested in good parenting and supported the family in the first place, millions could actually be saved! Pounds and people!
Interesting. My understanding is that we work to live rather than the other way round. Unless we produce as individuals then there is no development of a society as there would be no people would there. So, we all do work and if we are sensible and flexible and do not consider a 9 to 5 career or money to actually be the meaning of life we do certain things throughout our lives not related to such things. Being a parent entails being half of a whole; being a child is a learning experience; being old is a time of giving, to family and society for no money return. Finally, I disagree with your final sentence in its entirety and regret the mistaken reasoning for its construction.
I wish I could have afforded to be a stay at home mum – at least for the pre school years – and my daughter in law – about to give birth to our first grandchild – wishes she could afford to be a stay at home mum too.
I was replying to someone who claimed that the fight for female emancipation was a “capitalist plot”, which is the perfect example of a nefarious argument being used in the debate, and which i’m warning against supporting.
I asked the writer of that claim what his alternative was, and cited those quotes you mention as examples in a spirit of enquiry. The ability to follow a particular line of reasoning is essential in order to have a useful debate.
It should also be noted that the “plot” claim was supported. It was like watching an episode of the Handmaids Tale!
As long as the rest of us donât have to keep them. If we do, then it is not a valid choice. Every adult has a duty to work and contribute to society. Looking after children that you have chosen to produce is not a contribution.
“What has changed is the ability of women to have far greater choice and to compete on equal terms and for equal pay. ”
Here is a fun activity.
Think of what was typical paid work pre 21st century.
Mining, factories, agriculture, transport, shipping, military.
Notice something? The modern equivalents of those activities are still done by men.
What has changed is lots of nice, office or administrative jobs, with zero physical stress or risk, usually government paid.
And those are the jobs women do.
If today, the job market was identical to the 19th century, you wouldn’t find too many women demanding the right to “compete” for those jobs.
The events which boosted the cause of female emancipation were the females taking over much of the industrial production of munitions and military hardware during the two world wars. Once that particular door was opened, there was no going back.
Many females now successfully run farms, work in transport and serve in the military. I enjoyed your fun activity – can we have some more please?!
Nice try, but nope.
Try harder. Next time you are on the road, count how many truck drivers, white van drivers and bus drivers female.
Rather, try and find a single female. Do it, will be fun.
Similarly, despite massive dilution of standards for women, the business end of the military are pretty much men. What % of soldiers dying in Iraq were women? How much gender diversity on the trenches in Ukraine?
If anything, your example underlines the point I made – the concept of large numbers of logistics or support troops didn’t exist pre 20th century.
And those are the relatively safe, sanitised, way back from the frontline jobs that women now do in large numbers in the military.
Artillery, fighter pilots (despite massive push for “diversity”), submarines, tanks? Hardly any women, and if you actually speak to serving lower level military troops, they have horror stories to tell about a large % of the small numbers of female representatives being pushed into their fields.
You seem to be trying rather too hard to force a particular point, when it’s clear that female emancipation is the issue at hand. I’m not sure what other agenda you might be following?
“Iâm not sure what other agenda you might be following?”
When you stop trying to pretend your point had any merits and start with the ad hominems, that usually signals the white flag.
And no, “female emancipation” is not the agenda.
The agenda is the usual feminist beauties such as “many men would seek to control women” and “rights of women to …live their lives on their terms”
As I pointed out, even after a century of wimmin rights, women aren’t doing the jobs that were typical until the 20th century. And for the same reason why few women were in those same jobs in the 18th century, nothing to do with men stopping women from working in mines or factories.
Women were living lives on their terms in the 18th century. And the terms were, I stay at home and you, the man, get to do those horrible jobs or die on the job to support my family. Simple.
Simple-minded. I don’t know what world you’re living in, but where I live there are women in construction, women firefighters, women cops, women carpenters, plumbers, electricians. You have the stunning over-confidence of the under-informed. AKA the Dunning-Kruger effect. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
Simple-minded. I don’t know what world you’re living in, but where I live there are women in construction, women firefighters, women cops, women carpenters, plumbers, electricians. You have the stunning over-confidence of the under-informed. AKA the Dunning-Kruger effect. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
“Iâm not sure what other agenda you might be following?”
When you stop trying to pretend your point had any merits and start with the ad hominems, that usually signals the white flag.
And no, “female emancipation” is not the agenda.
The agenda is the usual feminist beauties such as “many men would seek to control women” and “rights of women to …live their lives on their terms”
As I pointed out, even after a century of wimmin rights, women aren’t doing the jobs that were typical until the 20th century. And for the same reason why few women were in those same jobs in the 18th century, nothing to do with men stopping women from working in mines or factories.
Women were living lives on their terms in the 18th century. And the terms were, I stay at home and you, the man, get to do those horrible jobs or die on the job to support my family. Simple.
You seem to be trying rather too hard to force a particular point, when it’s clear that female emancipation is the issue at hand. I’m not sure what other agenda you might be following?
You’re absolutely right. My grandmother quit her ‘nice’ job to work in a munitions factory in WW1. It paid more and was more interesting, she said. My aunt quit her office job to run an anti aircraft gun in WW2.
Nice try, but nope.
Try harder. Next time you are on the road, count how many truck drivers, white van drivers and bus drivers female.
Rather, try and find a single female. Do it, will be fun.
Similarly, despite massive dilution of standards for women, the business end of the military are pretty much men. What % of soldiers dying in Iraq were women? How much gender diversity on the trenches in Ukraine?
If anything, your example underlines the point I made – the concept of large numbers of logistics or support troops didn’t exist pre 20th century.
And those are the relatively safe, sanitised, way back from the frontline jobs that women now do in large numbers in the military.
Artillery, fighter pilots (despite massive push for “diversity”), submarines, tanks? Hardly any women, and if you actually speak to serving lower level military troops, they have horror stories to tell about a large % of the small numbers of female representatives being pushed into their fields.
You’re absolutely right. My grandmother quit her ‘nice’ job to work in a munitions factory in WW1. It paid more and was more interesting, she said. My aunt quit her office job to run an anti aircraft gun in WW2.
Women worked down coal mines until men banned them, and as pit brow lasses. They worked in factories, particularly in textiles, and as poorly paid casual field workers, unpaid âfarmers wivesâ or bonded labourers. I have a photograph of my grandmother, born 1906, mucking out a byre. Many women worked as low paid drudges in other peopleâs houses. Working class women have always worked. The difference now is that many have the proper pay and conditions that men achieved through their unions before them. Those who donât are, as ever, the carers and cleaners.
The events which boosted the cause of female emancipation were the females taking over much of the industrial production of munitions and military hardware during the two world wars. Once that particular door was opened, there was no going back.
Many females now successfully run farms, work in transport and serve in the military. I enjoyed your fun activity – can we have some more please?!
Women worked down coal mines until men banned them, and as pit brow lasses. They worked in factories, particularly in textiles, and as poorly paid casual field workers, unpaid âfarmers wivesâ or bonded labourers. I have a photograph of my grandmother, born 1906, mucking out a byre. Many women worked as low paid drudges in other peopleâs houses. Working class women have always worked. The difference now is that many have the proper pay and conditions that men achieved through their unions before them. Those who donât are, as ever, the carers and cleaners.
I think your comments on the American mom thread were down voted not so much because the men on here wish to control women and more that you implied that women who donât choose work over motherhood will be subjugated in the home. You used the phrases of chained to the kitchen sink and the taliban would approve when members posted about putting family first before career as if there is no other way. Itâs either work or the way of the taliban! It also ignores that some women actually really enjoy being stay at home mums.
“What has changed is the ability of women to have far greater choice and to compete on equal terms and for equal pay. ”
Here is a fun activity.
Think of what was typical paid work pre 21st century.
Mining, factories, agriculture, transport, shipping, military.
Notice something? The modern equivalents of those activities are still done by men.
What has changed is lots of nice, office or administrative jobs, with zero physical stress or risk, usually government paid.
And those are the jobs women do.
If today, the job market was identical to the 19th century, you wouldn’t find too many women demanding the right to “compete” for those jobs.
Correct! The same is yrue in Ireland despite the fact that our Constitution states no mother shall be required to work outside the home!
For many women what you are saying is no doubt true. But for many, many others they work so they have the identity required by their peers, and so they can afford their yearly iPhone upgrades and multiple trips to foreign countries, etc.
Contrary to popular opinion, women have always worked, and not just in the home, but in the fields, in cottage industries, and only latterly in organised places of work. Coal was extracted by hand from mineshafts by women, and children. What has changed is the ability of women to have far greater choice and to compete on equal terms and for equal pay. If many women have chosen to take up that option, it’s not up to you, or me, or anyone else to second-guess them.
Nor have we redefined a woman, although some elements would seek to do so, but they won’t succeed. Mothers can, and will, figure out for themselves how they should be defined – again, not by you, or by anyone else.
Many men would seek to control women, for pretty obvious reasons. It’s also apparent that women are, in fact, outcompeting men in education and in many areas of the knowledge-based economy. We should be very careful not to use arguments that seek to change that for nefarious reasons.
Correct! The same is yrue in Ireland despite the fact that our Constitution states no mother shall be required to work outside the home!
For many women what you are saying is no doubt true. But for many, many others they work so they have the identity required by their peers, and so they can afford their yearly iPhone upgrades and multiple trips to foreign countries, etc.
“rights of women to pursue their lives and careers as they saw fit.”
The comments typically aren’t about the “rights”. It’s about the lack of intelligence behind pushing women en masse into the grindstone of the workplace and denying that motherhood or traditional female roles in the family could be a superior, more satisfying option for the majority of women.
Men, and only men, are subject to military draft and conscription for centuries. Most divorced end up women getting child custody and men end up supporting them, with no concerns raised about “women’s careers”.
Is that a “slippery slope towards ideological authoritarianism” as well?
No, but i’d pose the same question as i posed yesterday, which although unpopular, has yet to be addressed by anyone.
That question is: what’s the alternative?
The point about women being “erased” that Ayaan writes about, and the ability of women to have agency in their own lives, is indivisible. No-one has any problem whatsoever with mothers who wish to stay at home to raise their children. Neither should anyone have a problem with women who’re capable of doing so, pursuing whatever career they so wish.
In the case of the former, a combination of the state and a partner willing to support them for the duration is required. In the case of the latter, it matters not whether the preferential treatment that males used to (and may still) enjoy in the workforce, in terms of pay differentials and job opportunities have become less easy to come by. They’re having to compete with women, and some may well resent that, especially when women come out favourably. It’s that resentment which i’m witnessing here, couched in terms which seek to hide it.
Spot on.
“No-one has any problem whatsoever with mothers who wish to stay at home to raise their children. ”
That’s contrary to what I can see across all parts of society, education, media, today.
“Theyâre having to compete with women, and some may well resent that, especially when women come out favourably. ”
The problematic part of that story is that women are doing awfully at most highly paid jobs that are not government / administrative.
It isn’t men indulging in the large scale whining and demanding preferential quotas and “diversity”.
I see lots and lots of whining from men. Even right here in the comments.
I see lots and lots of whining from men. Even right here in the comments.
The problem in today’s world is that there are minimum 50% quotas for women. Opportunities for men are drying up and so they stay put in roles, while women move on because they have more opportunities; meaning that companies struggle to get to the 50%. In job interviews, they also favour women in an attempt to get to the quota.
True equality is dispensing with quotas AND bias. Quotas are a form of discrimination. Women and men need each other and together we are better than the sum of our parts.
Spot on.
“No-one has any problem whatsoever with mothers who wish to stay at home to raise their children. ”
That’s contrary to what I can see across all parts of society, education, media, today.
“Theyâre having to compete with women, and some may well resent that, especially when women come out favourably. ”
The problematic part of that story is that women are doing awfully at most highly paid jobs that are not government / administrative.
It isn’t men indulging in the large scale whining and demanding preferential quotas and “diversity”.
The problem in today’s world is that there are minimum 50% quotas for women. Opportunities for men are drying up and so they stay put in roles, while women move on because they have more opportunities; meaning that companies struggle to get to the 50%. In job interviews, they also favour women in an attempt to get to the quota.
True equality is dispensing with quotas AND bias. Quotas are a form of discrimination. Women and men need each other and together we are better than the sum of our parts.
And it is your bitterness about having to keep a âwifeâ without the sexual and domestic services that you believe should be part of the bargain that is clearly the issue here.
Women should not live off men. They should work to keep themselves.
“Women should not live off men. They should work to keep themselves.”
Amusing.
Because the majority of women “working” are in bs jobs, usually in government, paid for by taxes that are largely paid by men.
And few women seem to fancy working to keep themselves when it comes to divorce.
Have you heard of the term “projecting”?
Have you heard of the term “projecting”?
How are the cats?
“Women should not live off men. They should work to keep themselves.”
Amusing.
Because the majority of women “working” are in bs jobs, usually in government, paid for by taxes that are largely paid by men.
And few women seem to fancy working to keep themselves when it comes to divorce.
How are the cats?
I can believe that you’re an authority when it comes to ‘lack of intelligence’…
No, but i’d pose the same question as i posed yesterday, which although unpopular, has yet to be addressed by anyone.
That question is: what’s the alternative?
The point about women being “erased” that Ayaan writes about, and the ability of women to have agency in their own lives, is indivisible. No-one has any problem whatsoever with mothers who wish to stay at home to raise their children. Neither should anyone have a problem with women who’re capable of doing so, pursuing whatever career they so wish.
In the case of the former, a combination of the state and a partner willing to support them for the duration is required. In the case of the latter, it matters not whether the preferential treatment that males used to (and may still) enjoy in the workforce, in terms of pay differentials and job opportunities have become less easy to come by. They’re having to compete with women, and some may well resent that, especially when women come out favourably. It’s that resentment which i’m witnessing here, couched in terms which seek to hide it.
And it is your bitterness about having to keep a âwifeâ without the sexual and domestic services that you believe should be part of the bargain that is clearly the issue here.
Women should not live off men. They should work to keep themselves.
I can believe that you’re an authority when it comes to ‘lack of intelligence’…
Absolutely. I would add those who blame feminism for the âtransgenderâ nonsense to those who seek to deny women their rights. âGenderâ, or rather sex role stereotyped behavioural norms, is a creation of the misogynistic patriarchy. Feminism is its antithesis.
âcomments being put forward that took issue with the rights of women to pursue their lives and careers as they saw fit.â
I donât believe that was the case. Most comments seemed to be that women had been pushed into the workplace, away from home and family, against their will, which they believed was detrimental to the health of the family itself. There are women who have careers and their are women who work to make ends meet in jobs that offer nothing but drudgery. What has happened in regard to the ârights of women to be women and to live their lives on their termsâ is that economics has taken that right away. They cannot stay home with their children because they must work. No one is seeking to deny their right to work. Theyâre seeking the rights for those women who want to to raise their children full-time. It seems to me that making it more difficult to be a mother is a slippery slope. Unless having redefined a women we then redefine a mother.
“rights of women to pursue their lives and careers as they saw fit.”
The comments typically aren’t about the “rights”. It’s about the lack of intelligence behind pushing women en masse into the grindstone of the workplace and denying that motherhood or traditional female roles in the family could be a superior, more satisfying option for the majority of women.
Men, and only men, are subject to military draft and conscription for centuries. Most divorced end up women getting child custody and men end up supporting them, with no concerns raised about “women’s careers”.
Is that a “slippery slope towards ideological authoritarianism” as well?
Absolutely. I would add those who blame feminism for the âtransgenderâ nonsense to those who seek to deny women their rights. âGenderâ, or rather sex role stereotyped behavioural norms, is a creation of the misogynistic patriarchy. Feminism is its antithesis.
Yesterday’s article on “American moms” led to comments being put forward that took issue with the rights of women to pursue their lives and careers as they saw fit. One comment even suggested it was a “capitalist plot” that sought to bring women into the workplace. That comment was supported whilst counter-arguments weren’t.
The rights of women to be women and to live their lives on their terms are indivisible. No man, or other woman, should seek to deny them that right. I compared those supporting the denial of such rights with the Taliban. This article by Ayaan brings into timely focus precisely that point. Seeking to deny women, and their rights, is the start of a slippery slope towards ideological authoritarianism.
A great article only spoiled by the apparent requirement to state ones sympathy for the plight of trans identifying people. Truly trans people are such a vanishingly small minority a public statement of sympathy should not be a requirement to comment. Most so called trans are either mentally ill or poseurs. I have sympathy for the former but not the latter.
Yeah that bugs me as well – every article on the topic has to have a sentence sympathising, sometimes a paragraph – itâs like bending the knee at football matches. There is no need to state it.
Yeah that bugs me as well – every article on the topic has to have a sentence sympathising, sometimes a paragraph – itâs like bending the knee at football matches. There is no need to state it.
A great article only spoiled by the apparent requirement to state ones sympathy for the plight of trans identifying people. Truly trans people are such a vanishingly small minority a public statement of sympathy should not be a requirement to comment. Most so called trans are either mentally ill or poseurs. I have sympathy for the former but not the latter.
Trans sexuality, in effect means that being a woman is essentially what men decide it is.
Very nicely summarised.
Very nicely summarised.
Trans sexuality, in effect means that being a woman is essentially what men decide it is.
The sympathy I had years ago for the plight of transgender individuals, who are really mentally ill, has been seriously undermined, indeed evaporated, by the radicalism and violence of the ideologues pushing this deconstruction of reality upon us. I am sure that’s not what the “activists” intended at all, but it’s what they achieved in my case. I am utterly convinced that those pulling the strings are motivated by pure misogyny, which is once again raising its ugly old head. This time under the guise of transgenderism. This time it’s not just about men usurping the very concept of womanhood by making it a commodity that can be bought through drugs and surgery. It’s about showing that they are not just better than women, but that they are the better “women”.
Unfortunately, many women, especially those who label themselves feminists, frequently preceded by “liberal” or “progressive”, are willingly and even willfully contributing to the deliberate destruction of their hard-earned rights and spaces. For the record, I have never been one to begrudge men their own spaces. I am not opposed to single-sex schools, social and sports clubs, or other facilities. The sexes are different and have different needs mandated by biology. I like and respect men, and I often prefer the company of men, but I don’t want them everywhere.
The problem is that women’s complicity in their own erasure is not just affecting those who cannot wait for it to happen, but it’s affecting women like me and my daughter who want nothing to do with it. I have been driven to a point where I really wouldn’t care anymore if only the ones pushing this along were affected, even in the harshest of ways, as I firmly believe that one reaps what one sows. However, that’s not how the world works, and all too often the ones who bear the brunt had no say in the creation and implementation.
Wow you took the words right out of my mouth so to speak.
Wow you took the words right out of my mouth so to speak.
The sympathy I had years ago for the plight of transgender individuals, who are really mentally ill, has been seriously undermined, indeed evaporated, by the radicalism and violence of the ideologues pushing this deconstruction of reality upon us. I am sure that’s not what the “activists” intended at all, but it’s what they achieved in my case. I am utterly convinced that those pulling the strings are motivated by pure misogyny, which is once again raising its ugly old head. This time under the guise of transgenderism. This time it’s not just about men usurping the very concept of womanhood by making it a commodity that can be bought through drugs and surgery. It’s about showing that they are not just better than women, but that they are the better “women”.
Unfortunately, many women, especially those who label themselves feminists, frequently preceded by “liberal” or “progressive”, are willingly and even willfully contributing to the deliberate destruction of their hard-earned rights and spaces. For the record, I have never been one to begrudge men their own spaces. I am not opposed to single-sex schools, social and sports clubs, or other facilities. The sexes are different and have different needs mandated by biology. I like and respect men, and I often prefer the company of men, but I don’t want them everywhere.
The problem is that women’s complicity in their own erasure is not just affecting those who cannot wait for it to happen, but it’s affecting women like me and my daughter who want nothing to do with it. I have been driven to a point where I really wouldn’t care anymore if only the ones pushing this along were affected, even in the harshest of ways, as I firmly believe that one reaps what one sows. However, that’s not how the world works, and all too often the ones who bear the brunt had no say in the creation and implementation.
here in new zealand we have self identification as law. anyone can change their legal sex. they do not need to make any effort to change their appearance to do so. refuges, women’s prisons, sports, changing rooms now must welcome any man who wishes to use them. we teach this ideology in our kindergartens. that biological sex is meaningless. all that matters is how you feel. we state fund chemical and surgical alterations of healthy young bodies. unless you are in this you can’t really imagine how it is. or begin to imagine how the future might be.
Wow. Here in the U.S. if my state did all that I could at least move to another. Got a boat?
Unbelievable! What a nightmare! I am so glad my kids are grown up and I donât have to deal with finding a (private/religious) school, which refuses to teach this nonsense. My only hope is electing new leaders, who stand up to this insanity, things might eventually revert. What new wave will we have next: Identifying yourself as a camel, dog or cat?
‘New Zealand’? What a dreadful place, wherever that may be!
Wow. Here in the U.S. if my state did all that I could at least move to another. Got a boat?
Unbelievable! What a nightmare! I am so glad my kids are grown up and I donât have to deal with finding a (private/religious) school, which refuses to teach this nonsense. My only hope is electing new leaders, who stand up to this insanity, things might eventually revert. What new wave will we have next: Identifying yourself as a camel, dog or cat?
‘New Zealand’? What a dreadful place, wherever that may be!
here in new zealand we have self identification as law. anyone can change their legal sex. they do not need to make any effort to change their appearance to do so. refuges, women’s prisons, sports, changing rooms now must welcome any man who wishes to use them. we teach this ideology in our kindergartens. that biological sex is meaningless. all that matters is how you feel. we state fund chemical and surgical alterations of healthy young bodies. unless you are in this you can’t really imagine how it is. or begin to imagine how the future might be.
Thanks for the article, but we did âturn our backsâ on women in Iran, Afghanistan etc. Itâs up to people in those countries to run their lives and set their laws, we every right to give them our opinions on their behaviour but we have no right to compel them to adopt our beliefs and behaviours. Or should we now reinvade Afghanistan to enforce womenâs rights? You can guess how that would end.
Exactly. Well-put.
The big mistake we (Brits and Yanks) made was to train an army of men. A small well trained army of Afgan women might have frightened the Taliban to the point where they would not even dare to re-enter the country.
Yes – it certainly seems that way. The blokes were utterly useless.
All the fault of the SA 80 and this âSuppressing Fireâ nonsense.
Aimed shots, every time, are the only way.
All the fault of the SA 80 and this âSuppressing Fireâ nonsense.
Aimed shots, every time, are the only way.
The big mistake the West made was to believe your own hype about women being equal to men and about there being a supposed patriarchy of men oppressing women.
If you built an army of women, no matter how well trained and armed, they would have been cut to pieces by the Taliban.
And it wouldn’t have come to that, because a lot of those women would actually end up on the Taleban side. Do you really think it’s only men who support the oppressive Islamic regimes in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi, or that there aren’t large numbers of women who don’t support the laws there (even though they are harsh and brutal towards their own gender).
In Kiplingâs day âtheyâ had a propensity for slicing off testicles! Rather similar to Ethiopian women of the day.
Re-enter the country? sure they never left.. merely hid out in the mountains and caves with the full support of most of the people.. that’s why they were abke to taken over in a few days..
Given the choice of twisted women hating nut jobs vs murderous Yanks / Brits …they opted for the former: choice but not, it seems for the bulk of Afghans.
Afghan mothers teach their sons remember!
I never thought of that. I read an author once who promoted distributing cheap machine guns to women in countries where they are oppressed. It is not such a bad idea.
Good point. It worked very well for the Kurds. Their female soldiers are not only highly motivated, but they have had a very positive impact regarding women’s social status and acceptance amongst Kurdish men.
And in the case of Islamic State forces, to be killed in battle by a female automatically disqualified the deceased from entry into heaven with however many virgins, as promised to their “warriors”. This made the Kurdish female soldiers extremely effective, since the opposition troops were scared rigid of such a fate befalling them. So much for claims (made elsewhere on these pages) about the prowess of female soldiers.
Yes, I remember reading about that. A win-win situation as far as I am concerned. I have great admiration for the YPJ or Women’s Protection Units.
Yes, I remember reading about that. A win-win situation as far as I am concerned. I have great admiration for the YPJ or Women’s Protection Units.
And in the case of Islamic State forces, to be killed in battle by a female automatically disqualified the deceased from entry into heaven with however many virgins, as promised to their “warriors”. This made the Kurdish female soldiers extremely effective, since the opposition troops were scared rigid of such a fate befalling them. So much for claims (made elsewhere on these pages) about the prowess of female soldiers.
Yes – it certainly seems that way. The blokes were utterly useless.
The big mistake the West made was to believe your own hype about women being equal to men and about there being a supposed patriarchy of men oppressing women.
If you built an army of women, no matter how well trained and armed, they would have been cut to pieces by the Taliban.
And it wouldn’t have come to that, because a lot of those women would actually end up on the Taleban side. Do you really think it’s only men who support the oppressive Islamic regimes in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi, or that there aren’t large numbers of women who don’t support the laws there (even though they are harsh and brutal towards their own gender).
In Kiplingâs day âtheyâ had a propensity for slicing off testicles! Rather similar to Ethiopian women of the day.
Re-enter the country? sure they never left.. merely hid out in the mountains and caves with the full support of most of the people.. that’s why they were abke to taken over in a few days..
Given the choice of twisted women hating nut jobs vs murderous Yanks / Brits …they opted for the former: choice but not, it seems for the bulk of Afghans.
Afghan mothers teach their sons remember!
I never thought of that. I read an author once who promoted distributing cheap machine guns to women in countries where they are oppressed. It is not such a bad idea.
Good point. It worked very well for the Kurds. Their female soldiers are not only highly motivated, but they have had a very positive impact regarding women’s social status and acceptance amongst Kurdish men.
Exactly. Well-put.
The big mistake we (Brits and Yanks) made was to train an army of men. A small well trained army of Afgan women might have frightened the Taliban to the point where they would not even dare to re-enter the country.
Thanks for the article, but we did âturn our backsâ on women in Iran, Afghanistan etc. Itâs up to people in those countries to run their lives and set their laws, we every right to give them our opinions on their behaviour but we have no right to compel them to adopt our beliefs and behaviours. Or should we now reinvade Afghanistan to enforce womenâs rights? You can guess how that would end.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a world treasure. One thing the “regressive left ” managed to do was to convince me that speech is truly a weapon of oppression. By denying women their identity they have in fact oppressed women.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a world treasure. One thing the “regressive left ” managed to do was to convince me that speech is truly a weapon of oppression. By denying women their identity they have in fact oppressed women.
What exactly is the âplightâ of transgender people Ayana is immensely sympathetic to? Theyâre now absolutely everywhere and dominate our social culture. You canât even adopt a live-and-let-live, to each his own stance; they, like the Alex character in âFatal Attractionâ, will not be ignored, and theyâre making it no secret that theyâre coming for the children.
What exactly is the âplightâ of transgender people Ayana is immensely sympathetic to? Theyâre now absolutely everywhere and dominate our social culture. You canât even adopt a live-and-let-live, to each his own stance; they, like the Alex character in âFatal Attractionâ, will not be ignored, and theyâre making it no secret that theyâre coming for the children.
We are witnessing the ascent of a new ruling class in the West, able to establish its control over society in the wake of religion’s retreat. As Ayan Hirsi Ali writes, language is their preferred weapon to achieve and maintain dominance. Their battlefields are the media, academia, and civil service: anyone in any of these fields can be brought under their control by shaming, silencing and career cancellation if they use the wrong words.
Their credo to discourage any dissent is “Be an ally, not a hater.” They are in possession of the correct ideas about all things, dictated from a presumed higher moral ground.They decide who is among the elect, and who is unworthy of respect, of social acceptance, of employment.
This is religion without redemption or forgivenness, and ultimately is about gaining and keeping power by sowing confusion and insecurity.
This is a gang.
And elimination of undesirables from participation in society is their means of taking control and imposing their power.
And elimination of undesirables from participation in society is their means of taking control and imposing their power.
… Sadly, the above is increasingly the case in Canada. The loons are running the asylum …
This is a gang.
… Sadly, the above is increasingly the case in Canada. The loons are running the asylum …
We are witnessing the ascent of a new ruling class in the West, able to establish its control over society in the wake of religion’s retreat. As Ayan Hirsi Ali writes, language is their preferred weapon to achieve and maintain dominance. Their battlefields are the media, academia, and civil service: anyone in any of these fields can be brought under their control by shaming, silencing and career cancellation if they use the wrong words.
Their credo to discourage any dissent is “Be an ally, not a hater.” They are in possession of the correct ideas about all things, dictated from a presumed higher moral ground.They decide who is among the elect, and who is unworthy of respect, of social acceptance, of employment.
This is religion without redemption or forgivenness, and ultimately is about gaining and keeping power by sowing confusion and insecurity.
A very well written article indeed. Womenâs emancipation benefits everyone. Ideally men needed emancipation at the same time. Few too many men can run a household as well as a woman can. I have seen older men who cannot survive without a woman to look after him. This is totally shameful for men to be so helpless.
Everyone benefits when we come together because we want to, not because we have to.
Personally I have no such deficiencies.. do you think that, after all I may not be a man? or male or whatever the current term is?
Not at all, I too can do everything around the house. Back in my bachelor days, my mates ranged from being self sufficient to requiring someone to look after them. I shared a house with two women and they had kind of gelled with each other regarding housekeeping but wanted a male to do all the outside stuff that they didnât want to do
Not at all, I too can do everything around the house. Back in my bachelor days, my mates ranged from being self sufficient to requiring someone to look after them. I shared a house with two women and they had kind of gelled with each other regarding housekeeping but wanted a male to do all the outside stuff that they didnât want to do
Personally I have no such deficiencies.. do you think that, after all I may not be a man? or male or whatever the current term is?
A very well written article indeed. Womenâs emancipation benefits everyone. Ideally men needed emancipation at the same time. Few too many men can run a household as well as a woman can. I have seen older men who cannot survive without a woman to look after him. This is totally shameful for men to be so helpless.
Everyone benefits when we come together because we want to, not because we have to.
Most people would agree with you but most people are scared to admit it.
Until the UK media & political parties (with a few exceptions) stop being scared to admit that gender ideology is an ideology and not the civil rights issues it’s been marketed as, it will continue to advance. Last week a Welsh parent’s group lost a court case against the compulsory teaching of gender identity and sex in primary schools, and it was barely referenced in the UK media.
Given the media’s ability to ignore what’s been happening for the last 5-6 years, I don’t think it’ll be doing any actual journalism on the subject any time soon, although I’d be delighted to be wrong about that.
Most people would agree with you but most people are scared to admit it.
Until the UK media & political parties (with a few exceptions) stop being scared to admit that gender ideology is an ideology and not the civil rights issues it’s been marketed as, it will continue to advance. Last week a Welsh parent’s group lost a court case against the compulsory teaching of gender identity and sex in primary schools, and it was barely referenced in the UK media.
Given the media’s ability to ignore what’s been happening for the last 5-6 years, I don’t think it’ll be doing any actual journalism on the subject any time soon, although I’d be delighted to be wrong about that.
Like most, I share Ali’s concern for the rights of actual women around the world. But I don’t think the ideological religiosity of the woke fringe–which unfortunately is centered here in coastal America–deserves comparison, in scale or kind, to theocratic governments and societies run by actual patriarchs. Nor do tortured semantics around gender have a likely causal connection to increased repression of women in the Muslim world, though Ali’s rhetorical formulation “Is it really a coincidence?” is intriguing.
The US and other so-called peacekeepers (some armed, some not) couldn’t stay in Afghanistan forever, and that presence was the main thing that upheld certain increased freedoms for women there in recent years, between Taliban regimes. Yet the US government is criticized (sometimes denounced), not without some justice, for its interference and long-occupations in various places. But how can a society with determined theocratic patriarchs be “rescued from itself”–especially if calling out the sponsoring ideology as bigoted is regarded as bigotry too?
Advocating basic freedoms for women–education, choice of clothing, the right to go places alone–should not, in and of itself, be called Islamophobia or ethnocentric in any way. And if some parts of the Quran clash or seem to clash with basic women’s rights: speak up on behalf of women anyway. Should passages of the Bible that treat slavery as a given or banish women in shame during menstruation be honored in order to avoid anti-Judaism or “Christophobia”?
But this last term isn’t in much real use, because the West is in the partial grip of a madness wherein the only fashionable or “correct” criticism is self-directed, or pointed at those regarded as oppressors by the mere fact of their external or “positional” traits.
I don’t think the US or any other nation(s) can or should try to export our often-only-aspirational values and systems to other places/cultures as if we know best for others despite our chaotic, trashy, and quite-violent society (it’s not only that, but I think that’s warranted).
But we needn’t pretend that oppressive theocracies with actual patriarchies are “none of our business” because “that’s just their culture and we mustn’t judge from outside it”. Fundamental human rights shouldn’t end at borders or cultural barriers and there should be a way to address one another across divides with mutual respect but honesty at least most of the time, without adopting cowardly silence as a supposed form of respect.
Good point. On the other hand the US had 20 years to impose its principles on Afghanistan, which was effectively a colony. Thatâs a whole generation. It didnât work. Feel free to criticise from the sidelines.
The other problem is that the US has fundamentally allied itself with radical Islam across the area.
I agree with your first paragraph. Major, lasting changes cannot be externally imposed, at least not without an even more invasive kind of colonialism that has rightly been discredited.
I don’t see how “the US has fundamentally allied itself with radical Islam across the area”. Do you mean in propping up radical or theocratic governments that the US deems less hostile to Americans or American interests?
..ever heard if a guy the US backed to the hilt with mllions of dollars and copious weapons called Osama Bin Laden? ..and just about every other despot the US put in power after they CIA deposed freely elected, popular left-wing governments. Islamicsts were no exception. Even Sadam Hussein was the US’s great hero until he rejected excessive US demands for corrupt paybacks.
..ever heard if a guy the US backed to the hilt with mllions of dollars and copious weapons called Osama Bin Laden? ..and just about every other despot the US put in power after they CIA deposed freely elected, popular left-wing governments. Islamicsts were no exception. Even Sadam Hussein was the US’s great hero until he rejected excessive US demands for corrupt paybacks.
The US will support anything that brings in a financial return and will ally itself to Satan himself if that’s what it takes..
I agree with your first paragraph. Major, lasting changes cannot be externally imposed, at least not without an even more invasive kind of colonialism that has rightly been discredited.
I don’t see how “the US has fundamentally allied itself with radical Islam across the area”. Do you mean in propping up radical or theocratic governments that the US deems less hostile to Americans or American interests?
The US will support anything that brings in a financial return and will ally itself to Satan himself if that’s what it takes..
I agree, largely… but feel I must correct one or two ‘over-statements’..
1. Not all Muslim led societies are as repressive to women as you allege. I worked, briefly, in Malasia and Turkey and found it not to be so.
2. Many Muslim women opt to dress in Islamic gear which personally, I find attractive, ladylike and elegant, in contrast to the trashy way some Christian women dress..
But I agree with the thrust of the points you make for sure..
I agree with 1. and 2. and don’t think my comments deny your statements. For clarity: I don’t mean to suggest that Muslim women have zero agency, or that all Muslim societies are “theocratic patriarchies” in any universal way.
I agree with 1. and 2. and don’t think my comments deny your statements. For clarity: I don’t mean to suggest that Muslim women have zero agency, or that all Muslim societies are “theocratic patriarchies” in any universal way.
Good point. On the other hand the US had 20 years to impose its principles on Afghanistan, which was effectively a colony. Thatâs a whole generation. It didnât work. Feel free to criticise from the sidelines.
The other problem is that the US has fundamentally allied itself with radical Islam across the area.
I agree, largely… but feel I must correct one or two ‘over-statements’..
1. Not all Muslim led societies are as repressive to women as you allege. I worked, briefly, in Malasia and Turkey and found it not to be so.
2. Many Muslim women opt to dress in Islamic gear which personally, I find attractive, ladylike and elegant, in contrast to the trashy way some Christian women dress..
But I agree with the thrust of the points you make for sure..
Like most, I share Ali’s concern for the rights of actual women around the world. But I don’t think the ideological religiosity of the woke fringe–which unfortunately is centered here in coastal America–deserves comparison, in scale or kind, to theocratic governments and societies run by actual patriarchs. Nor do tortured semantics around gender have a likely causal connection to increased repression of women in the Muslim world, though Ali’s rhetorical formulation “Is it really a coincidence?” is intriguing.
The US and other so-called peacekeepers (some armed, some not) couldn’t stay in Afghanistan forever, and that presence was the main thing that upheld certain increased freedoms for women there in recent years, between Taliban regimes. Yet the US government is criticized (sometimes denounced), not without some justice, for its interference and long-occupations in various places. But how can a society with determined theocratic patriarchs be “rescued from itself”–especially if calling out the sponsoring ideology as bigoted is regarded as bigotry too?
Advocating basic freedoms for women–education, choice of clothing, the right to go places alone–should not, in and of itself, be called Islamophobia or ethnocentric in any way. And if some parts of the Quran clash or seem to clash with basic women’s rights: speak up on behalf of women anyway. Should passages of the Bible that treat slavery as a given or banish women in shame during menstruation be honored in order to avoid anti-Judaism or “Christophobia”?
But this last term isn’t in much real use, because the West is in the partial grip of a madness wherein the only fashionable or “correct” criticism is self-directed, or pointed at those regarded as oppressors by the mere fact of their external or “positional” traits.
I don’t think the US or any other nation(s) can or should try to export our often-only-aspirational values and systems to other places/cultures as if we know best for others despite our chaotic, trashy, and quite-violent society (it’s not only that, but I think that’s warranted).
But we needn’t pretend that oppressive theocracies with actual patriarchies are “none of our business” because “that’s just their culture and we mustn’t judge from outside it”. Fundamental human rights shouldn’t end at borders or cultural barriers and there should be a way to address one another across divides with mutual respect but honesty at least most of the time, without adopting cowardly silence as a supposed form of respect.
Ayaan is, as usual, wonderful.
We need to reclaim our language wholesale and not engage with these people (the enemies of everything decent in our age-old culture) in their own twisted re-definitions. For example, stop calling the deeply regressive authoritarians “progressives”. What they advocate is not “progress” but regression to the hope of an imagined and utterly dystopian patriarchal society whereby quasi-Marxist (or proto-Fascist) anti-female, anti-individual, anti-gay, anti-human ideology rules, even though it has been proven, time and time again, that none of these ideologies produces a benign result.
I would argue that the very few genuinely “transexual” beings that exist are not well served by any of those activists claiming to speak for them, in the same way that people who have more melanin in their skin are badly served by militant black supremacist (overtly racist) movements like the antithetically named “Black Lives Matter” – to whom no lives matter at all as long as they get their own bullying way (and loadsa dosh).
We really do urgently need to wake up and check that all these allegedly philanthropic organisations are what they choose to call themselves. It seems to me that they are usually the exact opposite. Authoritarians with a sinister agenda leading useful idiots by the nose. Follow the money and the direction of the power shift.
Not Democracy by any stretch. Stupid, entitled men and women, idealistic naifs and shouty fetishists are the only ones whose opinions count in the present zeitgeist, as amplified by our starry-eyed, greedy media – and unless we push back vigorously and firmly these people will be the only ones allowed to vote in the Brave New World they are preparing for us all, for our own good, of course.
Ayaan is, as usual, wonderful.
We need to reclaim our language wholesale and not engage with these people (the enemies of everything decent in our age-old culture) in their own twisted re-definitions. For example, stop calling the deeply regressive authoritarians “progressives”. What they advocate is not “progress” but regression to the hope of an imagined and utterly dystopian patriarchal society whereby quasi-Marxist (or proto-Fascist) anti-female, anti-individual, anti-gay, anti-human ideology rules, even though it has been proven, time and time again, that none of these ideologies produces a benign result.
I would argue that the very few genuinely “transexual” beings that exist are not well served by any of those activists claiming to speak for them, in the same way that people who have more melanin in their skin are badly served by militant black supremacist (overtly racist) movements like the antithetically named “Black Lives Matter” – to whom no lives matter at all as long as they get their own bullying way (and loadsa dosh).
We really do urgently need to wake up and check that all these allegedly philanthropic organisations are what they choose to call themselves. It seems to me that they are usually the exact opposite. Authoritarians with a sinister agenda leading useful idiots by the nose. Follow the money and the direction of the power shift.
Not Democracy by any stretch. Stupid, entitled men and women, idealistic naifs and shouty fetishists are the only ones whose opinions count in the present zeitgeist, as amplified by our starry-eyed, greedy media – and unless we push back vigorously and firmly these people will be the only ones allowed to vote in the Brave New World they are preparing for us all, for our own good, of course.
Hear hear. It always struck me how little Western feminists had to say about countries were women routinely and systematically are brutalised and treated like cattle, so busy were they persecuting elderly blokes for once patting a woman’s knee at a party somewhere.
..almost gave you a thumbs up but then I thought, no, it’s a bit too trite.
I don’t think that Frank’s comment is trite. Quite the contrary; it sums up the current situation rather nicely. The silence of most so-called “liberal feminists” in the West regarding the treatment of women in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa has been deafening!
A former colleague of mine, a self-identified progressive feminist, once told me that she doesn’t feel comfortable talking about the oppression of women in Africa, the Near East, or Afghanistan, because their cultural values are different, and doing so would denigrate their cultures and make it seem like Western values are superior, much like colonial powers did in the past! I asked her to play out a mental scenario, where she has the ability to stop abuse, perhaps even fatal abuse, of a girl/woman at virtually no risk to herself. Her response was shocking and frightening: she would interfere in the West, but not anywhere else.
It’s a classic case of soft racism or discrimination, which is so popular amongst the Left, and sold to the rest of us as cultural relativism and post-colonial deconstructionist thinking. These people do not believe in universal human rights, and one must be very weary of them.
It’s also a case of going for the low hanging fruit. Be activist in a context where there is traction: the rewards are attention, a feeling of community with fellow social justice warriors, and a heartwarming sense of righteousness. And none of that opprobrium from leftists, and accusations of post-colonial oppression.
It’s also a case of going for the low hanging fruit. Be activist in a context where there is traction: the rewards are attention, a feeling of community with fellow social justice warriors, and a heartwarming sense of righteousness. And none of that opprobrium from leftists, and accusations of post-colonial oppression.
I don’t think that Frank’s comment is trite. Quite the contrary; it sums up the current situation rather nicely. The silence of most so-called “liberal feminists” in the West regarding the treatment of women in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa has been deafening!
A former colleague of mine, a self-identified progressive feminist, once told me that she doesn’t feel comfortable talking about the oppression of women in Africa, the Near East, or Afghanistan, because their cultural values are different, and doing so would denigrate their cultures and make it seem like Western values are superior, much like colonial powers did in the past! I asked her to play out a mental scenario, where she has the ability to stop abuse, perhaps even fatal abuse, of a girl/woman at virtually no risk to herself. Her response was shocking and frightening: she would interfere in the West, but not anywhere else.
It’s a classic case of soft racism or discrimination, which is so popular amongst the Left, and sold to the rest of us as cultural relativism and post-colonial deconstructionist thinking. These people do not believe in universal human rights, and one must be very weary of them.
..almost gave you a thumbs up but then I thought, no, it’s a bit too trite.
Hear hear. It always struck me how little Western feminists had to say about countries were women routinely and systematically are brutalised and treated like cattle, so busy were they persecuting elderly blokes for once patting a woman’s knee at a party somewhere.
If you accept the concepts of âgenderâ and âtransgenderâ, you are part of the problem.
If you accept the concepts of âgenderâ and âtransgenderâ, you are part of the problem.
“Progressives care more about semantics than emancipation.” Semantics are the favorite tool of Progressives, because they obscure meaning and allow them to distort and mold language in any way that suits them and the agenda.
..jeez, I lost the term “Left” some time ago as it now seems N/A to me anymore.. and now I’m losing the accolade “progressive” as well! ‘Not sure what I am anymore!
It seems the lunacy of distorting terms extended to those who decry the lunacy of distorting terms. A plague on all yer houses I say:
I am a left-wing progressive with NONE of those nasty tendencies you attribute to those terms.. and I’m liberal too despite the fact that neoliberals seem to be the complete opposite of what I see myself as.
Hey I also claim to be Christian though it too now seems to stand for everything Jesus preached against..
..jeez, I lost the term “Left” some time ago as it now seems N/A to me anymore.. and now I’m losing the accolade “progressive” as well! ‘Not sure what I am anymore!
It seems the lunacy of distorting terms extended to those who decry the lunacy of distorting terms. A plague on all yer houses I say:
I am a left-wing progressive with NONE of those nasty tendencies you attribute to those terms.. and I’m liberal too despite the fact that neoliberals seem to be the complete opposite of what I see myself as.
Hey I also claim to be Christian though it too now seems to stand for everything Jesus preached against..
“Progressives care more about semantics than emancipation.” Semantics are the favorite tool of Progressives, because they obscure meaning and allow them to distort and mold language in any way that suits them and the agenda.
Define women-only spaces as pen*s-free zones, to minimise triggering trauma among vulnerable victims.
A castrated man isn’t a woman. He’s a castrated man.
True, but it would cut the numbers down considerably, as only 2% – 5% of these men calling themselves trans have actually been castrated, or so I read.
You misunderstand the term castrated!
Did I? In the old days transexual men used to have all their bits removed – that seems to be optional nowadays (many of them don’t even bother shaving their beards off, let alone go for anything more radical).
Did I? In the old days transexual men used to have all their bits removed – that seems to be optional nowadays (many of them don’t even bother shaving their beards off, let alone go for anything more radical).
You misunderstand the term castrated!
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, when Morton Downey Jr. had a tv talk show, he had a guest on, who was trans. He was trans because…it was a great way to pick up lesbians.
..ah, happy days eh?
..ah, happy days eh?
Or to use a technical term, a EUNUCH!
but still a man!
True, but it would cut the numbers down considerably, as only 2% – 5% of these men calling themselves trans have actually been castrated, or so I read.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, when Morton Downey Jr. had a tv talk show, he had a guest on, who was trans. He was trans because…it was a great way to pick up lesbians.
Or to use a technical term, a EUNUCH!
but still a man!
…but wait! If lesbian women are sexually aroused, and may prey upon naked women should they be excluded too? If we have mixed nudist beaches etc why not mix everything.. get over the hang-ups, or is it hang-downs?
You really donât understand this issue at all, do you?
I suspect he may be an agent provocateur.
Precisely!
Precisely!
I think heâs just here to troll.
Spot on Allison!
Spot on Allison!
I suspect he may be an agent provocateur.
I think heâs just here to troll.
Lesbian women may be aroused, but they donât pose a potential physical threat to other women. I am rather in the shower facility with Lesbians than a man with a whig, who âfeelsâ like a woman.
Your nudist colony arguments are pretty silly. Those people are voluntary on the beach, pool etc.
Men are consistently bigger and much stronger than women. In almost all rape and femicide crimes, the woman is physically overpowered.
As a man I donât enjoy sharing lavatories and changing facilities with women and girls either.
You really donât understand this issue at all, do you?
Lesbian women may be aroused, but they donât pose a potential physical threat to other women. I am rather in the shower facility with Lesbians than a man with a whig, who âfeelsâ like a woman.
Your nudist colony arguments are pretty silly. Those people are voluntary on the beach, pool etc.
Men are consistently bigger and much stronger than women. In almost all rape and femicide crimes, the woman is physically overpowered.
As a man I donât enjoy sharing lavatories and changing facilities with women and girls either.
A castrated man isn’t a woman. He’s a castrated man.
…but wait! If lesbian women are sexually aroused, and may prey upon naked women should they be excluded too? If we have mixed nudist beaches etc why not mix everything.. get over the hang-ups, or is it hang-downs?
Define women-only spaces as pen*s-free zones, to minimise triggering trauma among vulnerable victims.
The logic can be extended – if trans women have a right to use female only spaces, then ordinary men have a right to female only spaces too, and women have a right to male only spaces.
And you could place a small wager that some bright sparks would design buildings with only unisex changing rooms and toilets.
And why not? We have nudist spaces that we all seem well capable of coping with? It’s time we ditched the silly taboos and matured a bit!
I absolutely donât want men in my changing rooms, showers or other âwomen onlyâ facilities I use at my gym. I donât care what nudists are up toâŠ
When did you begin to believe Liam that men should be parading around naked in female spaces.
Irish people tend to look for a religious type group consensus, which may explain the lack of opposition to this new trans-substantiation theology.
I absolutely donât want men in my changing rooms, showers or other âwomen onlyâ facilities I use at my gym. I donât care what nudists are up toâŠ