To women and men who still scoff at (American) feminism:
To the women, I see what your point is. Your individual life is fine, and you don’t feel the need to “victimize” yourself. I for one, am happy for you. Movement for one is movement for all. However, when you post your cringeworthy status full of fake facts about the Middle East and why women here should be grateful, that’s where we have to stop.
First of all, I noticed you didn’t care about women’s rights until you could use it to demonize Islam. But we’ll come back to that. How is it for women in other countries? You say they can’t vote, can’t speak to a man, are treated badly by their husbands, can’t hold a job, have blocked access to education, and have no representation in government. These facts may or may not be true depending on what area we’re talking about, but if these are your concerns, why aren’t you more concerned that these are also issues in America? Women here are regularly beaten by husbands and partners, and the current president has just threatened to get rid of all federal funding for victims of domestic violence. If that happened in the Middle East you’d be flipping out right? So why is it acceptable here? It’s the same thing with rape here; it’s an absolute epidemic (as well as rape culture) with very little justice done.
What about holding a job? How hard did women have to fight a mere 50 years ago to have a job that wasn’t secretary or nurse? How many women today do you see with high positions or high salaries? How about the fact that 99% of women are paid less than a man in the same field? Or the number one people in global poverty are women?
What about education? What do you think will happen to poor women and children if Betsy DeVos gets to pass her charters for school? What do you think happens to women in urban environments currently?
Image, Joshua Rawson-Harris Follow
And as far as voting, what happens to minority women who have their voting booths shut down or are turned away by strict ID laws? Did you know it was only white women who were allowed to vote in 1920? What about women of color? They had to wait almost 50 more years. Women can speak freely to men here supposedly, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences. Women viewed as “bitchy” or “bossy” are more likely to be fired or not promoted, while these same skills are celebrated as “leadership” in a man. Talk to a woman in any male dominated field (all of them) and watch them explain how they have to seem docile and not threatening. This goes especially for women of color.
What about disabled women who need Medicare? Or poor women on the verge of losing their health insurance? Or women shot by abusers because our gun laws are so lax that registered domestic abusers can buy one? Did you know that child marriage and human trafficking happen here and aren’t just a faraway tale from some “oppressive Muslim” countries? What about the black women shot by the police? Would you care if the “Islamic state” did it with honor killings? Do you care about how women aren’t allowed to wear shorts in ninety degree weather in American schools, or are you too busy pulling the hijab off a woman who chose to wear one?
As for representation in government, it may surprise you to know that the women in these horrible, oppressive countries have way more representation in government than we do. (Yep, you read that right.) Women in some Middle Eastern countries have as high as 30% representation in Parliament (American women in Congress, in 2017, are at 19%), and there have been many queens ruling in predominantly Muslim countries, one of whom the Pope famously bowed to in her visit to the Vatican. Meanwhile in America, we couldn’t even get a female president when her opponent was a sexual predator with no prior experience, and men in Congress have passed over 600 laws to regulate women’s bodies and birth control in the past few years alone. (This isn’t even going into detail about how many more women die in pregnancy in America than any other developed country, nor pregnancy discrimination that happens at work.) Wanna know how many were ever passed for men? Zero. We can’t even breastfeed without it being “sexualized.” We also have a worse maternity leave program than Russia, which, if you need a refresher, is an incredibly misogynistic country. Much like America.
So yeah, things for American women are pretty bad. It may be good for upper class white women such as yourself, but for the rest of us it sucks. Please don’t use the veil of “women’s rights” to criticize Islam when you don’t care about what women go through in your own country. The Bible is way more misogynistic than the Qur’an (I’ve read both). Do you know how many Christian men have beat or raped their wives without any criticism to the religion? Although some predominantly Muslim countries are oppressive to women, it would be inaccurate to claim this religion is inherently so; in fact, it demands that women be treated with respect. It against the Qur’an to force women to wear a hijab/niquab, forced marriages are out of the question, none of the women’s property has to go toward paying for her family, and she has property rights once divorced. It is the government, not the religion, which has oppressed these women, and that is partially due to the conservatives America sent to the Middle East in the 70s. Whatever happens to women in the east happens to women in the west as well, guaranteed.
My dream is to be able to walk down the street in a sweatshirt and jeans without having disgusting things screamed at me. So if you don’t need feminism personally, please consider both the women here and abroad who do.
To the men who are against feminism: see the above.
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