The Feminists’ letter

At FrontPage Magazine:
A Response to Feminists on the Violent Oppression of Women in Islam

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has succeeded in putting the feminists and Islamists on the defensive. As David Horowitz and Robert Spencer note in the article below, the DHFC’s exposure of the feminist movement’s lack of attention to women’s rights in the Muslim world has caused many of the movement’s most prominent activists to sign a letter protesting that they originated concern for Muslim women. The letter, drafted by feminist writer Katha Pollitt, has been signed by such notables as:

* Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women, which argues conservatives are trying to suppress American womyn, and The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America, which claims terrorism provided a handy excuse for the American Right to begin binding women’s feet again;
* Julianne Malveaux, who expressed her feelings about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on PBS’ To the Contrary, “I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease”
* Jennifer Baumgardner, a Nation writer whose idea of fighting female oppression is staging productions of The Vagina Monologues;
* Dana Goldstein, an employee of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress and a writing fellow at the Soros-funded The American Prospect; and
More than 700 more leftists.

The letter spread quickly, beginning on the website of the far-Left’s flagship publication, The Nation. (The Nation’s piece was also picked up by Yahoo News). Soon, it had been posted on Mother Jones, the Islamic Forum, the University of Maine, and many other sites — including that of a woman named Heart who is running for president. Not all are pleased; at least one insists U.S. immigration laws and Israeli treatment of Palestinians are a more direct affront to women’s rights than clitorectomies. (She asks, “Does Ms. Pollitt think that ‘Muslim countries’ are particularly hostile to women’s rights for some reason?”) Nonetheless, the very fact that the Left, so long silent about the crimes countenanced by its Islamic partners in the antiwar movement, now feels that it must mount a rousing defense is a vindication of our efforts. — The Editors.

Here’s the text of the letter:

An Open Letter from American Feminists

VFA asks members and friends to join Katha Pollit in responding to accusations that American feminists are ignoring atrocities against women in other countries, especially the Muslim world.

If you’d like to sign, just E-mail KATHA POLLITT and send her your name and ID (professional and/or feminist affiliation) at kpollitt@…

PLEASE READ ON

Columnists and opinion writers from The Weekly Standard to the Washington Post to Slate have recently accused American feminists of focusing obsessively on minor or even nonexistent injustices in the United States while ignoring atrocities against women in other countries, especially the Muslim world. A number of reasons are given for this supposed neglect: narcissism, ideological rigidity, reflexive anti-Americanism, fear of seeming insensitive or even racist. Yet what is the evidence for this apparently now broadly accepted claim that feminists don’t support the struggles of women around the globe? It usually comes down to a quick scan of the home page of the National Organization for Women’s website, observing that a particular writer hasn’t covered a particular outrage, plus a handful of quotes wrenched out of context.

In fact, as a bit of research would easily show, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of US feminist organizations involved in promoting women’s rights and well-being around the globe — V-Day, Equality Now, MADRE, the Global Fund for Women, the International Women’s Health Coalition and Feminist Majority, to name some of the most prominent. (The National Organization for Women itself has a section on its website devoted to global feminism, on which it denounces a wide array of practices including female genital mutilation (FGM), “honor” murder, trafficking, dowry deaths and domestic violence). Feminists at Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have moved those organizations to add the rights of women and girls to their agenda. Feminist magazines and blogs– Ms, Feministing.com, Salon.com’s Broadsheet feature, womensenews,com (which has an edition in Arabic) — as well as feminist reporters and commentators in the mainstream media, regularly report on and condemn outrages against women wherever they occur, from rape, battery and murder in the US to the denial of women’s human rights in the developing or Muslim world. As feminists, we call on journalists and opinion writers to report the true position of our movement. We believe that women’s rights are human rights, and stand in solidarity with our sisters who are fighting for equal political, economic, social and reproductive rights around the globe. Specifically, contrary to the accusations of pundits, we support their struggle against female genital mutilation, “honor” murder, forced marriage, child marriage, compulsory Islamic dress codes, the criminalization of sex outside marriage, brutal punishments like lashing and stoning, family laws that favor men and that place adult women under the legal power of fathers, brothers, and husbands, and laws that discount legal testimony made by women. We strongly oppose the denial of education, health care and equal political and economic rights to women.

We reject the use of women’s rights language to justify invading foreign countries. Instead, we call on the United States government to live up to its expressed commitment to women’s rights through peaceful means. pecifically, we call upon it to offer asylum to women and girls fleeing gender-based persecution, including female genital mutilation, domestic violence, and forced marriage; promote women’s rights and well-being in all their foreign policy and foreign aid decisions; use its diplomatic powers to pressure its allies — especially Saudi Arabia, one of the most oppressive countries in the world for women — to embrace women’s rights; drop the Mexico City policy–aka the ‘gag rule’–which bars funds for AIDS- related and contraception-related health services abroad if they provide abortions, abortion information, or advocate for legalizing abortion; generously support the UN population Fund (UNFPA), which supports women’s reproductive health including safe maternity around the globe, and whose funding is vetoed every year by President Bush; become a signatory to The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the basic UN women’s human rights document, now signed by 185 nations. The US is one of a handful of holdouts, along with Iran, Sudan, and Somalia.

Finally, we call upon the United States, and all the industrialized nations of the West, to share their unprecedented wealth, often gained at the expense of the developing world, with those who need it in such a way that women benefit.

Signed,

Katha Pollitt, writer
Marge Piercy, writer
Susan Faludi
Alix Kates Shulman, writer
Julianne Malveaux, president Bennett college for women
Anne Lamott, writer
Mary Gordon
Linda Gordon, historian, NYU
Jennifer Baumgardner, writer
Ruth Rosen, historian
Jane Smiley, writer
Anna Fels,
Debra Dickerson, writer
Margo Jefferson, writer
Jessica Valenti, writer
Dana Goldstein, The American Prospect
Karen Houppert, writer
Gloria Jacobs, The Feminist Press
Carole Joffe, Sociology, UC Davis
Janet Afary, Middle East Historian, Purdue University
Barrie Thorne
Professor and Chair of Gender & Women’s Studies and
Professor of Sociology
University of California, Berkeley
Catharine R. Stimpson – New York University
Lakshmi Chaudhry, writer
Rosalyn Baxandall, chair, American Studies SUNY-Old Westbury
Naomi Weisstein
Alisa Solomon,writer
Judith Ezekiel, historian, Wright State U/U de Toulouse
Barbara Bick
Amy Swerdlow
Kathryn Scarbrough
Bea Kreloff
Sonia Jaffe Robbins, writer/editor
Laura X,activist
Linda Stein, sculptor
Stephanie Gilmore, historian, Trinity College
Ariel Dougherty, Media Equity Collaborative, co founder Women Make Movies
Amie Newman, Associate editor, RH Reality check
Merle Hoffman, activist
Adele M. Stan, columnist, American Prospect Online
Michelle Goldberg, writer
Agnieszka Graff, scholar, writer and activist, Warsaw, Poland
Margaret Morgenroth Gullette, Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis
Eleanor Bader, writer and educator
Eileen Boris, Hull Professor, Women’s Studies UCSB
Cynthia L Cooper, “words of choice”
Jennifer Pozner, Women in Media and News
Dolores Hayden, Yale
Kelli Zaytoun, English and women’s Studies, Wright State U
Laura Ross, liaison, Indigenous Women’s Political Caucus
Melody Berger, writer
Donna Schape, Senior minister, Judson memorial church
Carol Sternhell, professor of journalism NYU
Mari Matsuda, law professor, PLACE TK
Michele Barry, professor of medicine and global health yale
Meredith Tax, writer, president, Women’s WORLD
Estelle Freedman Robinson Professor, History, Stanford University
Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freedom from Religion foundation
Heather Nijoli Robinson, Equal Access Fund of Tennessee
Anna Clark, writer
Colleen Kelly Johnston, activist for owmen and peace
Emily Apter, literary theorist, NYU
Laura Zimmerman Co-founder, Center for New Words
Diane Wahto, Chair, Peace and Social Justice Center of South Central Kansas
Rev. Linda Pashby Kaufman, Unitarian Universalist Community Minister, Seattle,
Deanna Zandt, Media Technologist
Linda Ann Wheeler Hilton, artist and writer, Arizona
D. H. Melhem, Ph.D., poet & writer, New York City
Barbara Winslow, Women’s studies and school of Ed., Bklyn College
Courtney E. Martin, Brooklyn-based writer and teacher
Lucinda Marshall, Founder, Feminist Peace Network
Jill filipovic, feministe.us/blog
Alison Redford, homemaker & civic volunteer, Wellington, Kansas
Vickie Sandell Stangl, Wichita State University, Political Science Dept.
Meredith Michaels, philosophy dept, Smith college
Muriel Dimen, writer and Psychoanalyst, NYU
Susan Yanow MSWReproductive Health Consultant Cambridge, MA
Nancy Folbre, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Judy Norsigian, Executive Director , Our Bodies Ourselves
Co- author of “Our Bodies, Ourselves”
Kathleen Gerson, sociologist, New York University.
Amy King, Poet and Educator, SUNY Nassau Community College
Ana Bozicevic , Poet, New York City
Debbie rogow
Katherine Ellis
Dr. Suellen Miller
Director, Safe Motherhood Programs
Women’s Global Health Imperative
UCSF
Janine Jackson, program director, FAIR
Lise Vogel
Professor Emerita of Sociology, Rider University
Lisa Jervis, bitch
Nora Bredes, Director, Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership
Emily Gordon, writer and editor
Sophie Pollitt-Cohen, writer and student
Naela El-Hinnawy
Joan D. Mandle, Colgate University, Emerita
Esther Newton Women’s Studies, University of Michigan
Marti Copleman, lawyer, board member Women for Afghan Women
Liza Featherstone, journalist/author.
Vivian gornick
Dorothy C. Miller, D.S.W., Director
Flora Stone Mather Center for Women
& Clinical Associate Professor
Mandel School For Applied Social Sciences
Case Western Reserve University
J. Goodrich, blogger, “Echidne of the snakes”
Victoria Rosenwald, RN MPH
Sonali Kolhatkar, Co-Director of Afghan Women’s Mission
Beccah Golubock Watson, Legal Momentum
Veronica I. Arreola, Ctr for Research on Women & Gender, U Ill- Chicago
Jane Mansbridge, Kennedy School of Govt
Patricia Thorpe, writer
Sheila Weller / writer
Amy Richards, Soapbox, Inc
Jacqui Ceballos – President, Veteran Feminists of America

I’ll be following up on this story later on.

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