Tuesday, 1 September 2009

Phyllis Chesler's Old Woman Bile Valiant Anti-Jihadism

My favourite feminist academic is having another hot flush power charge at Pajama's Media to the enthustiastic drooling of the run-of-the-mill anti-jihadist one tends to meet in the Internet. My comment may, or may not, pass moderation. Whatever. Here it is:
Goodness, aren't you shooting at a sitting duck? Chesler said pretty much everything that is to say about Wolf's whisked mice droppings, and she wouldn't be Chesler if she wouldn't say a tad too much. And here am I, thinking this is a CONSERVATIVE website. What about the fact that Chesler disses the traditional Western role of women and likens it to the role of Muslim women? For Chesler there is only one alternative to Islam: HER very own brand of feminism.

"In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands." If you forget about the face bit, what is wrong with that? That is not Islamic, but something that should be held high where conjugal faith and honest women are valued.

Oh by the way, did I ask whether this is a CONSERVATIVE site?

But this is best: "Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times." That is first an assumption and second an ad hominem, and to both an academic ought not to stoop, even if she is doing a journalist's job here. It sounds more like the post-climacteric bile of a jealous old crone. However feverishly she may be "anti-Islam", Chesler is STILL the one who said: "mother-women give up whatever ghost of a unique and human self they may have when they 'marry' and raise children" (quotes in the original), and the anti-jihad movement must be pretty desparate if they embrace somebody like her.

Feminists won't save the West, folks! NO feminist will.
Re-reading Chesler's PM-entry, it becomes even more preposterous. Here is the bit I quoted above in its context:
Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times. A Westerner, “playing” Muslim-dress up, Wolf claims that hiding in plain view gave her “a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.” In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands.

Marabel Morgan lives! In the mid-1970s, Morgan advised wives to greet their husbands at the door wearing sexy clothing and/or transparent saran wrap with only themselves underneath. Her book, Total Woman, sold more than ten million copies. According to Morgan, a Christian, “It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.”

Well, what can I say? [What about: "I am a loud-mouthed jerk-ette who does not know her arse from her elbow and not a traditional Western women from one under sharia"?] Here’s a few things.

Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police?
I am not sure what sort of rhetorical transition "Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things" is supposed to be. Is she really comparing a housewife in Saran wrap with women in chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab or improperly veiled and beaten "by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police"? What is her POINT? Should they allowed to wear Saran wrap but not to please their husbands? Does she have a point at all? Do we really need her, of all people, to show Wolf's whisked mice droppings for what they are? Should she be provided with a stage to vent her old-woman frustration on a woman 22 years her junior and by all standards still a stunner, whatever one thinks of her whisked mice droppings? And all that under the banner of anti-jihad?

She isn't speaking for me.