April 25, 2012
'Why Do They Hate Us?' A Blogger's Response
Mona Kareem in Al-Monitor:
Eltahawy says “they hate us and we need to admit that!” And then she lists more than three pages of recent violations of women’s rights in the Arab world. The issue at stake here is not whether women are discriminated against in the Arab world, as that argument is well established and is only denied by Islamist maniacs. The issue here is: how the hell can those violations prove an argument of “hate?” Eltahawy argues against Arab claims that Jews or Israelis hate us, but she uses the same logic when she puts Arab men under an umbrella of a single emotion: hate.
What should be considered is that we live in patriarchal societies, and the foundations of Middle East-based monotheistic religious texts are established on this patriarchy. Eltahawy’s claim not only degrades Arab culture in general but also patronizes Arab men and women by making the whole struggle for gender equality a conflict between the two sexes based on personal emotions.
Another problem I have with the general speech of “Arab feminism” is the term in itself. I really dislike seeing more than 20 different cultures put under one roof. Eltahawy is not a Pan-Arabist, I am assuming, yet she falls for this very common oriental division imposed by the media and others. Anyone knows how radically divergent the “Arab World” is: the North-African Arab culture is a far different culture from that of the Arabian Gulf.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 12:11 AM | Permalink
Comments
My comment at the site?
"If a given population is subjected to sexual abuse whenever they're politically active while major political factions say on principle that women shouldn't be politically active at all, while the legal system lets this population be dominated violently with little to no recourse available, life chances are substantially worse than for the remainder of the population, and physical contact with the population is seen as uniquely contaminating and the population must be segregated for decency's sake, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that hatred is _not_ present at some level.
It doesn't matter whether the stigmatized population is defined by religion, gender, race, caste, social class, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or whatever other metric: when treated this way, this population is clearly marked out for treatment as inferiors. _They deserve it._
Is misogyny uniquely Arab? Of course not. Eltahawy's speaking about her own concerns and particular experiences, as is her right."
Posted by: Randy McDonald | Apr 25, 2012 12:36:41 AM
Also:
"Eltahawy is not a Pan-Arabist, I am assuming, yet she falls for this very common oriental division imposed by the media and others."
How is this an oriental(ist?) division? Identifying common traits across a given language area--English, Arabic, German, et cetera--encompassing a broad variety of cultures and geographies is something both participants and observers in such broad language communities do as a matter of course. Inasmuch as language divisions in the Arab world are related to Orientalism, I'd thought that the dominant trend involved _splitting_ the community, i.e. arguing against the idea that there could be a single language community and promoting different regional varieties to the status of fully-fledged languages regardless the wishes of the speakers.
Posted by: Randy McDonald | Apr 25, 2012 12:44:14 AM
What total jibberish
Posted by: dave | Apr 25, 2012 2:28:29 AM
If the term "Arab Feminism" is too broad could we get some examples of how it fails in this particular discussion? I suspect that pro-feminist improvements in Tunisia and Yemen would be pretty much identical regardless how different the cultures are. I think Eltahawy made a good case of showing how even the more progressive Arab nations are one parliamentary vote away from the regressive ones.
Posted by: droog | Apr 25, 2012 3:05:37 AM
"What should be considered is that we live in patriarchal societies, and the foundations of Middle East-based monotheistic religious texts are established on this patriarchy."
If by 'considered' she means this goes a long way towards explaining the problem, yes. But it seems by 'considered' she implies that this excuses the outrageous mistreatment of women, which it surely does not.
Posted by: FrankZ | Apr 25, 2012 10:38:49 AM
Maybe Mona Eltahawy should have said: "Do they hate us?" or "Why do they behave so hatefully towards us?" or "Given that they treat us this way, should we hate them?" or "Given how they treat us, wouldn't we be right to hate them?" or "Would you behave this way towards someone you loved?" or "Isn't this how you would behave towards someone you hated?"...
One of the virtues of Mona Eltahawy's strident outcry is that it gets the ball rolling. See other responses, for example:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/24/debating_the_war_on_women
Posted by: Stefan | Apr 25, 2012 1:13:14 PM
If the term "Arab Feminism" is too broad could we get some examples of how it fails in this particular discussion? I suspect that pro-feminist improvements in Tunisia and Yemen would be pretty much identical regardless how different the cultures are. I think Eltahawy made a good case of showing how even the more progressive Arab nations are one parliamentary vote away from the regressive ones. mole removal
Posted by: Ryan Cardozo | May 15, 2012 5:16:28 AM
i feel its a situation that if they hate ye, they need to admit it not yourself. Really enjoyed this article,
Posted by: To improve forgiveness | Aug 9, 2012 7:21:30 AM
Agree with Ryan. Arab states are notable for their lack of women's rights, which are justified by appeals to Arab and Muslim culture. One has to argue that "Arab Feminism" doesn't make sense as a construction and obscures more than it reveals, and I see no evidence in the article that her assertion is correct.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Aug 9, 2012 3:27:37 PM
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