So it's Friday afternoon and I decide to go out and browse at the local Borders. Looking at the new arrivals section, my eyes catch a book screaming to be noticed: Bright red, yellow, and blue lettered colores that read:
The Death of Feminism. I don't have to search for the author's name, for it jumps at me with a similar rudeness: Phyllis Chesler. Uh oh! This can't be good. And as if this is not bad enough, I turn the book over and read the endorsements on the jacket cover: Alan Dershowitz, Daniel Pipes, ...Kate Millet (now you're dead to me Kate). Ok, my afternoon is oficially ruined.
But why does sister Phyllis pronunce feminism dead, you ask?
Well, apparently because western feminists are too pro Palestinian. They are so pro Palestinian and pro Arab that they just don't see the oppression under which Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian women live. Western academic feminists are too anti Jewish. She, on the other hand, is the true feminist. She is also a rabid Zionist and is proud of it. She also has an insider view of real Islam because she once lived in Afghanistan as a young bride. So she's seen it all; she'll be another humanitarian lifting the veil off Islam and Arab and Muslim women.
I was intrigued by the chapter entitled "The One-Sided Feminist Academy" so I skimmed it to see who are the academics she's denouncing and why. Well, Spivak is one. Chesler whines about how difficult she is and how hard to understand. Ok, granted. Then denounces her for criticizing white western feminists for their sometimes imperial discourse about third world women. There is no argument here or engagement with Spivak. It is enough that Chesler says that something is bad for it to be bad (bad Sivak, bad Spivak).. How about constructing an argument against Spivak? How about reading some of her work rather than just quoting from interviews with her. But Chesler is in the business of "tarnish and run."
Then after Spivak she sinks her teeth in the "Palestinian American academic" Suha Sabbagh. She is offended by a book Sabbagh edited called
Arab Women: Between Defiance and Restraint because it is "Palestinianized", i.e, it dares to mention Palestine "a country that did not exist at the time of publication in 1996" (110). Horror of all horrors.
For the record, I reviewed Sabbagh's book when it first came out for
The Women's Review of Books. Although I'm Palestinian, a feminist, an academic (mini academic at the time since I was in grad school when I wrote that review), and although I liked Spivak and all the gang of postcolonial feminists who wanted to talk about race and imperialism along with gender and sexuality , I was critical of Sabbgh's introduction, which I thought was the worst part of the book. For while some of the essays were strong, and others were less so, Sabbagh's introduction was carelss and actually irritated me. I criticized her for her "defensiveness" about Arab women that came close to apologia.I said that she used "neutral -sounding functional explanation to exonerate inequality." I pointed out how in places "the mantle of sociological objectivity excuses uncritical relativism." I concluded that while Sabbagh's suspect statements "tell us little about Arab women in general, they do remind us of the uncomfortable places from which many of us speak." I bring up this old review to show that Chesler's claims that Palestinian feminists have a national political agenda that blinds us to reality is false. We don't need her to tell us what is good scholarship on Arab women and what is bad. If there are apologists among some Arab feminists, it's mostly because of people like Chesler who have a Zionist agenda that uses women's issues to paint Arabs and Muslims as monsters and brutes.
Another feminist Chesler doesn't like is Robin Morgan, who dared visit Palestinain refugee camps. Her visit, you see, was facilitated by that radical Palestinian organization called... UNRWA (as opposed to the Israeli occupying army?) and because she calls the camps "camps" instead of "refugee neighborhoods" or "Palestinian-enforced ghettos" (116). Why stop there? Why not call them "outdoor luxury accommodations" or "nature resorts" ? (for the record again, I have recently criticized some of Morgan's representation of Palestinian women but not for Chesler's reasons.Maybe I should have left her alone since she's getting enough grief from the zionists. Oh, well).
Jan Goodwin, who is a journalist, "adventurer" (what the hell does this mean?) and not an academic (so why is she here?), is blasted (despite her valuable contributions to the demonizing of Arab culture in the name of feminism) for being an "anti-zionist ideologue". Guess why? Because she dared say that women's suffering in the West Bank and Gaza has something to do with the Israeli occupation and because she titled her chapter on Palestine: "Israeli Occupied Territories: Next Year in Jerusalme." Chesler is incredulous: "Is she suggesting that the PLO take over Jerusalem?" (118).
Leila Abu Lughod is criticized, as far as I can tell, for writing complex ethnographies that don't just trash Arab culture.
Who is Chesler's favorite writer?
Carmen Bin Laden.
Let me conclude with this priceless quote from the book, that pretty much sums up why she
wants feminism dead:
"For the last five years, many feminist and lesbian-feminist demonstrators (in anti-globalization and anti-war marches) have waved the Palestinian flag [must really kill you to see it] and worn Arab headdress [so sexy!]. In the Arab world, they would not have that right, because they are wearing Arab male kaffiyehs [now I'm laughing out loud and my 6 year-old wants to know why]. Were they marching anywhere in the Islamic world, they'd be wearing chadaris, burqas, head scarves, and veils [idiot!]. And if they weren't, they would be beaten, jailed, raped, possibly flogged, perhaps even stoned to death [she forgot they will be cut up into small square and triangle pieces then fed to the male camels in their daddies garage]. A willful blindness to the reality of the Islamic world seems to go hand-in-hand with support for Palestine" (105). Aha!! This is what this is all about. Support for Palestine.
According to Chesler's morally skewed view of the world, for a feminist to prove she's alive and not dead, she must embrace zionism. Because, to her, not to be zionist, is to be pro Palestinian.
Chesler is a product of zionist think tanks, who produce "feminists" (a dime a dozen these days) that pretend to care about Arab and Muslim women. Some of them speak in their names, such as the so called Nonie Darwish (not her real name of course) and Suad (not her real name of course) whom Chesler celebrates and quotes as the true voices of Arab and Muslim women. These are manufactured women, with manufactured identities.
Now, I have to go return it to Borders and get my money back--money I will use to buy a new "Arab male headdress" called Kufeyyeh. Black and white.The one I have is getting a bit frayed at the edges. Salam.
