Happy Fascism Awareness Week!

I’ve never been able to explain Halloween to the kids, with its odd thematic confluence of pumpkins, candy, and death. But Halloween is a piece of pumpkin cake compared to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, which commences today. In this special week, organized by conservative pundit David Horowitz, we have a veritable witches’ brew of Cheney-style anti-jihadism mixed in with old-fashioned rightwing anti-feminism and a sour dash of anti-Semitism.

A major purpose of this week is to wake up academic women to the threat posed by militant jihadism. According to the Week’s website, feminists, and particularly the women’s studies professors among them, have developed a masochistic fondness for Islamic fundamentalist. Hence, as anti-Islamo-Fascist speakers fan out to the nation’s campuses this week, students are urged to stage “sit-ins in Women’s Studies Departments and campus Women’s Centers to protest their silence about the oppression of women in Islam.”

Leaving aside the obvious quibbles about feminist pro-jihadism and the term “Islamo-Fascism,” which seems largely designed to give jihadism a nice familiar World War II ring, the klaxons didn’t go off for me until I skimmed down the list of Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week speakers and found, incredibly enough, Ann Coulter, whom I last caught on TV pining for the repeal of women’s suffrage. "If we took away women's right to vote,” she said wistfully, “We’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream; it's a personal fantasy of mine."

Coulter is not the only speaker on the list who may have a credibility problem when it comes to opposing oppression of women in Islam or anywhere else. Another participant in the week’s events is former senator Rick Santorum, whose book It Takes a Family blamed “radical feminism” for pushing women into the workforce and thus destroying the American family. A 2005 column on that book in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, began with: “Women of America, I hope you look good in a burqa. If Senator Rick Santorum,R-PA, has his way, we will all be wearing the burqas discarded by our recently liberated sisters in Afghanistan…” (This was the before the Taliban re-emerged.)

Not quite in the burqa-promoting league, but close, is another official speaker for the week, Christina Hoff Sommers, who has made her name attacking feminism for exaggerating the problem of domestic violence and eliminating opportunities for boys. These are the people who are going to save us from purdah?

Another disagreeable feature of jihadism – anti-Semitism – is also represented on the list of speakers for Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week, again by the multi-faceted Coulter. Just last week on CNBC, she referred to America as a “Christian nation.” Asked where this left the Jews (not to mention the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans and atheists), she said they could be “perfected” by converting to Christianity.

You might imagine that this view of Jews as “imperfect” would bother  Horowitz, who is famously alert to any hint of anti-Semitism on the left. But no, he defends Coulter, writing that "If you don't accompany this belief by burning Jews who refuse to become perfected at the stake why would any Jew have a problem?" Sure, David, and if that’s the threshold for intolerance, Osama bin Laden could probably win an award for humanitarianism.

Maybe none of this should be surprising. When Mel Gibson, who is not known to be a member of the Hollywood left, unleashed a drunken anti-Semitic tirade on his arresting officers, Horowitz also rose to his defense, arguing that ensuing outrage reflected a “hatred” – not of anti-Semites -- but of Christians.

As for the anti-feminism of Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week: This fits in neatly with the thesis of Susan Faludi’s brilliant new book, The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America. She shows that, in the wake of an attack by the ultra-misogynist Al Qaeda, Americans perversely engaged in an anti-feminist campaign of their own, calling for an immediate restoration of traditional gender roles. Coulter was part of that backlash, opining in 2002 that “feminists hate guns because guns remind them of men.”

Before you put on your costumes to celebrate Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week, let me set the record straight. American feminists do not condone, defend, or ignore jihadist misogyny. In fact, we were warning about it well before Washington turned against the Taliban and have been consistently appalled by the gender dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

But if the facts don’t fit in with Islamo-Fascist Awareness, they have to go. For example, in a May ‘07 column in The Weekly Standard Christina Hoff Sommers  listed me as one of the “feckless” feminists who refuse “to pass judgment on non-Western cultures.” What? If Sommers had even done ten minutes of research she would have noticed, among other things, a column I wrote in the New York Times in ’04 stating that Islamic fundamentalism aims to push one-half of the Muslim world—the female half-- “down to a status only slightly above that of domestic animals.”

Yes, feminists tend to hate war and sometimes even guns, and this may be why Horowitz and company hate us. They should know, though, that we especially hate a war that seems calculated to inflame Islamic fundamentalism world wide. If many Muslim women around the world willingly don head scarves today, it’s in part because our war in Iraq has, tragically, pushed them to value religious solidarity above their feminist instincts.

Or maybe I’m missing the point of Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week. Maybe it’s really an effort to show that our own American anti-feminists (and anti-Semites) are just as nasty as the ones on the other side. If so, good job, guys! No need to continue with the trick-or-treating, you’ve already made your point.

Comments

[buena]

Barbara, I'd pay good money to see a debate between you and Ann Coulter. Is she taking some of Limbaugh's drugs or is she just crazy?

The idea that feminists and Women's Studies professors have a fondness for Islamic fundamentalism is beyond insane.

Maybe because feminists tend to be against The Twit's illegal war, the inference is that we condone Islamic fundamentalism. That's such a stretch I doubt even a crazy person would believe it.

[Anarcissie]

David Horowitz is a True Believer, and for a True Believer all who do not fully subscribe to the True Faith are on the Devil's side, regardless of their apparent differences.

[roger]

instead of questioning the integrity of those who are sponsoring this event perhaps we should ask ourselves whether awareness and caution is justified.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/101907dnintpakistan.183399ef0.html

"Various reports said up to 126 were killed and about 248 wounded, including civilians and party workers."

this occurred last thursday in an attempt to assasinate Benazir Bhutto. it is widely believed that this is the work of al qaeda.

[buena]

You seem to have absolutely, totally, and completely missed the point, roger.

The point is, feminists are being accused of supporting or condoning Islamic fundamentalists, i.e. terrorists. How ridiculous is that?

[Becky]

Holy crap. You're kidding, right? Right?

[Lulu Maude]

Gee. From the title I was thinking you were going to warn us about our own creeping fascism... about Coulter, Cheney, Horowitz, et al.

Aren't the parallels something?!?

[BobS.]

Ironically,it seems to be our native 'Judeo-Christian fascists' who feel most threatened by Islamic fundamentalism.I guess they just want the stage for themselves.

[Larry In Lethbridge]

An absolutely airtight argument Barbara.

Ann Coulter makes me nauseous. Glad I don't have to see her that often.

[svetr]

buena: an aside, but i don't think its fair to equate islamic fundamentalists with terrorists. one can be fundamentalist and yet not support terror.

[buena]

You're right, svetr. I meant to imply that they are generally seen that way in this country.

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[Monica]

Has it ever occurred to you that some of the women who willingly don scarves are just rejecting feminism and may in fact be attracted to Islam precisely because that's the only serious alternative to this world of greed, immorality, work slavery for both genders and feminism? That's exactly how I feel. I would love to wear a burka, which I don't because it is considered odd here (I'm in Canada), and I kind of like Osama. Mind you, he offered some opportunity for reconciliation (converting to Islam), whereas the West has nothing better to offer than war and their corruption. If some Muslims are doing anything bad, that does not mean that Islam as a whole is bad and that their interpretation of Islamic values is right.

In Islam, male family members are supposed to support not only their wife, but also their unmarried, divorced or widowed female relatives. How many American women can convince their brother, for example, that he must support them? They are lucky if he just helps them out a little, and he would see it as a temporary favour he is doing out of the kindness of his heart, not as a duty. So far for having a more dignified status than the Muslim women who are entitled to their relatives' support. American women are treated like beasts of burden because they must work, yet they feel that Muslim women are themselves treated like animals.

Feminism burdened women with new obligations, such as having to work, and contributed to the erosion of family values. They are the reason so many "liberated" women are wasting away their lives at work instead of staying home. I have made a conscious decision to reject their ideology, and I wish I could send them back to the kitchen, and stay there myself.

[Anarcissie]

Good ol' Monica. You should move to New York City, where you will be allowed to devote yourself to any form of sartorial slavery you like in perfect freedom. Where I live (Queens) you can see burqas every day (mostly on Bangladeshis).

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[roger]

barbara: Hence, as anti-Islamo-Fascist speakers fan out to the nation’s campuses this week, students are urged to stage “sit-ins in Women’s Studies Departments and campus Women’s Centers to protest their silence about the oppression of women in Islam.

buena: You seem to have absolutely, totally, and completely missed the point, roger.

The point is, feminists are being accused of supporting or condoning Islamic fundamentalists, i.e. terrorists. How ridiculous is that?

the womens studies departments are being protested because of the belief that they are not sufficiently vocal about subordination of women within islam. the womens studies departments are not being accused of supporting islamic fundamentalists. is this distinction too nuanced for you or do you find you need to exaggerate the opposite point of view in order to promote your own.

[roger]

so the actual question is whether the academic left in general and womens studies departments in particular have been negligent in voicing concern over violence toward those who highlight subjugation of women within islam.

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/11/24/vangogh/

[roger]

again should the universities have been more diligent in accentuating the threat.

http://www.thefileroom.org/documents/dyn/DisplayCase.cfm/id/1069

[buena]

Barbara says, "American feminists do not condone, defend, or ignore jihadist misogyny. In fact, we were warning about it well before Washington turned against the Taliban and have been consistently appalled by the gender dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Iran."

The U.S. administration has never been concerned about how other countries treat women, or donkeys.

[paperpusher666]

I can understand the desire for a woman to assume a more traditional role in return for economic security. My parents were able to raise a family comfortably on a single income, but that doesn't seem to have been possible for anyone who married within the last 30 years. If you price it out, a lot of the time it isn't worthwhile for a married mother to work because her salary barely offsets the cost of day care and other work-related costs (i.e. second car, wardrobe, etc.).

The shotgun marriage is dead. No-fault divorce has taken away many of the incentives for couples to try to work things out, so people move on.

[JoshuasGrandma]

Fascists and fundamentalists are alike whether they be Islamic or Christian. Each desires total control, to use law to impose their views on everyone else. They use the same tactics: labels and threats, intolerance, propaganda and violence to intimidate and inspire fear. They espouse traditional family with dominant male, ownership and subjugation of women. The Christian Right's focus on Islamo-fascists is yet another effort to divert public attention from our own homegrown variety.

[roger]

i gather you would equate the role of the father in western tradition be it christian or otherwise with the subjugation of women in asia and within the islamic tradition. i guess i missed the part about western tradition of owning women and arranged marriages and female circumcision. with the exception of polygamous marriages by fringe groups in the west i would have a hard time drawing the equation.

you would have to demonstrate the christian equivalent of the commission for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice for the arguement to hold.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1874471.stm

the nearest thing we have to this atrocity is civil rights violations including emmett till but then that was not driven by patriarchy but rather racism. even those eligible for capital punishment are not executed by fire.

[Chickensh*teagle]

roger: "i guess i missed the part about western tradition of owning women and arranged marriages and female circumcision."

"Not as bad as" isn't the same as "good" or even "acceptable."

"the womens studies departments are being protested because of the belief that they are not sufficiently vocal about subordination of women within islam."

So the neocon warmongers would like the women's studies departments to help them do their work of demonizing Islam so as to goose along this "clash of civilizations" they're spoiling for. Not to mention devoting less effort to opposing the right's agenda of rolling back women's gains of recent decades here in this country.

Sorry, but it's not the place of Horowitz and friends to give the women's studies departments their marching orders.

[Chris]

Barbara, I think you are missing an important point. Full disclosure, I didn't see it until I read Susan Faldui's new book.

The conversation about feminism and islamo-facism is not really about women's rights in Islam or feminism- it's about American machismo. The Afgan, Saudi, Iranian, and Iraqi persecution is only relevant because it is up to us, the mighty and indestrucable American Alpha Male, to "save" them. That is why now, after the Afganistan war is 'won," the self-appointted defenders of islamic women's rights are silent about Malalai Joya's eviction from the Afgan Parliament, who is an actual activist for women's rights in the Islamic world.

For the wingunts, Women's slavation does not lie in their own real agency, it's in our policy of bombing other countries until their women are so grateful they swoon in our muscular arms.

[roger]

"So the neocon warmongers would like the women's studies departments to help them do their work of demonizing Islam so as to goose along this "clash of civilizations" they're spoiling for."

so you buy into the no blood for oil mantra. if oil is the point it would have been much simpler to have lifted the sanctions and purchased the oil.

[Chris S.]

PC requires blindness. Feminist are loathe to criticize non-Christian people of color. Oh how they wish it was American white males forcing women to wear burquas, beating their wives and doing honor killings. It's so damned inconvenient when the enemy is not supposed to be a rainbow hued ally.