Feminism

Rachel Becker

Feminism Moodle Post

April 9, 2012

            I really enjoyed Professor Jafar’s (2007) article, “ Engaging Fundamentalism: The Case of Women’s NGOs in Pakistan.”  I had honestly never occurred to me to examine the role of women’s help organizations in other countries or the stigma that being for women could produce.  Jafar (2007) makes an interesting point when she says, “The NGOs have to consider the political and religious sensibilities of the communities that they work within as they develop their agendas and organize their activities” (p. 257).  It is clear here that fundamentalism shapes and establishes the larger context of the country in question.  In order to be successful, NGOs cannot completely scare off the more religious or fundamentalist groups.  To fight completely against them is to ensure that they will have even more of an uphill battle, if not be completely unsuccessful.  They have to work with, or at least next to, groups that inherently oppose them and they have to win them over.  This puts NGOs in a unique and difficult position.  How do you reconcile your feelings about women’s rights and the work you are doing with the sacrifices you have to make in order to be successful at all?  Do you feel like you are selling out, or that you are doing more good than you would be if you didn’t exist at all?  It’s certainly a back and forth, and one that cannot be easily answered. 

            I also thought that Professor Jafar’s (2010) column, “The Burden of Representation,” was very interesting.  We discussed that Time cover and all of its implications in class.  It was obviously chosen because it was the most attention grabbing image; the average Muslim woman is not going to make issues fly off the shelves.  But Jafar (2010) makes the point that, “Muslims, including academics and activists have been put on the defensive.”  In writing about their own culture, they are forced to explain and anticipate criticism instead of being able to just present an issue that is important to them.  And in order to produce academic work that is immediately interesting to the public, a scholar has to be sensationalistic like the cover of Time.  We’ve studied that minorities are always representative of their entire group in their actions, but I had never thought of it in terms of academics having to publish in defense of themselves.  This also made me think of the video we watched in class where the Muslim professor from NYU was placating her (Canadian?) audience.  Why does she feel like she has to work so hard to explain herself and Muslims in general to them?  Why is she not able to be more proud as a practicing Muslim woman?

            Susan Moller Okin’s (1999) overarching question is a good one and one that I have grappled with as we have discussed different cultures and the risks of applying our preexisting expectations to them.  She writes, “What should be done when the claims of minority cultures or religions clash with the norm of gender equality that is at least formally endorsed by liberal states (however much they continue to violate it in their practice)?”  In theory, women in the United States can wear whatever they want.  In reality, though this is legally true, there is a societal policing both by men, and more disturbingly, other women.  If a woman is judging other women, then they are self-policing and that says that norms have been extremely well integrated.  This probably also means that they are policing themselves, although maybe not as harshly.  Anyway, if that is the case here, who are we to say what is normal anywhere else?  Regardless, who are we to say what women should want in other places?  As Abu-Hughod (2002) quoted Laura Bush as saying, part of the reason we went to Afghanistan was to liberate women.  However, it seems fairly presumptuous for us to decide what women want or what liberation looks like for them.  At the same time, I can understand thinking that equality to make choices as one wishes is liberation for women and that maybe all women should have that.  Maybe it should start here, though, before we “liberate” others.

            I’d lastly like to address the FGM website.  It took me a long time to read and it is taking me a long time to write about it.  What seemed worst were the cool explanations of practices – these are the reasons that this is done in some communities.  I also thought about women who had had something like this done to them and then allowed the same to happen to their daughters.  This is how deep social conditioning goes.  This also made me think about a series of body modifications that we endorse in this part of the world.  For one, we circumcise our boys and many people consider it strange or unsanitary not to do so.  I understand that this is a different scenario and done in a hospital under sterile conditions and presumably while a baby is too young to remember, but it is still the alteration of one’s sexual organs.  I have read that it reduces sensation later and there are groups that advocate that it is the same as FGM.  Why are we shaming one practice and embracing another?  Second, I feel that plastic surgery and the ideal construction of the human body should be considered here.  We voluntarily cut and shape our bodies, including our genitals, to fit an ideal. There is no increase in function or any reason to do these things other than aesthetics.  I wonder how much these surgeries can be attributed to societal pressures; I would guess that they largely could.  Why are certain types of modifications more socially accepted?  (Especially those that conform to patriarchal standards…)