Saturday, November 19, 2011

I disagree with my feminist comrades

I disagree with Sara and other other feminist comrades at Nasawiyya who I so admire and support.  It seems to me that there are so many other issues that women have to worry about in our region (and beyond) to be distracted by this sensational act by one person.  If the issue is about sexual liberation and challenging the taboos of religion and state, I am all for it.  But this is too shallow an act (and may even echo too many other Western shallow acts) to be taken seriously as a feminist act.  Yes, of course, we need to denounce the various reactionary and right-wing voices of condemnation.  But the pictures were also circulated for cheap titillation, which I guess is fine if people want to do that.  But the feminist movement has other more important priorities to be reduced (or caricatured) by the exhibitionism of one woman (or man).  Comrade Khodor (a progressive Lebanese) wrote a letter to `Alya'.  I keep wanting to avoid this issue which is filling the pages in Arabic and English but I feel it keeps following me.  There are so many other important issues.  I am more worried about the status of Tunisian women after the victory of An-Nahdar:  and about Western endorsement of misogynistic regime in the GCC countries. These are more serious threats to women and their freedoms, it seems to me.