Traps within feminism activism
Many of my friends asked me to reflect on Mona el Tahaway
article “Why do they hate us",http://bit.ly/IfDGf5 ,published in the Foreign Affairs, which have
starred lots of public debate this week. Mona’s article was published in a time
where, I have been in a process of critique to the different visions and
approaches different feminists groups adopted since the revolution of the 25th
of January. I argue that there are four main traps most of the feminists groups
felled in as follows:
Gender vs. sex
One of the most dangerous traps opinion maker’s fell in
when trying to promote women's issues is generalization. Assuming that all
women have the same needs and consequently will act and follow the same
approaches in life. This is one main reasons for why some of feminist
approaches fail to relate to daily women's aspirations, challenges, and
sufferings.
For many years, feminist schools did not tackle
“masculinities” within feminist theory because of the assumption that feminism
is only about women and not about deconstructing gender power and relationships.
Considering "patriarchal" concepts as the main obstacle of achieving
freedom, dignity and happiness for women without understanding their contexts
and realities in their societies.
Love/hate relationship
The love/hate relationship is another trap within
approaching women/men relationships. Promoters of this argument are trapped in
taking the private to the public, falling into the dichotomy of do they love us
or do they hate us?
Taking the Love/hate question from the private to the
public ignores other crucial factors affecting women's status in their
societies, such as race, socioeconomics, accessibility to resources, and
visibility. These factors are important in determining the nature of relationship
between women and Men in the public sphere. The power relationships have no
place in the love\hate relationship analysis. Love/hate relationships are for
personal relationships and generalization for it for all gender.
Who represents women?
Feminists fell in is their attempt to use personal stories
to support their argument. The challenge in this approach that the recipients
does not particularly and shall not relate to these stories the same way as the
feminists wants. Where others can also bring collective stories and claim that
this also represents women’s utopian life they desire, this clearly happens
when middle class women in Egypt tries to enforce their aspirations and visions
as representative of all women.
People have the right to relate to their own personal
experience and live in dignity. Our lessons learnt are that no one is
representative to all Egyptian women.
Militarization of the
state vs. Islamization of the state?
The last trap that feminists fell in since the revolution
was answering the question: Who is our main enemy “Militarization of the state”
or “islamization of the state”?
This dichotomy has been monopolizing feminist’s discourse
and approaches. Promoters of that Militarization of the state believed that
Islamization is the first enemy, while militarization could act as a protector
of the civil state and women’s rights.
I would argue that
for feminists to promote their believes they have to believe in a third road.
For me as a feminist activist, referring to the so called "Islamic laws
" and using them to scare the public does not particularly help feminism.
But rather deprived them more from the street.
Once the so called “Islamic Law” is codified as law. For us as
feminist activists we have the tools to change these laws and it is different
than having a military rule, trying to engendering women roles and closing the door for their
existence in the public space as citizens aspiring freedom and dignity.
I would like to end my intervention by reminding all
feminists women have the multiple identities and are multilayered. And for
activists to succeed in changing their societies to the netter they have to
relate to the women aspirations and needs. And agai I want to remind all of us
that feminism is about choice!
posted by mozn @ 6:19 AM
16 Comments:
ThaaaankS :)
Thanks :)
ما هى مطاااااااااااااااالبك ؟؟
..؟؟
شو بتريد انت
.. ??
الجديد .. الجديد .. الموضوعات الجديد فين ؟؟
الله يوفقكم..ع المجهود...:)
الله معكم .. اتمنى عرض الجديد بأستمرار
Allah grant you success ... Where new themes ?!
تحياتى لكم .. فين الموضوعات الجديدة
شكراً على المجهود .. دمتم بود
دوماً موفقين ... وبأنتظار الجديد ..
دومااا موفقين لكل ما هو قيم
Vielen Dank .. Und ich hoffe, Sie Mved Entwicklung und Schreiben von verschiedenen Themen :)
ممتاز ... ممتاز .. ممتاز جدااً
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