Maajid Nawaz LBC- feminists are abandoning ethnic minority women and their causes for first world problems

[crystalgall]

Anyone listening?

He cites a story about a 17tr old black Muslim girl who was forced into an apology by Muslim fundentalist men online for being filmed dancing in the streets (twerking) while wearing a hijab.

He suggests that no feminist outlet commented on the story and that in general feminists are focusing on first world issues (he mentions the transgender issue and then Emma Watsons boobs and the academic who made a joke and was then fired? I don't know that story) and not engaging in supporting ethnic minority women in this country enough.

[DickToPhone]

"The clip I posted had him only calling out feminists for failing. It is because of feminism that this woman can dance without condemnation in the streeets of the UK. "

Uh, but she can't though. She danced and she was condemned and slut shamed and her life threatened.

Isn't that really more the point here, rather than hypothetical post-feminist utopia where women, even those from backgrounds that feminism has passed by, are fully liberated. Because clearly that's not the case. Whereas non-Muslim women in Britain are vastly freer than British women 100 years ago, the same cannot be said of Muslim women in Britain at all.

So boasting about feminism's victories is not so much missing the point but actively wrong. The battle has not been won for these women at all! And he's arguing (and he, even as a man, may well be better qualified to comment on this point than non-Muslim women) that it's not even being waged.

[Bundesliga]

Yes I am aware that the battle hasn't been won for these women, nor has it been won for white women. Slut shaming is alive and well in the UK.

I wasn't "boasting"

I'm glad to hear that he calaled out the men who perpetrated this misogyny. That's great and that's where the responsibility lies. With men.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Further googling shows the story was reported in the period between 4th to 8th March in The Daily Mail, The Daily Record, The Daily Express, The Sun, The Star and The Metro, the Australian Daily Telegraph along with many other online sites.

It was not covered by the Guardian, The Independent or the Huffington Post either as news or an opinion piece by any of the raft of feminist writers who write for them.

[MaryTheCanary]

"I doubt that he was really outraged by this, otherwise he would be too busy telling Muslim men why they were wrong to have any time to criticise feminism."

He actually spends a lot of his time criticizing Fundie men for their sexist attitudes...including in this case.

I do think he should have said "some feminists" or "some feminist groups" or whatever. Feminism is a broad church, and some feminists like Namazie have been very assertive on this issue for a long time. The silence from other groups has been deafening at times.

[Lessthanaballpark]

It is a common accusation amongst the Alt Right that western feminists spend all their time complaining about trivial western women's problems such as "rape culture" whilst remaining silent on the "real rape culture" of Muslim countries and cultures.

During the Munich and Cologne sexual assaults at the beginning of last year Douglas Murray got a lot of support for blaming feminists for not responding adequately to this event, completely fucking oblivious to the fact that feminists on MN were participating in possibly the largest thread in MN history on the event and the lack of media coverage whilst also raising a petition for it to be discussed in parliament.

The Alt Right also never take into account the kind of backlash feminists get for criticising other cultures, accusations of white feminist colonialism, racism etc, and if you remember those threads there was a fair bit of that which consistently derailed the discussion.

Because no one in the Alt Right can miss out on an opportunity to blame feminism for something else can they?

[MaryTheCanary]

completely fucking oblivious to the fact that feminists on MN were participating in possibly the largest thread in MN history on the event and the lack of media coverage whilst also raising a petition for it to be discussed in parliament.

Sure, but MN was quite unusual in that respect, and MN is not a "feminist" site per se, it is a discussion site which happens to have a fairly strong feminist presence. The feminism-related fora here are also pretty usual because they are tilted towards radical feminism, rather than "choice feminism." In any case, I think the thread you mention was in News or AIBU.

Among self-defined feminist sites, pages etc (the great majority of which are tilted towards lib feminism, choice feminism and so on), I really did not see much discussion, sorry.

[Bundesliga]

And he's arguing (and he, even as a man, may well be better qualified to comment on this point than non-Muslim women) that it's not even being waged.

Who "should" be waging what war? I don't understand? If it's against slut shaming in the Muslim community then I'd think Muslim women are best places to comment. Has he been slut shamed?

[DJBaggySmalls]

Lessthanaballpark
It is a common accusation amongst the Alt Right that western feminists spend all their time complaining about trivial western women's problems such as "rape culture" whilst remaining silent on the "real rape culture" of Muslim countries and cultures.

This. Its women shaming.
Meanwhile women in the USA are losing abortion rights, and women in the UK are fighting to keep predators out of women only spaces. 2 women have been thrown out of a homeless shelter for not wanting to share a room with a penis.

These are not fucking trivial 'first world problems'.

If Maajid Nawaz wanted to do something he could have called this to the attention of feminists and asked them to support the girl, but he didnt.

[Bundesliga]

As to the silence, this has been repeated several times in several ways:

It wasn't well reported.

Any criticism of abusive Muslim men will automatically be 'called out' as

a) racist
b) anti-Islamic

Intersectional Feminism plus unwillingness to offend have combined to silence any dissent.

[Bundesliga]

This man has had his life threatened numerous times for having the courage to stand up to misogyny in Muslim communities. A badge of honour he should be proud of in my opinion

and you Have no idea what sacrifices have been made by women or threats received even against women here on this thread.

Women face death and rape threats all the time here in the UK for daring to take their rightful place in society.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

It wasn't well reported

It was reported in every UK tabloid, the ones I listed and the Mirror.

[IAmAmy]

I can think of countless horrific cases of VAWG on which I've seen no "feminist blogger" comment, rapes and murders included. Does this mean feminists don't care about them? It's ridiculous to criticise "feminists" as if they're one entity for apparently not commenting on one case.