'Right-wing' feminism?

[user1498662042]

Thought this raises some interesting questions. As a liberal, Cohen ties himself in knots trying to distance himself from this woman and all that she stands for. Obviously, feminists should speak out against misogynistic elements of Islamic culture (or any religious belief system); but is there a line where the liberal crosses over into being another kind of bigot? Can you be on the right (as in be an anti-immigrant nationalist who believes that Islam is incompatible with secular liberalism) and still be a feminist?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/29/bigot-who-would-lead-ukip-is-a-product-of-our-times

Can you be on the right (as in be an anti-immigrant nationalist who believes that Islam is incompatible with secular liberalism) and still be a feminist?

Yes. It does not usually happen (most nationalists also think women should be forced to have babies for the fatherland) but considering that feminism, per definition, is about liberating women from patriarchy, and not about being a generally nice person (liberal feminists tend to be a bit confused about that) I'd say it is possible.

Though I suppose sooner or later such a person would have to decide what is more important to them.

Liberating women while working inside some small country instead of networking internationally is not really possible - a liberated society surrounded by patriarchies would soon be invaded by those patriarchies, as they have more military and more population, period.

But I do think a woman can be unaware of that latter fact and truly mean to liberate women while holding nationalist views.

A woman can also be a feminist and feel that anti-immigrant nationalists are the only ones who take her concerns about women's safety seriously.

As for believing that Islam is incompatible with a secular society, there's actually women with Islamic backgrounds who hold that view, and not for lack of information, I'd imagine.

As for the woman described in the article, it seems she's just desperate and feels she has to prioritize the fight against immigration even over feminist struggles.

I think she's wrong to do so, but I can see where she's coming from.

There's just no large group that is unconditionally pro-women, and sides with women, always.

You have the choice between right-wing, where you have to deal with all the oppressions you are currently subject to, but can hope for no more to be introduced. Or left-wing, where you can hope to have some oppressions removed, but also a high risk of being oppressed in new and inventive ways. (Men in women's spaces; Muslim men being misogynist in different ways, etc.)

Either you join neither side (then you are on your own and that feels shit and is dangerous and unsuccessful) or you choose the lesser evil.

I suppose as a lesbian, unwanted pregnancy is not such a risk for her, and since the anti-choice agenda is the worst thing right wing want to do to women in the near future, it makes sense she chooses that.

I think there is a great deal in most religions which is incompatible with secular liberalism. For example I strongly oppose the idea I have to respect some one else's religion- no I don't. I respect the rule of law which permits someone to practice their religion within the confines of the secular law of the land.

The Labour party should hang its head in shame at allowing segregated political meetings.

Either you join neither side (then you are on your own and that feels shit and is dangerous and unsuccessful) or you choose the lesser evil.

(Exhales) Well, there's the lesser evil and there's...hanging out with Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen.

Lass, I agree with you to some extent. There is no place, for example, for Sharia law or Madrassa in the UK (indeed I don't think there is a place for faith schools of any religion, or the politics of the DUP); but that is quite different from what people like Waters are saying. She doesn't like Muslims, period, in all their diversity - presumably including Muslim feminists (and Islamic feminism is very much a global thing now). People like her are mono-culturalists who, unable to tolerate the diversity and complexity of the human world as it is, retreat into warped narratives that promise extreme solutions to problems that cannot be solved in such a way.

Growing up in NI, I have a instinctive suspicion (disgust even) of all nationalist ideologues.

"Can you be on the right (as in be an anti-immigrant nationalist who believes that Islam is incompatible with secular liberalism) "
Yes, I think so.
I am of the right in relation to personal freedom, small state, low tax, personal responsibility etc but liberal in relation to immigration, equality so I am not really of the right in the sense the thread means.

I get the point however - if you think letting in 1m uneducated male Muslim Africans who have been brought up to think women obey men then you might well find instead of them converting to our wonderful feminist values we import and impose their values on us instead. hence why it is dangerous to allow very large numbers in even if we had the schools and houses for them.

Lucysky, I guess, if you don't mind me saying, you're a neoliberal - you believe in capitalist ethics of free markets and individualized economic rights etc. Ironically, that was the ideology that led to higher levels of immigration. If globbal markets are free then there has to be free movement of labour. However, whatever you think of immigration we are now at the point when there is nothing that can be done about it. We are living in a multicultural, hyper-connected world whether we like it or not. There is no going back. Attempts to breath new life into the waning nation state by people like Trump are hopeless.

As the climate changes and much of the Middle East comes to consist of permanently war torn failed states, northern migration into Europe will increase. However, Islam and western culture (whatever that is now) will mix and there will be integration, however long that taxes. Islamic culture is not homogenous but vast and diverse, and it is learning from us. There are already feminist and more liberal strains of Islam in development. Equally, we will absorb elements of their culture. In 200 years time I doubt there will be distinct European and Muslim cultures, but a miscegenation.

There is no such thing as a stable monoculture and migration has always been a fact of life. Vikings, Normans, Visigoths etc all moved and brought their culture to another culture.

What makes Anne Marie Waters a feminist other than her claim to be one?

www.annemariewaters.org/feminism-is-the-new-misogyny-the-feminist-betrayal-of-women/

www.annemariewaters.org/a-message-to-left-wing-feminists/

TL;DR (paraphrasing) Women in the West got equality and its the Other men that are doing all the violence.

Never trust the Right, never forget they will use propaganda and any other technique to hook you. And never forget the direction they try to take us in is identical to the one they profess to hate.

As the climate changes and much of the Middle East comes to consist of permanently war torn failed states, northern migration into Europe will increase

You are conflating separate issues but why is the solution to war torn failed states mass immigration to secular, liberal northern Europe?

However, Islam and western culture (whatever that is now) will mix and there will be integration

Really? I can't think of elements of many Muslim countries that I would want to embrace beyond cuisine.

Islamic culture is not homogenous but vast and diverse Agreed but there is on the whole an acceptance of the domination of religion in all aspects of life which does not apply in Western Europe.

and it is learning from us. There are already feminist and more liberal strains of Islam in development Are there? I don't know.

Equally, we will absorb elements of their culture I am not convinced that is unquestionably a good thing.

What makes Anne Marie Waters a feminist other than her claim to be one?

What makes anyone a feminist other than their claim to be one? Feminism is a VERY broad church now. Politically, it can be found right across the ideological spectrum. There are left-wing feminists (those who hold female equality has to be allied with class struggle and can only be achieved with the help of the state), liberal right-wing feminists (those who believe in empowering women to compete on an equal basis with men in competitive capitalist economies), illiberal right-wing feminists (people like Anne Marie Waters who believe feminism is dependent on upholding the supremacy of 'Western values') and so on. Then there are further subdivisions of radical feminists, 'sex positive' feminists, intersectional feminists etc etc.

From the second of the Anne Marie Waters' articles.

I have no intention of launching an attack on Laurie Penny for her New Statesman article. What good would it do?

She may not want to but I have certainly seen posters on FWR criticising Penny. Strange bedfellows and all that.

illiberal right-wing feminists (people like Anne Marie Waters who believe feminism is dependent on upholding the supremacy of 'Western values'

I'm rather keen on Western values. You talk about Cohen tying himself up in knots but you are doing the same yourself.

You are conflating separate issues but why is the solution to war torn failed states mass immigration to secular, liberal northern Europe?

It's not a question of whether it is a solution, it is just going to happen whether anyone likes it or not. Climate change will result in mass northern migration - from Africa and the ME as well as much of Mediterranean Europe as it becomes desert.

Really? I can't think of elements of many Muslim countries that I would want to embrace beyond cuisine.

It's got nothing to do with what you want. I mean over centuries there will be integration - just as during the centuries following the Norman invasion there was a cultural miscegenation.

I am not convinced that is unquestionably a good thing.

That's beside the point. It will happen and no one can stop it. You can't go back to a world of discrete nation states with distinct cultures. The European nation state is just a historical construct that has only existed since the Treaty of Westphalia, some 350 years ago. Now it is waning. It cannot survive in a globalised, networked world.

I'm rather keen on Western values. You talk about Cohen tying himself up in knots but you are doing the same yourself.

I'm keen on some of them myself, but not others. What do you mean by 'Western Values'?

I'm not that concerned whether borders survive. I would be deeply concerned at the idea that western , secular , liberal values are swept aside.

I'm not sure what your point is. You seem to be tying yourself up in just as many knots as Cohen was. To be clear - I do think a western, liberal secular democracy is the best form of government.

By the way, if by Western values you mean capitalism, then I suggest you take a look at some of the burgeoning capitalist economies like India, China and South Korea: market economies with illiberal, nationalist governments. You cannot equate capitalism with liberalism anymore.

Capitalist economies in the future are likely to be highly stratified and illiberal. I predict the marketisation of human genes, with bio-genetics used to reproduce a physically 'superior' elite while a sub species eek out an existence in their service. Capitalism is perfectly compatible with eugenics.

Unlike Cohen, I'm not a liberal - I'm not anything.

I'm just observing.

I'm keen on some of them myself, but not others. What do you mean by 'Western Values'?

Well you are the one who seems to have an issue with the concept - don't you know ?

Democracy meaning 1 person - 1 vote
The opportunity to vote out a government at regular intervals
Free education for both sees
Equality of opportunity for both sees
Capitalism with a conscience
The rule of law and independent judiciary.
No imposed religion
Religion playing ideally none, or at best a limited role in forming policy
The state and the criminal law taking no part in what genuinely consenting adults (ie not prostitution) do with their genitals in private.

Democracies do have value, but they have given rise to dictatorships. Look at Brexit and Trump? Look at Hitler and Milosevic? Were they consistent with 'liberal values'? There is no reason why democracy could not give rise to a demagogic monster in the future.

'Capitalism with a conscience' may have existed in the post-war mixed economy when it was offset with unionised workforces and nationalised industries, but not anymore. Capitalism in such a crisis it can barely be said to exist on its own terms. Capitalism is best defined as a relationship between producer, labourer and consumer in which the producer has the most substantial claim to the profit arising from that relationship: but what do financial speculation, property investment and big data produce? Nothing but dividends for elite rentiers. Capitalism has plundered the earth for resources, and now they've diminished and manufacturing has been past over to the Far East for a fraction of the cost, it has started marketise anything it can - data, knowledge, attention, people. Pornography, prostitution and international sex trafficking are not aberrations of capitalism, but it's key 21st century operations in the digital market place. Why would capitalism let conscience get in the way of the only means to its very survival? Capitalism has no conscience; it simply could not function in the face of objective social ethics.

i do agree with you about an independent judiciary and so many other things, and that we should hold onto these things; but at the same time we have to accept the world is going to change and there will be a change. History is change.

Capitalism is now in its' death throes. The answer is not state socialism, which was disastrous. I don't know what it is. But the reason that Islam commands such power in the modern world is that, in spite of all that is wrong with it, it is a grand, culturally rich thing. What do we really believe in in late capitalist cultures? Shopping? Sex? Food? Drugs? Therapy? Decadent. Dead.

All our belief systems, secular and otherwise, have failed. We no longer believe in Christianity. We no longer believe in communism. We no longer, deep down, believe in capitalism. But Muslims do believe in something grand - something with very worrying elements but also something of enormous beauty and power.

It's ridiculous to suggest that without Christianity Western civilisation is lacking cultural power and beauty.

I'm not going to rank it in terms of other cultures, because I'm not immersed in other cultures enough to do such a thing, but you could go a whole lifetime just in Western culture and never run out of beautiful, powerful and enriching experiences to discover.

Sylvia, there is no such thing as a Western culture. I was not just referring to Christianity but any belief system.

But the reason that Islam commands such power in the modern world is that, in spite of all that is wrong with it, it is a grand, culturally rich thing. What do we really believe in in late capitalist cultures? Shopping? Sex? Food? Drugs? Therapy? Decadent. Dead.

Sorry, what?

Have you lived in any muslim countries? Have you seen what ISIS propose for their islamic state? You seem to have a very weird view both of where islam is headed, and where it currently is around the world.

I'm not saying all manifestations of Islamic culture are good. I thought I made that quite plain. I'm not even saying that Islamic culture in any form is good as such; I'm saying that western liberal capitalism is defunct; and because we cannot think of anything to replace it with, Islam has a power over us. That is all. I'm just describing what is happening.

You mention ISIS. ISIS are actually a strange mix of religious fundamentalism and western consumer culture. They are internet savvy young people who run their global death cult like a decentralised business. They post selfies on Facebook alongside videos of their atrocities. ISIS are very modern in some ways. Without the internet, they would be nothing.

But the reason that Islam commands such power in the modern world is that, in spite of all that is wrong with it, it is a grand, culturally rich thing. What do we really believe in in late capitalist cultures? Shopping? Sex? Food? Drugs? Therapy? Decadent. Dead

Nonsense

Although user the influence of invaders is not always as persistent as people think. The Romans came and then left. We then reverted adn had "dark ages" and genetic tests show their influence was not huge (although African genes up near Hadrian's Wall where I am from from the black soldiers up there then but not a large amount). Ditto the Normans - yes we get a few place names and there was some inter breeding but on the whole the influence was relatively small despite in both those cases the UK being conquered.

Yes, I am happy to be called a neo-liberal and I have never been particularly anti-immigration and I would like world free trade etc However there should be some controls and I don't agree that because we have the internet that means we are one world. I think it's rather nice our better values can rub off on others and perhaps let Saudi women see how much better life is for our women here than there because they can see it on the internet, but it does not necessarily mean everyone has to live int he UK without restriction (thank God of the fact we are an island of course as we don't have the Italian and Greek problem).

Western liberal capitalism reigns supreme and there is life in the old dog yet. It is in fact normal human values in my view which is why it endures and spreads.