In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: December 2006

The Lost Jihad: Love in Islam

Ali sends this article along, and I’d highly recommend it. A taste:

“At the heart of all things is the germ of their overthrow,” wrote Egyptian author Adhaf Soueif in her Booker-nominated novel The Map of Love. She was indulging in a very beautifully written digression about Arabic grammar, comparing words derived from the same root: in this case, qalb, ‘heart’; and enqilab, ‘overthrow’. At this level, where the interplay of meaning and construction is visible, Arabic becomes an extraordinary language, forcing into cooperation concepts and ideas that are entirely unrelated in English. Despite the tremendous conceptual range and utility provided by the root-and-pattern system of the Arabic language, I have always been disappointed by what I believed to be the absence of an equivalent for a word I particularly admire: agape, a Greek term used by Christians to mean the boundary-less, self-sacrificing love between believers, or between a believer and God. More ardent than filia, less explicit than eros, agape is love stripped of expectation, in which the lover is humbled and disciplined before the beloved.

There are many words for ‘love’ in Arabic: hob, the catch-all, is equivalent to the English ‘love’, which can be turned toward spouses, parents, children, favorite foods and books, favorite places. The rest, however, are implicitly romantic: ‘aishq, the union of lover and beloved; hayam, love that causes one to wander in distraction; gharam, love so intense it causes pain. The list goes on. But love that originates in spiritual bliss, in the restraint and desire to serve that it inspires; there seemed no word for it in Arabic, and without a word for it in Arabic, there seemed no place for it in Islam. Running a Google search for ‘agape’ and ‘Islam’ yields literally hundreds of Christian sites claiming as much, and painting Islam as a cold, dispassionate religion in its absence.

Read the whole thing.

Things Left Unsaid

(So I’ve been batting this idea around for a while now with various people, but not in any particularly constructive way, because I suck hardcore at organizing or completing anything. I’ve had a really hard time getting some sort of coherent thesis together, even in my head. But it’s threatening to deconstruct itself right out of existence, so I’m just going to put up my call for submissions as is.)

I’ve noticed a lot of bitterness just under the surface–and sometimes boiling to the surface–of some recent blog thrashes. I’ve felt some of it, and lately slid down from discontented to malcontented. I have snipped at some people and shouted at one or two others. I think a more constructive response is in order.

So I’d like you all to come and help out with the first edition of Marginalia, the sidelong sideshow for ideas that don’t seem to fit quite within the usual three rings.

I am setting up this iteration as a response to inadvertent and not-so-inadvertent heterosexism in the feminist blogosphere. Anyone’s welcome to contribute, and I’m leaving the definition of heterosexism (and, heck, feminist blogosphere) individual, so as to cast as wide a net as possible. One problem, an infinite number of corrections. Write about your own experience. Write about what you’d do differently. Write about something that feels thorny, or petty, or weird. Write about something you have trouble even articulating, let alone reasoning through. Write about what heterosexism should mean. Write about how this carnival is unnecessary, counterproductive, or doomed.

The deadline is January 5, but you can probably talk me into accepting stuff a few days late, and I’m hosting it here.

Subsequent editions are meant to focus on other themes, which you’re more than welcome to nominate here.

What Women Want

Today I’m going to tell men a little secret about women.

Are you listening, men? Come a little closer…a little closer. Shhhhhh, we’ve got to keep our voices down so the feminists don’t hear….

You know that stuff you’ve been reading in the girly magazines that tell you that women like to be romanced with candlelit dinners before you gently (gently!) make love to them by first giving them hours of oral pleasure and then softly (oh so softly!) penetrating them while staring lovingly into their eyes…always making absolutely sure that they reach orgasm first?

Well, it’s all bunk.

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Torture

I’m a little late on this, but I wanted to mention yesterday’s New York Times piece on the detention of Jose Padilla in a Navy brig. Glenn Greenwald, LizardBreath, Digby and Prof. B all offer comprehensive takes on the article and the issues surrounding Padilla’s treatment.

As Glenn points out, the only reason we’re seeing the videotape of Padilla on a visit to the dentist being not just shackled, but put into sensory-deprivation goggles and earphones, is that the Supreme Court ordered the government to transfer Padilla — an American citizen — from military detention into the criminal system, which offers a measure of transparency and allows the defense to obtain evidence.

The Supremes also ordered the government to charge him or let him go. And when it came time to do that, the government’s story of dirty bombs and plots against America suddenly didn’t hold up.

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Posted in Law

Dear Dennis Prager, “America” and “Christianity” are not synonymous

This is special. The first Muslim elected into Congress is requesting to take his oath on the Quran instead of on the Bible. Which would make sense, given that a Muslim taking an oath on the Bible would be both (1) meaningless, and (2) counter to his religious beliefs. It’s not such a big deal to just switch the book, right? No skin off anyone’s nose. Except, apparently, the people who haven’t bothered to read the Constitution and think that America is a Christian theocracy.

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.

He should not be allowed to do so — not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.

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Supporting gender-variant children

There’s a good article in the Times this week about challenging gender stereotypes and allowing kids to just be who they are in school:

At the Park Day School in Oakland, teachers are taught a gender-neutral vocabulary and are urged to line up students by sneaker color rather than by gender. “We are careful not to create a situation where students are being boxed in,” said Tom Little, the school’s director. “We allow them to move back and forth until something feels right.”

Nothing wrong with that.

I’ve never understood the overwhelming need for adults to push children into narrow gender roles before the kids themselves even really understand what those roles mean. There’s nothing about a dress or nailpolish that requires a vagina; there’s nothing about Tonka trucks or cops & robbers that requires a penis. Kids aren’t born neurotic about their gender orientation. Many little boys play dress-up in women’s clothes, just like little girls. I hardly think that’s damaging. And I don’t see the point in trying to force a five-year-old into a restrictive identity that limits how he or she can enjoy him/herself.

From the article, it seems that many parents are more concerned about how their child will be treated by the outside world than about the fact that their child wants to dress in a gender-variant way. That’s certainly understandable. No one wants their child to be ostracized, and no parent wants to set their child up for (at best) teasing and (at worst) physical assault or even murder.

The answer, I hope, will come from shifting the social adherence to gender roles, not from forcing children to conform to things that are essentially constructed and relatively inauthentic in the first place (but certainly still “real” in practice). But the adults who defend pushing children into the social roles matching their biological sex do so on the grounds of “protecting” them — when it actually seems that what they’re protecting is their own discomfort.

But it’s coming along, and allowing children to have any more fluidity in their gender identity is unquestionably the right decision. It sure is a step forward from this:

Catherine Tuerk, a nurse-psychotherapist at the children’s hospital in Washington and the mother of a gender-variant child in the 1970s, says parents are still left to find their own way. She recalls how therapists urged her to steer her son into psychoanalysis and “hypermasculine activities” like karate. She said she and her husband became “gender cops.”

“It was always, ‘You’re not kicking the ball hard enough,’ ” she said.

Ms. Tuerk’s son, now 30, is gay and a father, and her own thinking has evolved since she was a young parent. “People are beginning to understand this seems to be something that happens,” she said. “But there was a whole lifetime of feeling we could never leave him alone.”

Thanks to Shannon for pointing this article out.

Time to cancel that Esquire subscription

Unless, of course, you subscribe to the view that “It’s time for ascended blacks to wish niggers good luck,” because “That which retards us is the worst of “us” … Them being niggers.”

See if you can stomach the rest of it. I’m sure Esquire’s white, wealthy, male target audience will really relate to what John Ridley has to say. Because after all, blaming gangsta rap and single mothers and welfare queens is so much fun.

Ridley also shows the appropriate sympathy for Michael Richards, who was goaded into calling a couple of out-of-control “n-words” what they actually are (“No, I’ll save my sympathy for some real victims. Not a couple of “N words” who walked into a comedy club.”).

Because, you know, hecklers deserve to be attacked for their race, not for their actions. And then we’ll pretend that their race doesn’t at all influence the perception of their actions. Over IM, the ever-brilliant Amanda adds, “The less right you have to talk in the eyes of the hierarchy, the louder you seem. Which is probably why black women are seen as the loudest people ever.”

Esquire article via Dave on the listserve for NYU’s Review of Law and Social Change.

Another issue for international godbags to bond over

Homosexuality.

The American religious right hates it, and would like to see gays and lesbians stripped (further) of their civil rights. They’ve used teh gay as a major campaign issue, with the GOP attempting to ride into office on the backs of people who desire nothing more than the right to marry the person they love. And while the religious right is also happy to scapegoat Muslims in their eternal quest for white Christian male American dominance, it’s always fun to see how much they actually have in common with Islamic fundamentalists.

There’s the anti-gay thing, obviously. Then there’s the theocratic “This is a Christan [or Islamic] nation” thing. And the “women and men have essentially different characters, and therefore men should hold dominant positions in the public sphere” thing. And the “women’s primary duty is reproduction” thing. And the “my religion is the only way to God” thing.

(To be clear: I’m talking about fundamentalists here. Not most Christians, not most Muslims, and not most religious people. Just the conservative, often very vocal ones).

To demonstrate just how closely their perspectives are, let’s play a little game: Which godbag said it? A Christian fundamentalist, or an Islamic one?

1. “Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.”

2. “[Homosexuals] want to come into [places of worship] and disrupt [religous services] and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of [religious leaders].”

3. “I am not against freedom of expression, but this abnormal phenomenon should not be presented as natural. Even if it has roots here, it is rejected by society. And by [my religion].”

4. “Someone must not be afriad to say, ‘moral perversion is wrong.’ If we do not act now, homosexuals will ‘own’ [our country]!…If you and I do not speak up now, this homosexual steamroller will leterally crush all decent men, women, and children who get in its way…and our nation will pay a terrible price!”

5. “homosexuals are included in a list of sinners, who, if unrepentant, will not [be rewarded by God].”

6. “[Homosexuality] is the opposite of love for God. It is a rebellion against God and God’s natural order, and embodies a deep-seated hatred against true religion.”

Answers:

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Wear your helmets, please

And, obviously, don’t get drunk and then run your car onto a bike path.

Sad news from NYU today: An alumnus, Eric Ng, was killed while riding his bike down a path near the Hudson River. An NYU junior was also hit by a car while biking last week.

Biking is great for your health, and for the environment. But I would like to see drivers being a little bit more vigilant when it comes to watching out for bikers; and I’d like to see bikers being responsible and wearing their helmets, even if it’s not required by law. To be clear, helmets aren’t going to protect you from drunk drivers veering their cars onto bike paths. They aren’t going to protect you from bodily injuries. Eric certainly didn’t do anything wrong here; a helmet probably wouldn’t have helped, and the only person to blame is the driver. And as Kate says in the comments, the issue of whether or not Eric was wearing a helmet or had his lights on is “completely irrelevant when the guy who killed him was either so drunk he mistook the bike path for the West Side Highway (!) or so entitled it didnt occur to him that the path was perhaps being used for its intended purpose rather than reserved for him to make shortcut or do a little joyriding.” Even drivers who aren’t drunk and who stay on the roads are too often dismissive of, or even aggressive towards, people on bicycles. The people getting around in big, heavy, fast pieces of metal have much more of a burden on them to drive responsibly than the people on unprotected, slower, small pieces of metal, primarily because they can do much more damage.

And it should go without saying that bike paths should be safe spaces for bikers, and they shouldn’t have to worry about drunken idiots hitting them. The whole thing is incredibly sad.

Eric will certainly be missed.

*This post has been updated to better reflect my thoughts, and move away from what initially sounded (unintentionally) like victim-blaming.