Friday, April 12, 2013

Putting On at the Western Wall but Not Taking Off



If the Women of the Wall consider, instead of putting on things, like tallitot or phylacteries, taking off things, as they dance





I think they should review this opinion first:



The writer thinks the FEMEN method is claimed to be


 "transforming female sexual subordination into aggression, and thereby starting the real war" by "bare breasts alone". Using your naked body can be a legitimate form of a protest of last resort – there is a long history of using naked protest and the threat of it outside Europe.


However


…the way it has been used by Femen feeds into and reinforces a racist and orientalist discourse about the women and men of north Africa and the Middle East…We know this is not true. Black women (and I'm using black as a political term to denote shared and continued experiences of racism and colonisation) are not all (and only) oppressed and black men are not all oppressors…women's rights that is increasingly being framed, perpetuated and accepted by male elites as rooted in "the west" and imposed on other countries in a form of cultural imperialism. Unfortunately, statements from white French women saying things like "better naked than the burqa" feed this narrative and are more likely to damage rather than support the struggles of the women they call their sisters.

…As I have argued elsewhere, a more holistic and nuanced approach would consider how patriarchy combines with racism, neo-colonialism and global capitalism to create a fundamentally unjust world…


And this should be carefully reviewed:


The role of feminists from outside should be to support the work of the women in the communities concerned, not add to the problem. International feminist solidarity is crucial but this is not the way to do it. A true ally does not use racism to attempt to defeat patriarchy.




Do you think they'll call me now a patriarchal racist and colonialist?

^

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In scandinavia people think jews have a very strange face, especially the nose is very bad-looking,kinda scythe-like they say, . They call it " Ful nasa". the word "ful" is pronounced like the english word "fuel". i kind of feel sorry for them, but maybe its the testosterone.. i´ve heard it increases the tissues inside the nose, especially bone mass.
It´s intresting to note that the hebrew work "nasa" can mean both "to marry" and "to lift" and "to desire" among many other verbs..