After Iraq and Afghanistan, Muslim Feminists Leery of Seeming Close to the West

In this video, four years after the start of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Everywoman program of Al Jazeera TV explores the issues facing women in Iraq today.

By Katha Pollitt, in United States magazine The Nation:

US invasions have made the work of Muslim feminists much more difficult. The last thing they need is for women’s rights to be branded as the tool of the invaders and occupiers and cultural imperialists. …

That selfish Western feminists have abandoned Muslim women has become a truism on the [United States] right. Well, with Iraq a shambles and Afghanistan on its way to becoming a Taliban-friendly narco-state, these can’t be happy days for the proponents of gunpoint liberation. You can see how it would go in the offices of The Weekly Standard: Hmmm… maybe invading countries and killing a lot of innocent people isn’t the way to get women out of those burqas?

Since the invasions by Bush, not only general situations, but also the specific situations of women in Iraq and Afghanistan have, of course, become much worse.

Feminist books: here.