Responding to Orientalist Feminism

2003

In the wake of September 11 th the subject of Afghan women and their systematic abuse by the Taliban regime drew the attention of major news networks' anchors. This was not the first time that Americans heard of the plight of women in an Afghanistan ruled by religious extremists. When they took over power in 1996, the Taliban were indicted by world opinion for their suppression of human, and especially women's, rights. Images of women huddling in refugee camps or sliding along walls enveloped in the burqa 1 provided the evidence, both then and now.

Chi.-Kent J. Int'l & Comp. L., 2009

The contemporary threat of international terrorism has prompted states and scholars to reassess the public/private divide as it manifests in international law with particular regard to the principles of state responsibility. Much of the counter-terrorism debate reflects the feminist literature on international law published over the last two decades. This paper exposes striking similarities between the counter-terrorism arguments and those of feminist scholars. In both cases, the classical dichotomy between public and private spheres is challenged and states are called to be accountable for the unlawful conduct of non-state actors. Nonetheless, the public/private dichotomy remains at the heart of counter-terrorism strategies as well as the broader regimes of international law. Examples discussed in the conclusion include the nonrecognition of "enemy combatants" as state organs or agents; privatization of military and nonmilitary operations during the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq; the privatization of gender discrimination in state (re-)building; and reinforcement of gender stereotypes and women's private roles in the "War on Terror." While the proponents of counter-terrorism leverage arguments against the public-private dichotomy in their favor, the similarities between the two positions end where the anti-terrorist position ultimately returns to the dichotomy and reinforces it in order to uphold state interests, effectively turning its back on women's rights.

This essay aims to provide some reflections on feminist theory and practice in a post September 11th environment. Specifically, it aims to address whether some dominant and popular strands of "global feminism" are able to analyze and offer alternatives to an understanding of global relations between women specifically, and First World/Third World relations in general, in the aftermath of September 11th. Feminist reflections on this question are needed not only because of the enormity of events and developments that beg a feminist perspective, among others, to respond thoughtfully and sensibly to what is going on. Feminist reflections are also needed, specifically, as the war waged in Afghanistan is being presented as a humanitarian war which is about saving women. While there is some diversity among feminist responses to the US political response to September 11th there is as yet little challenge to this image of the war.

Hawwa, 2003

An ironic ramification of the tragedy of September 11 and the subsequent demise of the Taliban government in Afghanistan seems to be an unprecedented rise in the international prominence of issues concerning the rights and status of women in the Islamic world. This increased international attention to women's quest for equal civil and human rights and a better appreciation of women's agency in the modernization and democratization of the Islamic world can be a welcome development. The significance of this potentially positive turn is better appreciated when we bear in mind that if it were not for the outrage and protest widely expressed by international feminist groups, especially Afghan women activists and American feminists, the US government, prompted by some oil companies, would probably have recognized the Taliban government. Perhaps it would have taken no less than the September 11 wake up call for many officials to speak out against the blatant violations of women&#39...

Can militarisation and securitisation really be reconciled with feminism? Here, I argue that since 9/11, feminism, or particular strands of feminism that are dominant in the West, have been increasingly instrumentalised by the US and UK governments and NATO to justify continuing military and political intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Arab World, to normalise violence against Muslim men that is illegal under international law and to even increase the “effectiveness” of counterinsurgency measures in these countries.

U.S. Foreign Policy and Muslim Women's Human Rights, 2018

2002

This essay aims to provide some reflections on feminist theory and practice in a post September 11th environment. Specifically, it aims to address whether some dominant and popular strands of "global feminism" are able to analyze and offer alternatives to an understanding of global relations between women specifically, and First World/Third World relations in general, in the aftermath of September 11th. Feminist reflections on this question are needed not only because of the enormity of events and developments that beg a feminist perspective, among others, to respond thoughtfully and sensibly to what is going on. Feminist reflections are also needed, specifically, as the war waged in Afghanistan is being presented as a humanitarian war which is about saving women. While there is some diversity among feminist responses to the US political response to September 11th there is as yet little challenge to this image of the war. The fact that the Taliban regime which the war in A...

Third World Quarterly, 2012

This article asks, ‗How are femininities constructed in resisting the ‗war on terror' and with what implications for women's agency and the conceptualisation of gender?' It examines the under-studied gender logics of non-violent resistance to the ‗war on terror' by focusing on a series of conferences held in Cairo, between 2002 and 2008, uniting opposition to imperialism, Zionism, neoliberalism and dictatorship. Whereas much feminist scholarship conceptualises sex-gender difference within patriarchy as the major source of women's subordination, women speakers at the Cairo conferences erased patriarchy as a source of subordination and valorised sex-gender difference as a source of agency in resisting the ‗war on terror'. Femininities were constructed against the dominant narratives and practices of the ‗war on terror' through the representation of national/religious or class differences. These ‗resistance femininities' represent strategically essentialised identities that function to bridge differences and mobilise women in resistance to the ‗war on terror'.