Chesler: I agree with both Tricia and Eleanor that institutionalized feminism (which includes freestanding and grassroots organizations, the media, and the academy) has been influenced and perhaps even hijacked  by hard left thinking which, by definition, idealizes internationalism but romanticizes all tribal and ethnic identities as anti-colonialist liberation movements save one: that of the Jews.  

Thus, dangerously reactionary regimes such as exist in the Islamic/Islamist world are, paradoxically, seen as forms of resistance, liberatory or otherwise. Zionism, which is the liberation movement of the Jewish people is seen as colonialist, and illegitimate. Also, feminists who believe that there is always a victim and therefore always a victimizer and that both America and Israel are illegitimate powers have, simplistically, without context or fact, decided that America and Israel are the victimizers (even in the matter of  9/11), and that Arafat and bin Laden and their gangs of masked mass murderers are the noble and innocent victims.

This way of thinking also allows a certain kind of feminist to remain allied to a rabidly anti-Semitic and not particularly feminist Left movement that nevertheless garners headlines and plans protests.  There is something else too. Just as many Europeans deeply resent having to acknowledge their own role as collaborators with Hitler, let me suggest that leftists, not just Left-feminists, may also resent being expected to acknowledge the extent to which their ideological predecessors collaborated with Stalin against his own people from afar and, separately, abandoned the Jews during the Holocaust. The attempts to rescue Europe’s six million Jews were actively opposed by so many—which David Wyman’s and Rafael Medoff’s important book, RACE AGAINST DEATH. PETER BERGSON, AMERICA, AND THE HOLOCAUST, makes so heartbreakingly clear. Perhaps, paradoxically, the failure of so-called humanitarians to rescue Europe’s Jews continues in this new form: active opposition to the Jewish state and glorification of Israel’s genocidal Islamist opponents.       

However, let me be clear: there is a difference between those feminists whose main activity consists of hating President Bush, idolizing Michael Moore and viewing Democratic contender John Kerry as the Messiah--and working professionals who happen to be feminists and who, in their capacity as legislators, scientists, doctors, lawyers, judges, ministers and rabbis, mental health professionals, volunteers, etc., are actively assisting the female victims of violence, discrimination, and poverty, and who are continuing to fight for abortion, against the trafficking of women and children, against honor killings and female genital mutilation under Islam, for health care, etc. Those who walk the walk and do the work have little time for foreign policy and demonstrations and are not necessarily invested in party politics.

Roth: Many leftists do criticize the freest societies for not living up to utopian standards, but many also bring to our attention legitimate concerns.  Just because Americans enjoy pretty much unparallel freedoms, doesn’t mean we should ignore our nation’s or the world’s ills.

I’d like to go back to feminists.  I don’t want to characterize them all as lunatics advocating contradictory causes.   I know wonderful feminists, radical and otherwise, who don’t adopt this knee-jerk, anti-Israel stance.

Unfortunately, it’s the larger progressive movement that’s adopted this anti-Israel position.  It’s a fairy-tale-like romanticizing of a whole peoples - - Arabs.  There’s even reticence to assign responsibility to the Sudanese Arabs who are butchering Sudanese Black Muslims.

This simplistic view of the world is a comforting one.  To see things in black & white terms, to categorize people as evildoers or saints - - I think it appeals to us on a deep level.  It’s an ongoing theme in our entertainment and our politics.  But to buy into this type of thinking (whether from the left or the right), is not engaging in a thoughtful analysis of our world.

And though many feminists have adopted a hateful position against Israel (and against Jews really) I still laud feminism, not for demanding unrealistic utopian ideals, but for insisting upon equality for women… and men too.  That is a noble cause. 

FP: Ms. Roth, in terms of the feminists who are anti-Semitic and romanticize Islam and the Arabs, do you think there is some kind of deeper pathological impulse, perhaps something close to a death wish or some kind of yearning to have one’s own being eliminated?

For instance, at one time we had Western leftist intellectuals who championed communist regimes where intellectuals were imprisoned or simply just executed. Many of these intellectuals clearly dreamed of being in a despotic society where their own role would be eliminated.

Many leftist feminists I know who argue for the burqa and make all kinds of excuses for it and other forms of oppression of women under Islam are usually not the joyful, cheerful and beautiful sort of women you meet in life, if you know what I mean. They are usually the kind of women who have defeminized themselves to a large degree and are very very angry.

These individuals are the ones who are usually all upset about the BET awards and the sexy dress that J. Lo or Toni Braxton wore, and they go on and on about how this is the objectification and dehumanization of women and the exploitation of the woman’s body etc.  And one key reality in this is that even the idea of these particular individuals wearing the dress that they are angry about is such an impossible – and often horrifying – notion that one doesn’t entertain it too long. And I think this truth and the radical feminist’s disposition to the dress itself, have a solid relationship.

These individuals, in turn, are in love with the idea of the burqa, and of putting women out of sound and sight, which large segments of the Islamic-Arab world does. They champion a society where the “objectification” of women’s bodies cannot occur. In other words, they promote a society where their own freedoms – and female identity – will also be extinguished and mutilated. My point is that they themselves have already started the process on themselves as well.

Do you think the leftist feminists’ promotion of militant Islam is, like Western intellectuals before them, just an extension of their impulse to have someone else finish the job off for them? And by the job, I mean, in some sense, the extinction of their own selves and female identity, since certain forms of self-hate are clearly at play here?

Roth: I disagree with your theory that these leftists feminists are self-annihilating, or have an urge for someone to kill off their own female identity.  I don’t see this as self-hatred at all.  No, I think their actions represent ignorance, a willingness to simplify the world, a yearning for heroes, a tolerance for anti-Semitism, and for some, a juvenile need to rebel. 

Also, women’s rights have always been marginalized by other progressives.  At a time when many leftist groups have come together around the war, this could represent an opportunity for feminists to be rid of their special-interest group status, earning respect as team player in the greater movement. 

It should also be noted that the 2 largest feminist organizations, NOW and the Feminist Majority, have steered clear of this fray.  They’ve maintained women’s rights as their priority, not taking positions on the Mid-East.

It’s unfortunate your experiences with leftist feminists have been with such hostile, uncaring representatives of an important movement.  But I think you’ve taken those experiences and made some sweeping generalizations.

Many leftist feminists do get upset that women are objectified.  Some refuse to partake in what they see is an unjust system -- a system that demands women spend inordinate amounts of time and money to make themselves appear as something they are not; a society that tells women their value is in direct proportion to their physical beauty and their sex appeal to men.  In that same vein, we continue to relay the message to men that their value is derived from how much they earn, not from who they are.

This doesn’t mean that they hate their sexuality or their female identity.  It means they refuse to be defined by stereotypical, oppressive, and unhealthy expectations placed on females.  And this is a very real problem which we see played out over and over.

Girls are dieting at younger ages; usually starting in elementary school.  Primarily in response to a message they receive earlier and earlier: that as girls, their looks are what define them and -- no matter that they’re still kids -- they are sexualized beings.

In their teen years, many girls self-esteem becomes inverted - no longer based on who they are, but now based on how they look. 

Grown women willingly go under the knife, sacrificing their own health, in order to meet unrealistic expectations what a woman should look like.  Not only does every surgery carry risks, but breast implants forever compromise the ability to diagnose breast cancer.

Still, most leftist feminists do partake in this system.  It’s very hard to exist in this world and do otherwise.  But those of us who do, are perpetuating a system that is ultimately, not healthy for women.

As to the burqa, there’s been a huge campaign against the Taliban, in which the burqa was used as a symbol to represent the oppression women in Afghanistan experienced.  This campaign was carried out by leftist feminists.

However, there’s also sensitivity to differing cultures and/or religions, and if that means that women willingly choose to wear a burqa, then that’s their choice.  Feminism as a whole is about increasing choices for women, and not having choices made for us.

Yet at the same time, most of us recognize the patriarchal nature of the burqa, in that women’s sexuality needs to be neutralized because men cannot control themselves.  This is an age-old sentiment, expressed in Judaism and Christianity as well, that women are corrupters and their sexuality is a dangerous thing.  Women are expected to adapt their own lives to accommodate an out-of-control aggressor, rather than holding that aggressor accountable for his actions.

But I think this all goes to say that there isn’t one feminist voice, or even one leftist feminist voice.  Most feminists advocate positive change and in response to very real discrimination.  Anecdotal evidence may be used to bolster arguments that women have achieved equality, but even in the U.S. statistics overwhelmingly prove otherwise.  So people who are willing to stand up for the rights of women are very much still needed in this world.  And the vast majority of feminist organizations are leftist.  The right-wing organizations I know, who refuse to use the word “feminism,” yet claim to advocate women’s rights, I wouldn’t consider them feminist in any sense of the word, for they don’t advocate equality.

But so many of the traditional torchbearers of feminism, leftist feminists, have adopted this absurd Mid‑East ideology.  They are sacrificing not only the rights of women, but the very lives of women.

I am very concerned for Israel and the rights of Jews.  And I’m concerned for a feminist movement that can so distort the truth.  I’ve lost respect for many prominent feminists because I’ve heard them lie about Israel.  If they lie in one instance, they’ll lie in others.  These women have lost all credibility.

I believe in feminism, and my criticism comes from a place of caring.  I don’t want to tear the movement down, but I also can’t deny there is something very wrong going on.

To continue reading this symposium, Click Here.