Feminist movement akin to separatist movement
Thursday, March 30th, 2006salam…
I am determine to crack this feminisme issue esp referring to Islam point of view. Together I copied an interesting opinion from Dr Azly Rahman in http://www.mpf.org.my/. Check it out….
Letter writer JS Shaari presented an interesting and thought-provoking
opinion defending the idea that "feminism is not about male-bashing".
However, I must caution that it must not be taken as
representing that of all females. The Malaysian feminist movement
itself is presenting itself like a separatist movement struggling for
self-determinism. Besides this, they must decide what kind of feminism
they are going to be defined as.
In the West, we see so many variants of feminism, from
struggling for universal suffrage to the rights to same sex marriage.
This doctrine has evolved like products in the American shopping mall –
there is feminism for a variety of causes. Each one has its own shelf
life. Each one can be transported globally, as convenient as the
American Empire wants to transplant “liberal democracy” the world over.
All most often assume that females are the oppressed sex,
without taking into consideration the pattern of kinship, the pattern
of social reproduction, and the complex social structure as it pertains
to the development of changing roles in society. The writer
misunderstood my intention due to the lack of careful reading.
It is clear in my article that Malaysian feminism is
developing into such a doctrine of male-bashing and I think males are
beginning to be increasingly uncomfortable with such an accusation.
Herein lies the growing fascination of the Malaysian feminist movement
- to take the excesses of what Western feminism has to offer and to use
confusingly as a platform for their struggle.
What is even worse is that the argument that men are shackling
women is beginning to be spread to girls growing up amongst feminist
parents. The girls will grow up confused - as their feminist parents
have been - of what constitutes a family life. This is going to be a
dangerous trend that will retard the development of an ethical
civilization. One need not be a feminist to be a champion of universal
human rights, if feminism is itself a misunderstood idea amongst
Malaysian feminists themselves.
Let there be no mistake in my propositions enshrined in my
article. I applaud what some enlightened peacemakers, males and
females, are trying to do with the Islamic Family Law. It need not be a
“female” struggle exclusively.
The work of Malaysian feminists is admirable in the area of
protecting the rights of women that are abused and unfairly treated in
relationships. In fact we should teach girls to continue to continue
their struggle against "digressive forces in society” that are pushing
humanity backwards. In Africa it is a about genital mutilation, in
Malaysia it is about something less clear.
The problem though is that Malaysian feminism is an elitist
movement and trapped in its gender-specific shackle that looks merely
at a limited number of issues without looking at the structural
violence governing those issues. Because its members are mainly from
elites of the upper and upper-middle class predominantly, their view
may be limited to looked at "bourgeois-type" of issues that mirror the
"struggles" of their Western counterpart.
Whatever that is fashionable in the West becomes transplanted
as ideology of the Malaysian feminist movement. Feminism of this sort
does not have its originality and it cultural-specificity, not to
mention it being devoid of the understanding of class issue within the
context of political economy.
The Malaysian feminist’s understanding of feminism itself
lacks depth. It lacks the understanding of the metaphysical depth of
the relationship between man and woman in the complex yet harmonious
relationship between Man, Woman, and Human Nature.
Why would Islam say that "paradise is at the mother’s feet" if
Islam does not value the role of women? Why would the mother be
regarded metaphysically higher in status than the father in the scheme
of relationship between Man and Woman? Isn’t this notion of the
metaphysical and mystical nature of women enough for feminism to be
debunked and cease to exist as yet another irrelevant "isms"? Why do we
call this planet Mother Earth if there is more philosophical worth in
the “feminine” aspect of natural evolution of this universe?
Even in the legend of Si Tenggang, human beings get turned to
stone for being ungrateful to the mother. Read the legend of Batu Belah
Batu Bertangkup. In it, children gets swallowed by a “cave” merely for
the crime of not saving/reserving the "telor tembakul" for the mother
enslaved by the economic condition she was in (perhaps in a society in
which the Sultans get to eat caviar for breakfast). Such powerful
examples of the power of the female which the Malaysian feminists have
to start reading up on. Such an elevated status women were accorded
even in times of pre-Tun Teja.
Malaysian feminists, in order not to be trapped by the
ideology of "myopic feminism" must read the excesses of feminism as
embodied in the characters of individuals I call "historical feminists"
such as Mumtaz Mahal who made Shah Jahan insane, Cleopatra (who was
actually a Greek) who brought the downfall of Mark Anthony, and Marie
Antoinette who brought the separation of King Louis XVI’s head from his
body through Dr Guillotine’s invention.
What makes this exclusive club of feminists think that the
majority of Malaysian women are oppressed? Who are the ones not happy
with the self they inhabit - the Malaysian feminist, or the females the
feminists are "fighting the rights" for? This is a classic
postmodernist/ post- structuralist example of the process of “Othering”
– who speaks for the “other females”?
There is so much one, especially the self-professed Malaysian
feminist, needs to learn of the genealogy, historicity, and
post-structurality of feminism before one embraces it blindly as yet
another transplanted Malaysian bourgeoisie country-club movement. Is it
not a movement of the privileged few who are merely armchair human
right activists cheered by international media interested in seeing how
much a nation can be fragmented through subtle neo-colonialist
strategies?
Again it not merely gender but class and caste that is the
issue. I suggest Malaysian feminists deconstruct themselves and refocus
their struggle to question the fundamental nature of our social ills –
the prolonged existence of the system of corporate crony capitalism
that is privileging the children of those in power.
There is no need for the Malaysian feminist to exist only to become yet another smokescreen to a larger issue.
The writer can be contacted at: aar26@columbia.edu.
