I do not need... Eurocentric feminists to dictate to me what I wear or shouldn't wear.

[BainsBane]

398. a few reasons

1) a lot of that stuff is happening at home, and we need to do everything we can to stop it. I'm much more comfortable making judgments and decisions about my own country than making those decisions for others. 2) what I'm not sure you understand is my objection to the broad brush with which Americans on this site, and more broadly, are condemning a huge swatch of the world's population based on virtually no knowledge of those peoples. Not all Muslim countries have state religions or ban abortion, so I'm not willing to extend a single judgment on millions of people based on stereotype.

I don't think we in the US are in a position to pass judgment on other cultures as people here are doing. We have far too much culpability in atrocities abroad, propping up horribly oppression totalitarian dictatorships in Muslim countries, even installing them in places like Iran and Indonesia. We funded a genocide of Muslims under Suharto in Indonesia. So tell me how much sense it makes to sit back and say your religion is oppressing you while we are in the process of launching drone strikes that kill those same women; while we fund an Israeli occupation that denies those women basic rights of movement, access to water, and the right to political self-determination; while we have kept them under our thumb for decades by imposing right-wing dictatorships? In the face of all that, do you really think the veil is what most concerns those women? Whatever their concerns, I want to hear it from them, not a bunch of 20 something Europeans.

I say Americans need to look in the mirror and examine oppression at home and our role in oppression abroad. In order to support feminist movements in Muslim countries, we have to respect those women. If you don't respect their religion, you don't respect them. And without respect, we only do harm. With respect, we should partner with them in pursuing their goals rather than telling them what we think they should wear and care about.

Lastly, I don't set aside Muslims for preferential treatment. I'll make the same argument for any people abroad. The difference is Americans voice far more pernicious stereotypes about Muslims because we have been taught to think of them as inferior in order to justify ongoing US interventions and wars in those regions. Americans, in general, are more ignorant about the Muslim world than other parts of the globe, as obviously are Europeans. If I see a similar thread about Latin Americans, I'll be the first to speak up.