Feminist Naomi Wolf On The Superiority of Islam

Feminist Naomi Wolf On The Superiority of Islam

There are days when it seems like feminists are beyond parody, since they seem intent on parodying themselves. Naomi Wolf's August 30, 2008 Sydney Morning Herald article is championing how much more liberated Islamic women are:

A woman swathed in black to her ankles, wearing a headscarf or a full chador, walks down a European or North American street, surrounded by other women in halter tops, miniskirts and short shorts. She passes under immense billboards on which other women swoon in sexual ecstasy, cavort in lingerie or simply stretch out languorously, almost fully naked. Could this image be any more iconic of the discomfort the West has with the social mores of Islam, and vice versa?

Ideological battles are often waged with women's bodies as their emblems, and Western Islamophobia is no exception. When France banned headscarves in schools, it used the hijab as a proxy for Western values in general, including the appropriate status of women. When Americans were being prepared for the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban were demonised for denying cosmetics and hair colour to women; when the Taliban were overthrown, Western writers often noted that women had taken off their scarves.

Now I won't dispute that there are aspects to how women have been sexualized--and especially so since the 1970s--that have been very destructive. When young girls are told--as the popular culture has been doing for several decades--that they are only of interest to men if they are sexually attractive and available--it is enormously destructive. The increasing dominance of rap culture has taken women down several steps below where they were before. But let's not pretend, as Naomi Wolf does, from where this degradation comes:

Nor are Muslim women alone. The Western Christian tradition portrays all sexuality, even married sexuality, as sinful. Islam and Judaism never had that same kind of mind-body split. So, in both cultures, sexuality channeled into marriage and family life is seen as a source of great blessing, sanctioned by God.

Huh? I don't recognize this "Western Christian tradition" that she is describing at all. The Western Christian tradition, at least in my lifetime, has recognized married sexuality as a positive. The reason that feminists became so hostile to Christianity was because it would not endorse unmarried sexuality, homosexuality, and the leering depravity that Wolf's political allies on the left have long supported.

It gets better:

Among healthy young men in the West, who grow up on pornography and sexual imagery on every street corner, reduced libido is a growing epidemic, so it is easy to imagine the power that sexuality can carry in a more modest culture. And it is worth understanding the positive experiences that women - and men - can have in cultures where sexuality is more conservatively directed.

And who is responsible for this epidemic of pornography and sexual imagery on every street corner? Wolf's political allies, the ACLU, the Democratic Party, Playboy, and the rest of the crowd that insists that virtual child pornography can have "redeeming social value."

UPDATE: Whoops! That was in 2008, not 2009 that this article appeared.