CMV: Modern feminism has a blind spot when it comes to criticizing religiously-rooted misogyny
One thing that’s always bothered me about modern feminism is how reluctant it is to directly criticize misogyny when it’s tied to religion or non-western cultures.
When women lose rights in places like Afghanistan, a ton of people instantly default to “men hate women” or “the patriarchy did this” instead of just naming the actual ideology and religious system behind it.
If some southern Christian group tried banning women from speaking in public, feminists would have zero hesitation attacking Christianity directly. But when it’s Islamist extremism, suddenly everyone gets vague and abstract.
It honestly feels like western men are treated as fair game for blanket blame, while deeply misogynistic religious systems get talked around to avoid sounding culturally insensitive.
It’s not that I care about this double standard as being ‘unfair’, I just don’t think willing ignorance is productive. My hyp is that this comes from a major aversion to appear bigoted, but that isn’t what this is about.
Recent thread that exemplifies this well: