Almost a month ago Islamists broke into a Nigerian secondary school and kidnapped hundreds of young girls which, initially, they were planning to sell into slavery but, according to Reuters, they are now willing to trade for their comrades in Nigerian prisons.
{By the way, the very notion of "Nigerian prisons" will probably keep me from sleeping tonight. I am thinking Midnight Express, except without the joy.}
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a feminist scholar native to Somolia, tells us the following:
The kidnapping of the schoolgirls throws into bold relief a central part of what the jihadists are about: the oppression of women. Boko Haram sincerely believes that girls are better off enslaved than educated. The terrorists' mission is no different from that of the Taliban assassin who shot and nearly killed 15-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai—as she rode a school bus home in 2012—because she advocated girls' education. As I know from experience, nothing is more anathema to the jihadists than equal and educated women.One would expect that given the outrageous violations of the rights of women among Islamist groups that western feminists would vehemently object to those violations, yet they do not.
If western feminists honestly objected to the abuse of women in other parts of the world then we would see some expression of that objection on places like Daily Kos and the Huffington Post.
Let us take a quick gander at http://www.dailykos.com/tag/feminism.
Do you see any reference to Boko Haram in the last month? No? That is, of course, because there is none.
There are fifteen "diaries" under the Daily Kos tag "feminism" and not a single one of them is concerned with those hundreds of Jihadi captured girls in Nigeria. One of those fifteen, entitled, The Hijab and the West, dares to reference Islam, but only to imply that perhaps robbing women of identity and individuality might be perfectly in keeping with western feminism.
Surely the Huffington Post would do better considering that Arianna is in charge:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/feminism/
One of the very top articles is this:
Self-Described 'Feminist Fatty' Responds To 'Fat-Shaming Anti-Feminist Meme'
There is also an article about how Monica Lewinsky claims that she is not a feminist... which is important.
Although I do not know who Shailene Woodley is, apparently, unlike the editors of the Huffington Post feminism section, she Doesn't Understand What Feminism Means.
This one, however, must be my favorite:
25 Signs You're Truly a Girl's Girl.
So, when Phillys Chesler claims that feminism is dead she needs to be listened to.