OpinioNet Contributed Commentary

OpinioNet Contributed Commentary - Steven Plaut

February 11, 2002

Steven Plaut

The Barbie Liberation Front


Feminism in the Arab world has always had a somewhat unusual form and expression. There have never been movements of bra burners amongst Arab women. Indeed, the primary manifestation of Arab feminism has always been the insistence by such feminists that good Arab women stay at home and mend the socks and do the laundry for their menfolk so that their menfolk can go out and struggle for the rights of Arab women by murdering Jewish children. All those international feminist conferences always include contingents of such Arab feminists. Only problem is - these phillies never seem to have anything to say about the mistreatment of Arab women by Arab men and Arab governments. The status of women in the Taliban’s Afghanistan was never regarded as worthy of comment by them. Instead, they would spend every waking hour speaking out boldly through their veils about how the liberation of Arab women requires the extermination of Israel and the Jews.

Now, suddenly Arab feminists everywhere have a new role model and are coming out openly in the demand that all Arab women endeavor to follow in her footsteps. That role model is of course the Palestinian gynonazi suicide bomber who blew up central Jerusalem a couple of weeks back. At long last, Arab feminists have someone who can liberate them from the patriarchy and from gender oppression!

And curiously, Israel’s own codpiece-donned feminizts have THEIR own new cause as well. These mustachioed feminizts are without exception leftettes, and so have never quite gotten around to protesting the murders of Israeli women by the PLO and other friends of Shimon Peres. Indeed, they regularly take their place in the various communist-front organizations and rallies for the Palestinian right to perpetrate genocide.

But now the dear gals are all PMSed out about an outrage. You see, it seems that many Israeli pre-schools and kindergartens allow the youngsters to play with Barbie dolls. Really. Some feminizts were on the radio this week explaining why this human rights atrocity must end at once. You see, the Barbie dolls teach young girls that it is nice to be slim and attractive and THAT plays into the paws of male chauvinist pigs and serves the oppressive patriarchy. The feminizts would prefer dolls that encourage young girls to seek to make their appearances progressive, like those of Andrea Dworkin or Yael Dayan!! In addition, Barbie has a nasty habit of playing traditionalist female roles in between her stints as a pilot and fireperson. And that is unacceptable for any true feminizt.

Steven Plaut
University of Haifa


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You can e-mail Steven at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il.

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Copyright © 2002 by Steven Plaut
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