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There's a really weird trend of people choosing to exclusively support women's rights activists abroad (Saudi, Iran etc) OR those in the west & classifying one group to be the "real feminists" over the other. Surely this division can only be counterproductive?
Western feminists often operate with a harmful blindspot when it comes to international women's rights movements & stay silent much more often than they should. I have no hesitations in condemning that or any of the other individual issues that have derailed the broader movement.
But to invalidate an entire group in favour of another only pits them against eachother & erases the shared values that are essential to progress for all parties. It reinforces a tribalistic approach to social justice by making it about the group rather than the ideas themselves.
If we challenge groupthink & tribalism in activism then we can't use it as the basis of our critisism. Let's make dialogue about the best ideas, not those that they belong to.
Tweets about Muslim women resisting misogynistic practices are so often responded to with "these are the real feminists." Of course I agree that these women are incredible & I am devastated when they don't get recognition from western feminists.
But my strategy in changing this is to get western feminists to see what they have in common with these women & the hypocrisy in ignoring their plight. It's NOT to terminate their feminist membership & tell them that they're not worthy of being included.
