The Strange, Complex Story of Women and ISIS Militants

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/gender/strange-complex-story-women-and-isis-militants



With their penchant for gruesome beheadings, it’s easy to believe ISIS militants capable of any monstrosity, including medieval-sounding brutality towards women. But with so much at stake and so many political agendas, how can we separate fact from fiction? Now that President Obama has announced a military campaign, it's more important than ever to make sure we're not taken in by propaganda. And it’s not always easy.

The topic of Islam and women has come up repeatedly in reports concerning ISIS, the jihadist movement that started in Iraq and Syria in the mid-2000s with a goal of establishing a caliphate governed by an extremist interpretation of Islamic law. No one really seems to dispute that ISIS's vision of Muslim life appears to include a pre-modern conception of patriarchy in which the position of women in the social order is severely restricted. In this vision, women are to be seen as men’s possessions and the ideal woman is passive and subordinated. The notion of equality between men and women is viewed as a Western imperialist attack on Islamic authenticity.

That much we know. But from there, it gets rather complicated. First of all, it must be acknowledged that any discussion of women and Islam introduced by a westerner is loaded with cultural baggage. Feminist scholars such as Leila Ahmed have pointed out that Orientalist misinterpretations of Islam have traditionally emphasized harems, licentiousness and degradation that have never reflected the reality of what really goes on in Islamic societies between the sexes. In the context of this psychological burden, cries of Islamic misogyny coming from some outlets in the West can easily be seen as hypocritical and harmful. A recent headline, “Western Sex Slaves for ISIS: The Twisted Psychology of Jihad Brides” demonstrates a pernicious attitude carried over from colonial discourse in which Western women are in constant danger of being despoiled by the foreign other, a trope that has its roots in exaggerated tales of kidnappings and imprisonment that were circulated to titillate prurient imaginations and to bolster a prejudiced view of Muslims during the colonial period.

Reports of western women who marry Islamic militants, such as the young, educated and British Aqsa Mahmood, whose picture recently went viral, must be understood in the context of this backdrop. The idea that some western women might choose, of their own free will, to join ISIS may be at odds with the kidnap-and-imprison narrative, but it appears in many cases that is just what is happening. The lure of adventure and joining a romanticized cause compels young women for some of the same reasons they compel young men.

[cali]

1. what a supremely crappy, apologist article. Bludgeoning the reader with

"your orientalist mindset renders you incapable of passing judgment. bullshit.

first of all the narrative (and where did the author find that headline, The Daily Mail? The Mirror? has largely NOT been about western sex slaves for ISIS. It's been much more, a narrative that stresses that these women have willingly joined ISIS. Made up crap always disgusts me. And sorry, the lure of adventure is not an excuse.

yes, there is misogyny the wide world over, but this article makes a very poor argument. I get the author's good intentions but this reads like parody with the stuff about ISIS' nuance and complex gender relationships.