Blaming the feminists: attempts to debilitate a movement

I am not arguing that this women’s rights movement is flawless, neither am I trying to hide its limitations. There are individual women within the movement who are opportunist and corrupt. But the widespread condemnations that do not differentiate between the different actors, purposefully make no exceptions, and attack all feminist activists, academics, writers, and journalists alike, are flawed and unjustified. These deliberate and unfair generalisations confuse matters in relation to responsibility in a three-fold manner.

First, they re-establish a popular fallacy that the protection and promotion of women’s rights is the sole responsibility of women’s groups, eliding the responsibility of the government and the public, that are generally complicit bystanders. Protecting the lives and rights of citizens is mainly the responsibility of those in power. In this community, most of the political, social, economic, cultural, and religious power is in the hands of men. It is therefore essential to stress the importance of men’s engagement, specifically those in positions of power, to bring about change. As with all injustices, we need to have allies who are not among the oppressed for us to defeat patriarchy.

Second, the smearing campaigns obscure the responsibility of perpetrators, who are usually men. “Where are the women’s rights NGOs?” is a common question whenever another woman is murdered or raped. The argument is: you receive funding to protect women, but women continue to be victimised. The conclusion is: you are deceitful and corrupt. Such statements serve to undermine the integrity and reputation of feminists and to make it seem as if we are the ones responsible for these crimes, not the perpetrators who commit the crimes and the system that protects them and grants them immunity.

Third, these inaccurate generalisations reinforce negative stereotypes of women: that we are incapable of delivering on our “promise.” We are at fault, no matter what we do. Our “failure” is chalked up to either our lack of understanding and suitability to fight correctly, as claimed by some Kurdish feminists who live abroad, or because we are shameless self- promoters who use women’s suffering for our own gain, as claimed by supporters of patriarchy. This form of demonization of women activists is then extended to women in general, and it works to further victimise us as a group.

Many women’s rights activists have spent years of their lives working in difficult and challenging circumstances, critiquing the Kurdish authorities and parties, and supporting vulnerable women. They fight a resilient patriarchal system that adapts itself after major socio-political changes and finds new ways to victimise women and fight activists. These women work hard for little compensation and no appreciation. They have no pension and no holidays. They are not responsible for these crimes and they should not be blamed for the system’s deficiency in providing security and rights to women.

Achieving gender equality is not the responsibility of NGOs and activists alone, and it will not be possible without the engagement of the larger community. An effective approach necessitates coordinated responses from the government, the NGO sector, funders and donors, the media, and the larger community.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author(s) only, and do not necessarily reflect LSE’s or those of the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security.

The UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub is working to advance sustainable peace by developing an evidence-base around gender justice and inclusive security in conflict-affected societies.

Image credit: KylaBorg (CC BY 4.0)