An intimate girls’ night out with the celebrated champion of Islamic women’s rights. (She’s also our BFF.) Ayaan Hirsi Ali joins Danielle and Christina for the latest episode of The Femsplainers.
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What an utterly hair-raising message from such a lovely, enchanting feminist voice. Christopher Hitchens–another all-time hero–described her best. Many, many thanks for this conversation.
BTW, I think it’s of interest to note that Lesley Gore’s version of “You Don’t Know Me” has the not so well known aspect of being sung by a young woman who would not feel free to open up about being a lesbian until after the turn of the millennium. I can’t help but feel that Gore, were she still alive, would have a much greater appreciation of Ali’s approach to women’s rights than of mainstream feminists who seem clueless to the fact that they are willing to cede their mothers’ and grandmothers’ hard-won political gains as well as their own power as Western women to a hierarchical diversity that ranks them behind all men and situates them for ever more as “the Other.”
I was privileged to be at the birth of my first grandchild at a hospital. The midwife brought in little white Christmas lights to light the room which I thought was wonderful. My guess is the hospital would not like candles. As always a great podcast and wonderful wisdom from Ms. Ali.
People in the labor room– I understand! For my 2 grandbabies, my job was to hold up my daughter’s leg (epidural is quite something!) to facilitate things, chat companionably with her on different topics, keep an eye on Daddy (who gets queasy…) , tell her how wonderfully she was doing, pretend I wasn’t seeing waaay more than I had since she was in diapers, then celebrate, congratulate, assure her all was well, and keep the inlaws at bay… glad I was there to help, delighted to see my precious babies, would NOT do it for kicks or curiosity.
I have been a fan since before she had to leave Holland; glad she is well & happy, she deserves the best! Thank you.
The Lesley Gore proto-feminist classic you’re thinking of is “You Don’t Own Me”.
Lesley Gore also downplayed her Jewish roots: her real name was Goldstein.
Fascinating stuff. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a national treasure — make that international!
Conservative pundits could (but rarely do) use her information about, and understanding of, the situation of Muslim women in America to blow up the pretensions of the fake feminists the Left.
I found the brief discussion of how Margaret Atwood betrays Muslim women particularly interesting. As progressives often are, she is guilty of what I call “inversionism” in her fiction; that is, she takes Islam’s crimes against women and projects them onto Christianity.
Ironically, when James Cameron’s series about the history of science fiction movies and TV shows looks for a real-world example of “The Handmaid’s Tale”, it’s Iran after the Ayatollahs took over. But I don’t think the episode ever explicitly mentions Islam.
Yes, Taras, I realized after I typed “Know” rather than “Own” that I was giving the wrong title. I believe the podcast ended with “You Don’t Own Me,” which is why I mentioned it. (Gosh, I hope I’m not wrong about that too!)
I did not know Lesley Gore was Jewish. I imagine she was on the liberal side politically, but I can’t allow myself to think that, having sung that song, she’d be okay with women today selling other women out for not even a hand shake.
Excellent episode.