Phyllis
Chesler, Ph.D, is an Emerita Professor of Psychology
and Women’s Studies at City University of New
York. She is a best-selling author, a legendary feminist
leader. This article first appeared in her newsletter:
https://phyllis-chesler.com
Why
would a socialist-communist paradise require the degradation
of womankind in order to be able to pay for . . . Stuff?
Mamdani, New York City’s Mayor, is in favor of
de-criminalizing it, which is the same as legalizing
what he and others call “sex work.” In my
view, “sex work” is not work. It is violence
against the girls and women and against the boys and
men who are trafficked into it, either due to extreme
parental abuse, psychiatric fragility, enormous poverty,
and a complete lack of economic alternatives. “Working”
as a prostitute, is like working in a plutonium factory
and being assured of a very short shelf life. Although
there are rare exceptions, I do not see women of wealth
choosing this so-called job.
Why would a socialist commuist paradise be so imporverished
that it would have to cater to male lust and damn its
most vulnerable victims? Won’t there be employment
for everyone? If not, why not?
Historically, Soviet Russia, communist China, and communist
Cuba all viewed it as a capitalist and “foreign”
practice and outlawed it. In the Soviet and Cuban cases,
that practice returned, because the state needed tourist
dollars to pay for their gulags, torture chambers, and
dachas. In China’s case, it slowly returned as
an illegal and “invisible” activity but
one needed in order for the prostituted to earn better
money and/or in order to obtain privileges from their
leaders.
What went wrong with the economic promises of the more
perfect state?
Second Wave feminists fought over this issue. Some viewed
the right to an abortion as only possible if women totally
controlled their bodies and, thus, had the right to
sell their orifices and rent their wombs to gestate
a baby for others.
Many Second Wave feminists disagreed, especially those
who had studied the issue closely, hard on the heels
of their understanding that pornography used prostituted
women and influenced all viewers to treat women in similiarly
sadistic and degrading ways; and that pornography viewing
could easily–and has–become an addiction.
This truly Great Divide was never settled among feminists
of my generation and remains ongoing.
But here’s another thought entirely. Since Mamadani
is such a proud Muslim–I wonder why he has not
already suggested that men in New York City consider
converting to Islam in order to practice polygamy? This
is customarily and legally done under Islam. Historically,
and still today–and in addition–concubines
and foreign prostitutes are also customary among Muslim
elites.
But why stop there? Why not pass legislation announcing
that Islamic prayers may be held in the streets? Why
not allow loudspeakers to call worshippers to prayer
five times a day? What about monetary incentives for
those who pledge their lives to Jihad and agree to make
a “blood sacrifice” to Allah either abroad
or right here in our once fair city? How about promising
money to the families of all such martyrs? It’s
what’s done by Arabs in Judea and Samaria, in
Gaza, and in Israel proper?
Look: Already, American female college students in New
York City, who were not born Muslim, who may not even
be religious, are wearing hijab in demonstrations as
a way of identifying with the allegedly most oppressed
and as a way of opposing “racism.” Why not
take it further and offer perks to those who start wearing
hijab?
Mamdani does not have to do very much. The ground has
been well prepared. All these campus protestors have
to do is to read the New York Times which has
just insisted that criticizing Mamdani in any way is
“Islamophobic.”
To them, he is the new Obama–a man who also had
an African father and who’s been falsely described
as our first black President–no matter that his
mother and his entire maternal line were as white as
snow. Obama was biracial but perhaps that’s a
racist thing to point out. Is it? Obama acted as if
he once may have been a Muslim . . . Mamdani is so much
better–he is truly a Muslim man of color who,
unlike Obama, was himself actually born in Africa.
I do not agree with classifying people along racial
lines–but I am behind the times as well as against
them.
I hope I am fearing the worse, that I am completely
wrong. That Momdani is a thoroughly modern and (secretly)
secular kind of guy who believes in women’s equal
rights.
also by Phyllis Chesler
Ghislaine
Maxwell
Female
Serial Killers: Few and Far Between
Worse Than the Earthquake
Trouble Is My Name
Meditation by the Sea
Jihadists Are Not Mentally IllNew
New York's Public Bathrooms
Perils of Non-Violent Islam
Orgasm
Meditation Movement
Gender
Gangsterism
O
Malala
High
Fashion & Boyish Bodies
Tar:
Film Review
Female
Refugees and Male Baggage
Self-Defense
Against Rape
I
Am Frightened for us Women
Remember
the Taliban
The
Writing Life
Transgender
Bending
Femicide:
A Form of Honour Killing
Secular
Islam on the Rise
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