The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that three million girls undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) annually. The organization reports, “The practice is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries in Asia and the Middle East, and among migrants from these areas.” This is another way of saying that the barbaric practice roughly corresponds to locations where Islam dominates. But, of course, WHO never mentions Islam in its February fact sheet on the 140 million cases of FGM.
There is a war on women. It doesn’t involve Catholic schools obstinately refusing to pay for the contraception of their students or the right of thirty-year-old women not to be called rude names. Honor killings, spousal rape, female genital mutilation, polygamy, and the veil are proof that this war on women is very real. Ironically, Rush Limbaugh regularly uses his program to inveigh against those waging this war on women. But the activists busy accusing Limbaugh of orchestrating a war on women haven’t bothered to highlight this very real war on women.
Why?
Political correctness makes hell of political principles. It sanctifies certain “victim” groups (women, minorities, gays, non Westerners, etc.). It demonizes certain “oppressor” groups (the wealthy, white heterosexual males, Westerners, etc.). When one victim group victimizes another victim group—e.g., Muslims tyrannizing women—the mental wiring of the politically correct short circuit. It’s more flattering to the overarching ideology to cast a rich, white, male as the poster child of sexism and to leave the sexism of impoverished, tribal Muslims on the cutting room floor.
If the utterance of a few insulting comments on the radio and the refusal of religious universities to provide free birth control are the evidence of a war on women, the evidence shows there really isn’t a war on women—at least in America. By fixating on the misogynist words of political adversaries, and ignoring the misogynist language of political allies (Bill Maher, Alan Grayson, Ed Shultz) and the misogynist practices of extremist Muslims, the American Left prompts neutral observers to wonder whether the issue is really sexism or if it is one of using sexism as a brickbat to beat political opponents into silence. Given the pressure campaign on governments and companies to force America’s most popular talk-radio host off the air, the latter seems a more plausible answer.
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