This is what I want to be

The redoubtable Phyllis Chesler has a column on Pajamas Media, entitled "Feminist Hawks Unite!" Sounds good, I thought and read it.

The name came from the New York Times that has suddenly discovered that there are feminists out there who feel strongly about the way women are treated in the world of Islam. Well, they sort of discovered it as they appear not to have realized that one of the most outspoken feminists on the issue is Ms Chesler herself.

So here’s what puzzled me. In their infinite wisdom, The Paper of Record decided that there is only one “feminist hawk” in the entire universe and his name is…David Horowitz of Frontpage magazine. Actually, this is a giant step forward. Usually Horowitz is demonized as a Traitor who left Ramparts (both the magazine he edited and the faux-fighting American left which it represented) in the dust and became a born-again, fire-breathing conservative.

Here, he is credited not only for publishing the work of “feminist hawks” but for being the only “feminist hawk” they could find to name. The article gets even more peculiar when it presumes to tell us that the “feminist hawk” phenomenon is mainly a “hybrid” invention of the “internet,” one that has “borrowed left-wing shibolleths as one way that conservative ideas can make it big in a generally more liberal online social sphere.”

Well, you can see the argument: if we dismiss the whole movement by pretending that only very few people, male or female, are part of it and these are all either nasty conservatives or traitors to the left-wing cause, we can pretend that this is all a quaing distraction from the all-important issue of Obama-worship.

Ms Chesler, understandably, will have none of it and, to be fair to him, neither will David Horowitz, who thinks she should adopt and proudly use the name. Here is what Ms Chesler says on the subject:

Among the writers concerned with women’s rights are: Frontpage editor, Jamie Glazov; Anat Berko; Tammy Bruce (who was once the President of Los Angeles NOW); Nonie Darwish; Brigitte Gabriel; Professor Donna Hughes; Nancy L. Kobrin; Robert Spencer, Wafa Sultan; and countless others. I will be adding more names to this list.

I know, I know: Many of the above writers are conservatives, not liberals. Some are new-comers, others not. But, they are all, myself included, “hawkish” on the subject of the war against women and a) will not engage in cultural relativism to avoid being called “racists” or “Islamophobes;” b) will not be held hostage to one of two political parties; c) will not sacrifice Israel, America, the West, Muslim democrats/dissidents–or the truth–in order to remain politically correct and aligned to social, political, and funding networks.

OK, so why won't the New York Times list these authors and, in particular, why will it not give Ms Chesler her due?

How, dear reader, did I ever fall afoul of the New York Times? What daring deeds did I commit that has led to my almost utter “disappearance” in their pages? That is a long story, meant for another day. Hint: Try exposing sexism among feminist leaders, then expose anti-Semitism both among western intellectuals and jihadists, and top all that by exposing an utter failure of principle and nerve among western progressives in terms of human rights in the Islamic world–and see where that lands you on the left-liberal radar.

I admit it: I did all that in my last three books: Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, (2002) The New Anti-Semitism, (2003) and The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom. (2005).

I regret nothing.

I actually do not care whether the NYT, which knows nothing about my existence, ever mentions me or not, though in Ms Chesler's position I probably would. But I agree with all the above, adding only that it is hard to imagine anything uglier than the vicious misogynistic attacks the left-wing, so-called third-wave feminists directed at Sarah Palin. (Sticks and stones - the lady is doing fine.)

Anyway, my point is this: I want to be a Feminist Hawk. In fact, I am going to be a Feminist Hawk, the first Feminist Hawk (after Margaret Thatcher) in Britain. Right, that's decided then.