No feminism without anti-racism
Earlier this month, the launch of Machteld Zee´s book, Heilige Identiteiten (Holy Identities), caused some debate among Dutch feminists. In it, she writes about academics and commentators whose reluctance to criticize Muslims contributes to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Supporting Zee, Yolande Withuis and others opened an attack on the feminists they called “useful idiots” who are used by patriarchal Islamists to further the “creeping Islamization of our society.” In their efforts to depoliticize feminism, these commentators present the debate as a generational conflict: the 70s-inspired leftist multiculturalists versus the politically neutral, true defenders of women’s rights. What they don’t want us to see is the hardcore political ideology behind their own position.
