Well, not so new--it's probably as old as history, and it's against women. And it's aided and abetted by the cultural relativists, who can never bring themselves to judge anything, except the (obvious) evil that is Amerikkka:

Cultural and moral relativists sap our sense of moral outrage by claiming that human rights are a Western invention. Men who abuse women rarely fail to use the vocabulary the relativists have provided them. They claim the right to adhere to an alternative set of values - an "Asian," "African" or "Islamic" approach to human rights.

This mind-set needs to be broken. A culture that carves the genitals of young girls, hobbles their minds and justifies their physical oppression is not equal to a culture that believes women have the same rights as men.

So-called "feminists" who complain about western gender oppression and "dead white European males," but turn a blind eye to this out of a misguided but fashionable leftist sensibility, brutally betray the ideals they pretend to, and their supposed "sisters."

Rand, a simple perusal of feminist websites would show you that they have been fighting these issues for many years.

Please don't parrot the conservative line that American (or Western) feminists ignore non-Western women.

The life of women under the Taliban was under fire from feminists long before 9/11.

The article in the IHT is a reprint of the article Ayaan Hirsi Ali put on her own website. She wrote it for International Women's Day--which occurred three weeks ago, unacknowledged by the conservative blogosphere, for the most part.

I would urge you to do more than read conservative weblogs and magazines when discussing feminism's response to the oppression of women. I respect you far too much to see you fall into the trap of building a Strawfeminist.

Meryl, if the shoe doesn't fit, then don't wear it. I didn't make the comment about all feminists.

Are you denying that there are gender feminists who will choose leftist ideological fashions over western liberal values? If so, I refer you to Sunera Thobani.

This new fight, this new war against terrorism, that is being launched is very old. And it is a very old fight of the West against the rest. Consider the language which is being used...

Calling the perpetrators evil-doers, irrational, calling them the forces of darkness, uncivilized, intent on destroying civilization, intent on destroying democracy...Every person of colour, and I would want to say every Aboriginal person, will recognize this language. The language of us letting civilization representing the forces of darkness, this language is rooted in the colonial legacy. It was used to justify our colonization by Europe...

We were colonized in the name of the West bringing civilization, democracy, bringing freedom to us. All of us recognize who is being talked about when that language is used. The terms crusade, infinite justice, cowboy imagery of dead or alive posters, we all know what they mean. The West, people in the West also recognize who this fight is against. Cries heard all over the Western world, we are all Americans now. People who are saying that recognize who the fight is against. People who are attacking Muslims, any person of colour who looks like they could be from the Middle East, without distinguishing, recognizing who this fight is against. These are not just slips of the tongue that Bush quickly tries to reject. These are not slips of the tongue. They reveal a thinking, a mindset. And it is horrific to think that the fate of the world hangs on the plans of people like that. This will be a big mistake for us if we just accept that these are slips of mind, just slips of the tongue. They're not. They reveal the thinking, and the thinking is based on dominating the rest of the world in the name of bringing freedom and civilization to it.

And, of course, the best part:

There will be no emancipation for women anywhere on this planet until the Western domination of this planet is ended.

I don't recall any clamor from anyone at NOW denouncing her, or even expressing disagreement.

i thought the war on terrorism was supposed to be about self-defense.

also, invading countries because they have a "backward" culture is imperialistic. i dont see how you can really deny that. you can say it is justified imperialism because our culture is inherently better, but you still need to deal with the fact that its imperialistic. you need to deal with this fact because of the philosophical implications of it, but also because of the likely reactions to it. i think for some people (for me at least) a tendency towards moral relativism comes from the realization that foreign cultures have the same derogatory view of our culture as we do of theirs. we think they are wrong, they think we are wrong. this causes me to hesitate. of course, there are ways of evaluating cultures, but these ways (most of which i agree with) are not truly objective, because our culture came up with them (or we came up with the ones i agree with).

however, all of these problems disappear when criticizing your own culture. there is no hesitation as to what standards to set when judging "amerikkka". we obviously dont live up to our own standards (partially because our standards are set pretty high, which is to our credit). i could go into more detail here, but i suspect even most conservatives would agree that we dont live up to our own standards. and also, since when did criticizing your self (setting forth the provocation for change for the better) become a bad thing?

When it became incessant. When it became a drumbeat. When it became 'West bad, everyone else good, no matter what'. Nobody is perfect; far from it. But after a while it becomes obvious that it is mere axe-grinding.

no change has happened, the problem still exists. not everyone stops caring about problems when they get bored with them.

no change has happened, the problem still exists.

When the tactics you've been using are shown not to work, change your tactics.