Alert: Childish sexism at work

There is quite enough sexism, demeaning of women, and exclusion of women from the public sphere already without Joshua Landis further contributing to and propagating childish sexist attitudes on what is supposed to be a blog about serious public-policy issues.
What’s more, Landis’s blog is supposed to be about Syria. But so eager was he to jump on the ogling-women bandwagon that he even went leeringly off-topic there to put up that special post about the bodily attributes of female participants in various protests in Lebanon.
Landis lists himself on the blog as “Co-director of the Center for Peace Studies at the University of Oklahoma.” I truly don’t understand what anyone who propagates such crass, good-old-boys-ish material about women is doing anywhere near a “Center for Peace Studies.” Does he propagate this same demeaning, objectifying view of women there, too, I wonder? “Peacemaking through the demeaning and social exclusion of half of humanity”– hey, it could be a major new contribution to the field….
Put away the dirty raincoat, Josh, and try growing up.
(If people are seriously interested in the emerging role of women within Islamist movements like Hizbullah or Hamas, they can go to the kinds of sources cited in this recent JWN post.)

9 thoughts on “Alert: Childish sexism at work”

  1. Helena
    I think Dr Landis is making a valid point.
    That is to illustrate that Hizb Allah is not quite a puritan no fun regime.
    The young lady with the tatoo looks no different to the young ladies who were manning the barricades in Paris when you and I were sixteen.
    Perhaps I best head off now and climb in my Farraday cage before the thunderbolt arrives.

  2. actually, I think it wasn’t Joshua precisely who posted that. I am not sure, but it appeared that it was the other blog adminitrator (T-desco).. but anyway, I am not sure it was appropriate nonetheless, and I did make my own critique of how lame.. the comments were.
    If they are going to bring such an issue up – it should be to critique the who phenomenon of.. people in general obsessing over the female show going on at these demonstration in Lebanon since last year.
    Joshua was not the one who made this up.
    the imagery was all over the web in a very crass way.

  3. Wow, thats a side of Hizbullah I didn’t know existed. I think the post was on topic and informative.

  4. I recall that when the “Cedar Revolution” protests happened months ago pictures of sexy women among the protesters were passed all over the Internet. People were passing these photos specifically to accuse the Cedar protesters of pandering to Western tastes, and to accuse them of being out of touch with Arab culture. That blog that overinterprets media photos ( I forgot the name, I’m sorry ) made a big deal of those photos.
    In light of that I applaud this entry by Mr. Landis, as a sharp counterpoint to the prudish and sanctimonious attitude the Cedar protesters’ critics took in singling out sexy female protesters. Hezbollah purports to have a fundamentalist ideology. The risque outfit of that woman holding the Hezbollah then looks quite baffling; I’d expect a Hezbollah government to punish her for her clothing.

  7. She is most likely an Aounist, judging by the orange belt and wristband.
    I think the initial posting of the ‘tattood lady’ was, in fact, quite relevant in the context of the political nature of the Syria Comment. Josh might have been guilty of some overzealousness in posting some of the subsequent images, and had he put the term ‘babes’ in quotation marks then we might not be having this discussion right now.
    The reason this post is relevant, particularly with respect to the western reader, is that it undermines, in a fairly graphic way, the image of the opposition movement as a monolithic, fundamentalist, Shiite mass rising out of the south to oppose a pro-western progressive regime. This distinction is extremely important particularly when many in the press are breathlessly and hysterically trumpeting the demise of western leaning culture in Lebanon in favor of ‘Tehran on the Mediterranean’. We should be suspicious of such a simplification of the complexities and contradictions of the opposition in Lebanon and this image is a way of illustrating the fact.
    In fact, Josh is not the first writer to point this out. Nir Rosen does the same in the following post and uses the exact same ‘graphic device’ to make this important point.
    See “Hizb Allah, Party of God” http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601003_hiz_ballah_party_of_god/

  8. Josh might have been guilty of some overzealousness in posting some of the subsequent images, and had he put the term ‘babes’ in quotation marks then we might not be having this discussion right now.
    Agreed. ‘Babe’ is such a horribly demeaning term for an adult female person, especially when males slaveringly use it among themselves.
    Another point that I made over there at Josh’s blog still stands, however. Namely, why should we assume that people have to “look like us” before we have concern for them? That’s a pretty solipsistic view of the world. The more important chalenge, surely, is to be have (and to engender) concern and empathy for people who might not “look like us” at all?

  9. Actually, Helena, people were using the “look like us” angle as a pejorative, not a benefit. The people posting all those “Cedar Revolution babes” pics were going, “See, they look like us. So they’re not REAL Lebanese. They’re stooges of the West. The Cedar Revolution has no credibility at all because the protestors look so Western”. This was the Gucci Revolution pejorative.
    That’s why I reacted with amusement at Josh Landis’s pics of Hezbollah supporters dressing so unlike the pious image Hezbollah likes to project. That lady probably was an Aoun supporter. Does she worry then that someday religious prudes from Hezbollah will arrive to punish her, or will the Party of God really stand by such decadant Western wear and not object.

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