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The mass sexual assaults in Cologne by North African migrants have elicited criticisms of the relatively muted reaction by feminists. The sound of silence in this case, however, is most likely the result of stunned shock as much as political correctness. Women who identify as feminists and are conscious of the various ways in which the patriarchy oppresses women naturally identify and empathise with other oppressed groups. Hence feminists will generally lend their support to those who suffer from other forms of oppression, whether it be associated with race, religion or economic circumstances.
I believe, however, that in this instance feminist identified women (and men) must show moral courage and stand together in solidarity without fear of the inevitable accusations of racism. This is because the Cologne assaults clearly demonstrate that multiculturalism is a deeply flawed doctrine and not for the most obvious reasons.
Firstly, this was not an event that can be blamed on either the race or nationality of the perpetrators, though it cannot be denied that there is a religious/cultural dimension to it. Religion, whether we realise it or not, significantly impacts on a culture even in the secular West where church and state have been pretty well separate since the revolutions of the eighteenth century. These influences can be both healthy and unhealthy; Irish people, for example, were indoctrinated to feel guilty about sex up until the 90s, and certainly any Irish person over 40 bears a fair share of the burden of that renowned phenomenon known as Catholic sexual guilt. So it is perhaps easier for us Irish than the people of other Western cultures to understand the cultural mentality that Islam fosters in its adherents since we lived until the 90s in a society that was as close to a theocracy as made no difference. In addition, of the three Abrahamic faiths, the two more junior religions – Christianity and Islam – are noted for particularly strict sexual mores. Judaism, from which the latter are derived, has a more positive attitude towards sexuality. Of the three, Islam has by far the strictest sexual mores and the most stringent norms where female modesty is concerned. Does this mean that the inevitable sexual frustration caused to men in a society where women are covered from head to toe and sex outside marriage is strictly forbidden can be held responsible for episodes such as the one in Cologne or the dreadful mob assault perpetrated on American reporter Lara Logan in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011? If this is the case, then the underlying cause of such behaviour is at least partly religious/cultural. Let’s turn for a moment now to the mindset of the men who perpetrated the assault and try to understand that mindset.
I argued above that race and nationality cannot be blamed for the assaults: now I am going to suggest something that at first glance might seem controversial. This is that, strictly speaking, these were not sexual assaults as commonly understood in the West though this is irrelevant to their heinousness. Why do I say this? Well, underlying the religious/cultural scenario is, I would suggest, simple sexism in the form of the double standard, which is best conceptualised in terms of the distinction between women who are professional prostitutes and the majority who bestow their sexual favours on a man or men they have chosen. Men who go into a brothel in search of sexual gratification will not treat the women they encounter there as they would treat female family members or prospective wives and girlfriends. They will feel free to eye up and touch what to them is the ‘merchandise’: these women are openly touting for sex. Just because a woman is not a professional prostitute, however, doesn’t mean she can’t be treated like one. Women have to run a social gauntlet, unknown to men, to avoid being typecast as ‘sluts’, which means to behave in a way perceived as whorish even though you are not a professional prostitute. If a woman habitually dresses in a way considered overly revealing, or is considered ‘easy’, men may consider her suitable for sex or affairs, but not as a potential wife. Men, of course are exempt from having to walk this sexual tightrope since the longer their list of conquests, the more they will be admired and celebrated by their peers . Until very recently in Ireland, women who had children out of wedlock could be stigmatised for life, and worse. It goes without saying that one of the main aims of political feminism in the West has been to challenge such stereotypes in order to ultimately destroy them. Political feminism in the West, which properly began with Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in the eighteenth century, has succeeded in gaining sufficient rights and freedoms for women to greatly dilute – if not fully defeat – the effects of the double standard, as we will shortly see.
Now consider the Muslim immigrants who have been conditioned to believe that Western women are decadent and immodest in comparison to ‘their’ women. To such men, the West must appear as one vast brothel, full of females who are dressed in ways and behave in ways that would be unimaginable in their societies; to them, Western women are, literally, asking to be groped, touched up, and treated in a lewd manner. What we are actually seeing is sexist behaviour that is universal and occurs in all cultures only here writ large: this fact is both highlighted and confirmed by the police and media cover-up of the assaults, and the victim-blaming articulated by the female mayor of Cologne (shame) when she advised German women how to dress and behave in such a way as not to attract the attention of over-excitable migrants. Once again women are instructed to modify their behaviour in response to overt male sexual aggression and called to a higher level of behaviour than that which is expected of men. While it would be unthinkable for Western men to assault women just because, relatively speaking, they have a great deal of freedom and can dress as they please, when sexism and fashionable, politically correct multiculturalism clashed in Cologne, women came out of it as the lesser humans who must make way for and adjust to the alien behaviour of strangers in their land; those women experienced a double dose of the double standard.
This clash of cultures does, however, have one very important lesson to teach us about the current state of our Judaeo-Christian Western civilisation, and indeed provides a snapshot of its progress: where the treatment of women is concerned, ours is the superior one, and this has implications for the doctrine of multiculturalism. The general outrage sparked by the Cologne incident was a reaction to the attitude of the perpetrators as much as to what they actually did. Ironically, those who protested most loudly against the attacks are the very kind of men who, in times past, would have disagreed with women getting the vote and all the other freedoms we have gained. They are also the kind of men who will now be the most likely to defend and protect ‘their’ women , which is something for which we should definitely be grateful. Yet even they can now see, in this clash of civilisations, that the Western one is the more civilised where the treatment of women is concerned. I believe that the Cologne incident will one day be considered a watershed moment in Europe’s embrace of politically correct multiculturalism; it will be very difficult from now on to convince the German electorate, for example, that all cultures are equally moral and civilised and can easily coexist with one another. A related implication is perhaps even more important for morality; if multiculturalism is false, so also is the doctrine of moral relativism. There are moral absolutes after all (as is held by all the major religions), and secular society needs to take note.
The superiority of Western culture to Islamic culture in its attitudes towards and treatment of women begs an interesting question that relates to the religious component of culture as mentioned above: granted that the double standard in the West is generally described in terms of the biblical Madonna/whore divide ( see, for example, my article “Piers, Madonna, and the Double Standard” http://www.fsrinc.org/node/1673) and that Christianity in most of its forms has exacerbated it in terms of the sexual standards to which it holds women, but not men, is it possible to argue that Christianity has had a role in the undoubted fact that Western women’s lives are the freest and most progressive in the world? Before attempting an answer there’s no harm in pointing out that in feminist theory, religions are considered to be generally repressive in their treatment of women and indeed Christianity has produced its own versions of the Taliban down through the centuries. In order therefore to answer that question, it is necessary to go back to the sources, namely the sacred texts and the attitude of the founders towards women. These attitudes must, of course, be understood within the context of their respective eras. Within the context of his time, Islam’s prophet Muhammad is considered to have been notably enlightened towards women, though some of the texts (such as the ones where he gives husbands permission to lightly slap their wives and to have sexual relationships with their female slaves) strike us in the West as unacceptable to say the least. Yet it must be remembered that the great theologian and saint, Paul of Tarsus, approved of slavery and ordered women to obey their husbands, keep silent and cover their hair at mass. What is not in doubt, however, is the the fact that Jesus of Nazareth’s attitude towards women was not only revolutionary for his time and place, but remains radical way beyond anything we have yet achieved either culturally, politically or religiously (see, for example,”Mary Magdalene: The Most Misunderstood Woman in History?”, http://www.middleton14.com). The theologian Rene Laurentin, in his seminal article “Jesus and Women: an Underestimated Revolution” (http://www.bijbel.net/concilium/?b=25361) argues that the revolutionary attitude to women shown by Jesus led, among other things, to the participation of women on an equal footing with men in the fledgling religion’s liturgical services. In other religions women and men tend to be segregated during the liturgy, and this is notably the case in Islam. For Laurentin, this was the beginning of and catalyst for the emancipation of Western women. My years of research in the fields of theology, religious studies and philosophy, together with my gut instinct, convince me that Laurentin is correct; for similar reasons I am also convinced that the emergence of democracy as a viable political system in the West has its roots in the Christian assertion that everyone is equal in the eyes of God.
One way or another, a strong argument can now be made that multiculturalism is a deeply misguided doctrine, and that we should be both proud and protective of our two thousand year old Judaeo-Christian culture. This will have implications for future European immigration policies and for the development of suitable strategies to encourage the integration of refugees who have already arrived into their new cultural environment. Right now, post-Cologne, German women are being encouraged by the authorities to adjust their behaviour to suit Islamic norms when it should be the other way round; this appeasement must stop, or we will soon find ourselves in a situation where women in the West will start down the slippery slope to losing the freedoms they have gained at such great cost. This is why Western women must stand together in solidarity to protect those hard-earned freedoms; in this instance the ongoing battle against sexism and the double standard must take precedence over fears of being thought of as or criticised for being racist. It is up to the new arrivals to integrate into our culture, and not vice versa. This does not mean that we have to abandon our humanity where refugees in dire straits are concerned; what it does mean is that there can be no pussyfooting around or walking on eggshells with regard to protecting and defending our culture; there are, after all, very good reasons why the refugee traffic is flowing in our direction rather than vice versa. The current situation may, in fact, be a golden opportunity both to influence Islamic cultures for the better and also to make yet more progress in our own Western feminist politics.
The Swiss performance artiste Milo Moire seized the moment when she protested nude outside the cathedral in Cologne (scene of the assaults) making the point that even a naked woman is not fair game for male sexual overtures and that there is nothing disrespectful about a tasteful display of nudity in such hallowed environs. Moire’s protest had the effect of celebrating the beauty of the female form and showing that it has value in and of itself. Such an in-your-face demonstration of female bodily integrity was probably a step too far for many Western men, in particular – and predictably – those who would be most critical of the Muslim attacks. In the circumstances, however, it may just have given them pause for thought and even moved them forward a jot where their prejudices against women are concerned. In this way, Moire was simultaneously shocking and educating both Muslim and Western men albeit that the latter have certainly made a quantum cultural leap where women’s autonomy and freedom is concerned.
