As several commentators on American pop culture have noted, recent years have seen an astonishing rise in exhibitionism among female stars. With publicity-hungry starlets like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears leading the pack, what used to be pornography is gradually making incursions into what is considered mainstream advertising and acceptable material for many American gossip rags like People and US Weekly.

One print advertisement for a brand of shoes meant for teenage girls shows Christina Aguilera as a garter belt-clad nurse holding a hypodermic needle. Parts of a popular video game — Grand Theft Auto — were found to contain an explicit scene despite the fact that the game is marketed to young adults.

While advertising and media content implicitly channel lewd connections, the actual lives of these starlets provide even more disturbing fodder for the mainstreaming of pornography, with supposedly ‘secret’ tapes of sexual liaisons becoming predictable releases in the career of any aspiring starlet.

In Pakistan, recent years have seen a spate of crimes against women that are alarming not only in their frequency but in the almost competitive nature of their startling barbarity. If the live burial of five women in the barren desert of Balochistan is insufficient to shock one’s conscience, then the forced abortion and grotesque mauling of a pregnant seventeen-year-old leaves no question about the heightened levels of rage and hatred reserved for the female victims of these crimes. So commonplace is the occurrence of such vengeful acts of hatred against women that acid attacks, vani and swara cases rarely get mentions in the popular news media and extract barely more than a raised eyebrow from the general public.

Juxtapositions of this sort, which position the morally permissive exhibitionism of American media and pop culture with the bloodthirsty ravages being imposed on the bodies of Pakistani women and girls, follow a predictable route. Almost without fail they morph into discussions of the “better” or “worse” moral stature of one society that objectifies women through a tacit acceptance of near pornography in the mainstream media versus another than relegates women to a status worse than animals in its open bartering and trading of their bodies.

Better or worse, however, takes us a in a direction different from the one I wish to explore: one that questions whether these denigrations of women are symptomatic of the same core problem. Do they both not objectify women, and continue to view them as little more than a compendium of flesh and body parts meant to either be paraded or hidden? Do they both not view women ultimately as vessels of either male pleasure or male honour, always devoid of an identity or a reality independent of their bodies?

Beyond these crucial distinctions lies a commonality that could and should be a rallying cry for feminism around the world, and yet it has not been so. Feminists have remained silent and unwilling to make the connection between exhibitionism of flesh and subjugation of flesh.

There are many reasons for their resigned silence, some more pressing than others. Making such a comparison requires deflecting the argument of which culture is better or worse. It requires carving a position which points out the qualitative differences between the two cases — one in which exhibitionism with fame and monetary gain to the qualitatively more egregious act of completely destroying a woman by killing her. The former, however misguided and lacking in self-worth, is alive and even monetarily rewarded while the other lies dead and forgotten, extinguished forever. The former is perhaps an indictment of the cultural pressure to exhibit and objectify but also possibly a self-styled (if misguided) celebration of sexuality. The latter can only and singularly be a horrific crime.

Yet there are equally pressing reasons for not abandoning opportunities to unite feminist discourse and highlight the core similarity between the two situations. Foremost among these is that it breathes life into the forgotten slogan needed in centuries past and today that reminds the world that women are not a collection of body parts to be paraded, traded, owned or exchanged at the behest of men.

This sadly forgotten adage was the beacon of feminists in days when women did not have the vote and could not dream of being leaders. The complexities of nuance, as well as the competing crosscurrents of imperialism and western hegemony are valid additions to the debate but they must not be permitted to render feminism (as arguably they have) a mute and ultimately irrelevant force.

The most debilitating cost of the silence of feminism is that it leads women around the world to forget how much of their realities are determined by the fact of their gender, deflecting attention to other bases of identity such as culture, religion or class. All these may indeed be legitimate claimants to identity but they do not explain the aspect of existence that all women experience quite simply by the fact of being women.

In searching in these alternate identities for the solutions to their problems, in being faithful to the demands of complexity and to the arguments for cultural uniqueness, women allow patriarchy to flourish unquestioned and their own basis of solidarity and global mobilisation to be sidelined and ignored.

As I write this, rumours have started circulating of nude pictures of a teenage film star being released; yet another in an unquestioned series of similar releases in the US. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Israrullah Zehri, who defended the burial of five Baloch women, and Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, who participated in a jirga that gave away five young girls as a form of compensation for honour killings, are both being elevated to the status of ministers in the new government of Pakistan.

These developments testify to the reality that while feminism, burdened by its scepticism of anything universal, may be silent, unabashedly universal patriarchy screams as loudly as ever.

Well, forget Pakistan, in India, you get both extremes in one package, he he he. Actually, you get the complete three-in-one package. You get those horrible naked pelvis-thrusting Bollywood female actors doing their dance routine 24/7 and you get the usual acid throwing in-laws and husbands AND you get 'sex selective infanticide' with the aborting of female babies in the womb. I don't think the Pakistanis can compete with that.

I also hear that in India you actually have to pay large sums of dowry to bridegrooms before they'll agree to marry your daughter. Odd, here in Western countries you can pick up the same 'young hottie' for free at the shopping mall, no life-time commitments to boot. Indian men have it good in US and UK. They do their little thing here and then when they are ready to 'settle down', they simply fly over to India and come back with a 'cream of the crop piece' from there as a wife. I am told people there are dying to give their daughters away to 'expatriates'. Virtually hand them over for free.

Sad, of course, the lot of women. Lose-lose situation. Ultimately, they are better off prancing around buck-naked here in Western democracies. Atleast they don't need to be stuck with men. Earn some faloos in the semi-porn Western economy, rent your own place and find some peace and solitude at home. No one bothers you, no bullshit family crap to deal with, just flash some skin 40 hours / week and you are set for life.

Conclusion: More respectful being a hooker in the West then a Muslim wife in the East.

One of the most troubling, common, and little discussed, outside of backroom medical meetings, side effects of psych meds used in such a large portion of the American population today is, sexual disinhibition in females, and violent disinhibition in males. Gee. Britney Spears and the Columbine et al boys are classic examples of this. These effects are heightened and aggravated when the drugs are taken in combination with alcohol. They know this.

"Feminists have remained silent and unwilling to make the connection between exhibitionism of flesh and subjugation of flesh."

Actually, that's not exactly true. It is an age old argument and a couple of years back old school feminists were on the attack in terms of the younger, hipper feminists over the way they decorate their websites (see feministing)as well as the way they dress in public.

Still, there is a bit of a problem with doing so. First, exhibitionism of flesh is something that is voluntary while subjugation of flesh is not. Second, exhibitionism of flesh is not solely exclusive to the female body - this applies to both sexes - saddly sex sells to both genders.

I think hajibaba above makes a great observation between hookers in the west and the Muslim wife (except I wouldn't say it's just in the east and exists within many non-Muslim cultures as well). Quite ironic that the empowerment of women in the west is as strong as it is in spite of exhibitionism of the flesh. Maybe that's what we need to examine .. is it possible that in cultures where the sight of female flesh is not taboo that society has been far more capable of adapting to equality?

Well, we also have to study the effect of modernity on women and their traditional and perceived roles in society. In the modern unisex society, one can hardly tell the difference between a man and a woman. Heck nowadays you can't even tell them apart physically. With the invention of the birth control pill and rumors that women have organisms, aliens observing humans with long telescopes would'nt even know what a female was.

Now this poses problems in terms of procreation of the human race. So, we now have the world divided into two kinds of females. The "Modern Educated Female" and the "Ancient Backward Child-Bearing Slave Female" (mostly from pre-modern societies like South America and the Muslim World and perhaps Africa (well atleast the parts that are still without AIDS)).

This is of-course an interesting development. As these backward women are now all ending up in Modern societies, bringing their backward "Child-Rearing" culture with them. Catching the Modern (i.e. Western) societies in a conundrum. They need the children to create future consumers, but they don't want the family culture, as it does not encourage the development of the horno-porno-forno consumption individual they need.

Now the problem is this. Once these "backward" females become "enlightened" and modernized, they get caught up in a Catch-22 situation. Being a housewife is easy as 1-2-3 in Western world. Everything is electronized and meticulously 'professionalized". From cooking to sewing to cleaning to marital problems to health issues, everything is ready-made with a high paying professional or corporation behind it to do it for you. The housewife needs to know nothing or do pretty much nothing to raise the children, everything is done for you already. "Just put in the microwave and press cook."

As a result after a few years, she starts to realize she is just sitting around all day doing nothing. While her Modern counterparts are out there showing off their private parts in public making big dollars as secretaries, artisans, lawyers and doctors and nurses and even teachers. Back in the backward traditional societies atleast there was some:
- socialization with the neighbours
- always somebody getting killed or raped or beaten to death
- always some family member in need of help or counseling
- mundane housework took three times the time to perform
Here she is just sitting at home all day watching her modern counterparts prancing around naked on TV dramas having sex with all manner of men while she is stuck with this one boring man for life in a house that resembles a secluded castle out in some bar bones suburb.

A women who "shows her private parts" in the west (also known as her ankles, hair, face and arms to some) is not going to be killed or raped. BUT that is a very realised reality of OUR traditional Muslim community. A western woman can still get her education freely and doesn't have less rights in law than a man in the United States. If I were a militant feminist, I'd start helping the raped and murder victims and come to women with low sel-esteem issues afterwards. I may not agree with the means and the disrespect shown towards Islam by western feminists, but that is due to one things ~ Muslim apathy to violence against women can only be interpreted as a failure of Islamic law (just as we interpret objectification of women in western society as a failure of western law ~ which it isn't)

These types of articles that ignore the hugely positive influence of the feminist movement (especially in changing law and promoting equal education of women), that insists that the feminist movement is silent about the objectification of women in the west, ignores the huge amount of research and sacrifice made by feminists to realise truth in the debate and their very real criticisms of male misogyny. It is in turn affecting the muslim feminist movement very negatively and preventing its growth into a fully fledged movement that can realise its political goals. They're dividing women into the "good" Muslim women and the bad "western" women through this unjust means of unbridled criticism of feminism and has a real and realised unjust end.

If anything, the violence perpertrated against women in religiously conservative countries is indicator that a morally permissive society results in far less damage than a morally restrictive society. Because noone is being gang raped or buried alive or killed for family honour. These are occurrances that are quite frequent but also belie even bigger problems like access to education and proper healthcare. And to boot, the US communities aren't electing misogynists in the US into power and hailing them as moral authorities. Why don't people make the obvious linkage between the role of ambiguous religious interpretation and its impact on how society deals with femininity?

Blaming the culture is pointless because we as human beings generate that culture. If human beings are free to decide themselves, then empowering the better choice is important. Men and women themselves are indulging in lascivious behaviour, not because they are free to do so, but because they LIKE to. And so we make the most pleasing behaviour the least acceptable and end up moralising and criminalising human nature. In my view of this moral debate, noone wants to have positive impact on culture, because everyone just wants political and ideological gains i.e. to score brownie points for there social grouping. That's how I know most of the society doesn't actually care about the aborted baby or the rape victim or the objectified stripper. Why? Because few religious people are trying to actually assist the victims or educate people about better behaviour. Everyone wants to talk for God and noone wants to listen to the victims.

Another problem is women victims not being able to resort to assistance from their religious authority. Its the religious community that prefers a womens "sabr" over her emancipation (she'll get a doubly reward in heaven). We've got the problem that womens shelters are unIslamic and don't get the paper thin "moral" backing of scholars (neither do old age homes, adoption in a modern society or real workers rights). So morally, religious communities are actually inclined to tacitly support the objectification of women.

When a 50 year old man, marries a 15 year old girl .. where is the consent? Sounds like rape to me but its perfectly Islamic. In fact, in Muslim societies a womens consent is usually conveyed by her family and not witnessed by even her future husband. We've got to engage with the way we've implemented these things in our society. Nikaahs get delayed on one end of our community to plan for weddings, and Nikaahs are rushed on the other spectrum of our religious community to get 16 year olds out school and into the kitchen.

One suggestion I have for us Westerners is that we need to re-evaluate our common interpretation of Islam and start promoting the better values by realising them in our cultural-based Islamic law. We must collectively agree to allow women to attend their nikaahs in the masjid, and recognise their unilateral rights of divorce as a realisation of their true Islamic rights and start promoting pre-marital marriage counselling which allows couples to communicate as equals. We als need to stop this brainwashing of little girls that makes their wedding day the most important day in their lives, and then makes the marital relationship a male-ruled kingdom where they are bake and are loved for baking.

>>> In the modern unisex society, one can hardly tell the difference between a man and a woman.

Are you blind or just stupid?

Are you saying is that the poverty ridden people who suffer from Aids are immoral? Are you saying that a Muslim women has no place in a modern society? Are you saying that being a mother and housewife is easy in this day and age? You're displaying your ignorance by saying that African people are the only ones who are afflicted with HIV. You also don't seem to know that migrant workers and traditional communities suffer the most from HIV and that its the absence of modernity that has made the disease a real killer. And we can never really know the full impact of AIDS because of the shame factor that prevents people from knowing and telling others of their HIV status.

With the invention of the birth control pill and rumors that women have organisms>>>

Womem have always had organisms. The average human body is filled with billions of organisms, some benign, some infectious, some wholly necessary for the function of bodily health. For the most part, such organisms are involuntarily preent within the body. (couldn't resist)

>> Womem have always had organisms. The average human body is filled with billions of organisms <<

lol

I'll be the contrarian here and wonder if the pendulum hasn't swung too far against men in contemporary American culture. While women are over-sexualized in portrayals, men are portrayed as either oppressors or hopelessly moronic dads. I personally think that women have it much better than men do today: state protection as a designated protected class in almost all spheres of life, birth control which "freed" them from the shackles of childbirth, no-fault divorce which hands over mens' earned wealth to women, more women in college than men and celebrated in an increasingly feminine America; its good to be a woman in 21st century America. And, Its getting pretty old.

Even a non-feminist would be insulted by Islam's view of women.

Islamic Sharia law says the value of a woman is only half the value of a man:

Koran 4:11 "Allah commands you as regards your children's (inheritance); to the male, a portion equal to that of two females..."

Bukhari: V3B48N826 "The Prophet said, 'Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?' The women said, 'Yes.' He said, 'This is because of the deficiency of a woman's mind.'"

In Muslim countries, rape is rarely punished, since women are seen as responsible for being raped. Also, proving rape often comes down to one person’s word against another’s. The lesser value of woman’s testimony in Islamic law makes securing a conviction virtually impossible.

The Muslim stance on consensual sex and coveting thy neighbour's wife is set out below:

Koran 4:23: "Prohibited to you are: your mothers, daughters, sisters … Also (prohibited are) women already married, except slaves who are captives.” Koran 4:24: "Also (forbidden are) women already married, except those (captives and slaves) whom your right hands possess. Thus has Allah ordained for you. All others are lawful..." Koran 70:28: "Preserve their chastity except with their wives and the slave girls they possess - for which there is no blame."

Sex with wives/captives/slaves, meaning sex with those who have no right to refuse the advance, aka rape, is therefore acceptable. Just don't take your neighbour's wife - unless you conquer and kill him first.

Koran 24:34 states: "Force not your slave-girls to whoredom (prostitution) if they desire chastity, that you may seek enjoyment of this life. [And here's the freedom-to-rape card] But if anyone forces them, then after such compulsion, Allah is oft-forgiving."

Islamic scripture on how a husband can treat his wife:

Tabari IX: 113 "Allah permits you to shut them in separate rooms and to beat them, but not severely. If they abstain, they have the right to food and clothing. Treat women well for they are like domestic animals and they possess nothing themselves. Allah has made the enjoyment of their bodies lawful in his Qur'an."

So women can be beaten, locked in the closet, their bodies are there to be ravaged, but make sure you treat them as well as a dog.

Maybe a sheep or cow would be a better comparison. Arab men have such an affinity for molesting domestic animals, the most influential living Muslim cleric, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, issued these fatwahs:

"A man can have sex with animals such as sheep, cows, camels and so on. However he should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in his own village, however selling the meat to the next door village should be fine."

No wonder beef and lamb exports aren't a major foreign exchange earner for Islamic countries.

While we're on the legal opinions of Islam's most respected living cleric, here's another Khomeini gem: "It is better for a girl to marry in such a time when she would begin menstruation at her husband's house rather than her father's home. Any father marrying his daughter so young will have a permanent place in heaven."

Marrying off your daughter before puberty is a Muslim father's VIP pass to heaven. More helpful advice from the Ayatollah: "A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However he should not penetrate, sodomising the child is OK. If the man penetrates and damages the child then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however, does not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girl's sister."

Why does the Ayatollah condone kiddie-fiddling? Islamic scripture records that Muhammad married Aisha when she was a prepubescent girl and he was 53. Tabari II: 7: “Aisha replied, ‘the Messenger married me when I was six; my marriage was consummated when I was nine.’” Most of us would call a 56 year old man who had sex with a nine year old girl a paedophile.

Let’s allow Muhammad to underscore why any woman familiar with Islamic scripture who remains a Muslim must be retarded: Tabari I: 280: "Allah said, 'It is My obligation to make Eve bleed once every month as she made this tree bleed. I must also make Eve stupid, although I created her intelligent.' Because Allah afflicted Eve, all of the women of this world menstruate and are stupid."

Islam views women as not only stupid, but unclean. Muslims believe that the Black Stone of the Ka' aba (one of the holiest shrines of Islam) was once white, but became black when menstruating women touched it: Tabari I:298: "The Black Stone which was originally whiter than snow was brought down [from Paradise] with Adam ... The stone turned black because it was fingered by menstruating women."

It’s one of life’s great mysteries why Muslim women (whether menstruating or not) don’t just give this oppressive patriarchal cult the big finger.

>>>its good to be a woman in 21st century America

Yes it is, but also in much of the Muslim world too. I think great advances have been made in the area of women's rights, working outside the home is no longer stigmatized and neither is divorce, education for females has become mainstream and the age of marriage is generally later than it used to be. There's still a long way to go until women are considered fully human and not mainly as crazy emotional creatures who left to their own devices will ruin the family and by extension the world (this is the way some Islamic clerics like characterizing females. But that doesn't mean that all women want this, some don't mind never having a say in anything and they are the ones who, from what I see suffer from abuse- they just take it when they don't have to in this day and age.

@OmarG - "no-fault divorce which hands over mens' earned wealth to women"

ummmmmm, just what is that supposed to mean?

Girl83- it's very easy to mock the issue of women in Islam when you take everything out of context. You need to take into account the historical context in which Islam came to be...Slavery was then the norm and even Judaism and Christianity accepted it as such, the issue of inheritance is complicated, and the hadith you quoted by Bukhari is very weak... And Tabari and Khomeinei interpret the Islamic stance on women in a way that fits nicely with their subjective worldview.

I just read your comment about the Khomeini fatwa, Girl83, I can't believe he actually said that, Is that from a reliable source?

>> "no-fault divorce which hands over mens' earned wealth to women" ummmmmm, just what is that supposed to mean? <<

Yeah, it is quite hilarious I must add. Donald Trump's or someone's wife takes half his wealth because the court rules that she was an integral part of his creating that wealth. So booom, she files for divorce and walks off with a chest full of gold, not to mention living in a nice mansion while married at (husband's expense of course). "Gold-diggers" or something like that they call them I think. Expensive this whole 'halal sex' business. Little wonder high-end call-girl businesses are making a killing these days. Much cheaper.

If it was me, I would classify a housewife as a profession and assign it some pay-scale, so that rich men are more likely to indulge in marriage knowing how much it costs them. There would be a lot less 'haram sex' this way. Most women would probably benefit from this too as well, instead of being someone's dirty laundry, they could now aspire to be a respectable house-wife. All this at the expense of the gold-diggers naturally.

Not that there is anything wrong with being gold-digger mind you. Afterall nobody scorns a man if goes off into a cave and comes back with a bag full of gold worth ten times the effort put into getting it, so I see no reason why should a woman be shamed for doing the same. Brrrrr.

The exposure of female flesh outside of male control is the very expression of female power and ultimate assertion of feminism. Because guys feel desires, but cannot fulfill them. Men can either deal with this through restraint, or by going bonkers.

Nevertheless, I agree with OmarG: the pendulum has probably swung too far, because although men and women have much legal equality, family law remains heavily biased in favor of women.

>> Men can either deal with this through restraint, or by going bonkers. <<

By this you mean in Muslim countries and more traditional societies. No shortage of cheap meat for sale where I am. No need to go bonkers. Heaven forbid. Whats your flavor, Slavic, White, Jamaican, Indian, Thai? No problem. Just make sure you have a Visa or American Express handy.

In regards to the pendulum swinging too far towards the woman in terms of family law - isn't this still just a natural lag to a still transforming society? I mean it is still not that long ago that 'mom' was the one doing all of the cooking and cleaning. During the whole women getting out of being stay at home moms mostly what had changed was that she was now a worker, mom, maid, etc. It's only recently that it is a norm for the male partner actually helping out in terms of taking the children to doc appointments, cooking, helping out around the house. I think the pendulum will equal out soon enough.

@hajibaba:

">> Men can either deal with this through restraint, or by going bonkers. <<

By this you mean in Muslim countries and more traditional societies."

uh uh buddy, don't go there - http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&&q;=prostitution+middle+east

>>By this you mean in Muslim countries and more traditional societies."

No, it most certainly happens here, too...both the restraint and going bonkers. Western men are sexual beings, too.

Girl83, you're an idiot high on Robert Spencer's nonsense. Cutting and pasting out of context(and outright lying) is old news and no one with an iota of intelligence will take you seriously.
Womans rights? Please, you charlatans never believed for woman rights. I wonder why Cromwell was so gung ho for female suffrage in Egypt yet steadfastly opposed it in his native England. And the funny thing is, the biggest victims of Feminism are women, not men. Women suffer more than men with sexual freedom and the disintegration of marriage and the traditional family. Men don't care how many girls they bed and men don't quite get as negatively affected as women in the absence of marriage and family life. It's women that benefit most when men are responsible enough to commit.
The lack of responsibility and commitment on behalf of men is one of the biggest complaints a western women will typically make. It's funny that they don't realize that sexual liberation is one of the main reasons men see no point in committing to a feminist brainwashed woman, in addition to the fact that women are increasingly emulating men in their behavior. And the irony is that women are the ones who suffer the most as the traditional family structure that has kept most human societies intact for thousands of years collapses.
To ignore very real gender differences between the sexes, and to organize society on the premise that gender differences are social constructs is ignorant nonsense.