Multiculturalism Trumps Feminism. Again.

My favourite feminist Laurie Penny has written a new article at the New Statesman, leading me to question whether I actually understand feminism at all.

She reports on the Sabbar Kushur verdict, where an Israeli Arab was charged with 'rape by deception' after lying to an Israeli Jew about his ethnicity. Laurie's argument is interesting. First she castigates the victim for her "racism". And then attacks the "chauvinist" system for dropping an initial charge of rape in favour of the deception charge. The charge was altered because the woman has an allegedly questionable past, as well as having endured a "lifetime" of sexual violence, and the prosecution was reluctant to put her on the stand.

Penny sees this as evidence of male oppression, but in reality reflects the notorious difficulty of prosecuting rape cases.

"This changes much about the story - but nothing about its racist ramifications. Even if the victim herself could be conclusively shown to have told the entire truth about her experiences, this would not for a second change the fact that the verdict given by the Jerusalem district court was scored with ugly cultural assertions about race, religion and fear of miscegenation.

The judge in the case declared that the sex was consensual, but that the woman never would have agreed to it had she known that Kushur wasn't Jewish."

Where miscegenation comes into it I have no idea. (And I must refer to a previous post of my own showing a ShiaTV cartoon teaching young Muslim girls to stick to their own.)

Was the decision "scored with ugly cultural assertions about race"? Er, no. It upheld the right of a woman to decide with whom she has sex - a right I had assumed was dear to feminists.

Penny quotes Dr Golbarg Bashi, Professor of Iranian Studies at Rutgers:

"What is the difference between lynching young black men in the Southern United States on the mere assumption of having 'laid hands on a white woman' and criminalizing a Palestinian man for having done the same to a white Ashkenazi woman?"

A lot actually. In the former case the sex was presumably consensual, with the white girl having no illusions as to the ethnicity of her lover. In the latter, a man (who is actually rather white -see photo) deceived a woman about his ethnicity.

One commentor on the story had this to say:

Elizabeth
12 September 2010 at 21:13

First of all, it was known when the verdict became public in July that this charge of "rape by deception" was a result of a plea bargain and that the original charges were rape and indecent assault. The media and anti-Israeli bloggers jumped the gun and accused Israel of being a racist state.

Kashur was convicted of a crime that he confessed to in a plea bargain - rape by deception. The minimum time in jail in Israel for forcible rape is 4 years, and rapists usually get more. Therefore, even if you judge this sentence based solely on the "rape by deception" charges, it is not a harsh sentence. If you read the verdict in full (7 pages) and not just selective quotes from it you'll see that it mentions race only twice in the verdict. The rest of it is focused on the fact that Kashur lied about being single and wanting a serious relationship.

As a feminist, I'd think you might use this case as an opportunity to show how this is another example of rape culture - where the victim is destroyed on the stand in order to serve the interest of the rapist. Where the victim is mocked in Israeli and world media for being foolish to sleep with a man after barely knowing him, when it turns out she was emotionally unstable.

You're welcomed to read more about this case here (includes full translation of the original Haaretz/HaIr story)

http://www.mideastyouth.com/2010/09/05/israel-rape-by-decept...

She is the victim here, not Kashur.

While I fully understand Penny's argument, I cannot see how a feminist could make it. For me, it's just another example of "Anti-racism" trumping the rights of women, and one particular woman who has every right to decide who gets to sleep with her.