Shirin Karimi's article “How Is Hatred of Feminism Institutionalised?” in response to Arash Naraghi's “On Women Who Are Complicit in the Patriarchal System”

How Is Hatred of Feminism Institutionalised?

Shirin Karimi (Translator and Social Researcher)

Arash Naraghi, a philosophy graduate and “religious intellectual,” in a note titled “On Women Who Are Complicit in the Patriarchal System,” enumerates several points about “the role of women in shaping and perpetuating discriminatory structures” and concludes that “changing and reforming the discriminatory patriarchal system requires the active participation of both men and women, and in this endeavour, attention to the role of men must absolutely not overlook the role that women play in the formation, consolidation, and perpetuation of this discriminatory system.” Before reaching this conclusion, Naraghi has raised points that warrant a brief pause for reflection.

Since we women (women who are more active in social, scientific, and cultural spheres), whether we are feminists or not, have all been branded with the label “Iranian feminist,” and since writings of the type penned by Arash Naraghi target this very spectrum, it is good to first clarify that I am not writing a response to Arash Naraghi’s note on behalf of feminists or in the voice of a feminist. Feminists, if they wish to respond at all, will provide a fitting reply from the perspective of gender studies and feminist theories. But I, above all, write based on the understanding I have from lived experience in this society, from following women’s issues, and from tracking the activities of feminists.

First, I am very pleased that the masculine silence has finally been broken and a voice has been heard from among men. Arash Naraghi’s note is published at a time when a number of Iranian women have embarked on a promising movement of disclosure, “and such times no one remembered.” Women are narrating their personal experiences of sexual assault and harassment. Amidst the women’s narratives, a number of men have also published accounts of women’s assaults on men. The narratives are shocking, if you can bring yourself to read them. What stood out to me greatly in this uproar was the silence of men; especially men who almost always have something to say in the fields of thought, philosophy, ethics, society, and human rights. Now, as this note suggests, men have begun to speak in this debate. It is hopeful.

Tim Hunt, the Nobel laureate in chemistry, joked at the Nobel award ceremony: “Women should not be in the lab with men; because they fall in love with men and consequently do not do their work properly.” This remark caused an uproar among students and feminists, the Royal Society distanced itself from Tim Hunt, and the university that worked with Hunt promptly dismissed him. On the other side, Hunt’s supporters labelled the feminist protesters a “lynch mob,” and like wounded leopards behind their monitors, they lay in wait to lash out at feminists; some of them knew that if their conversations were recorded, the same thing would happen to them. Their retaliation against these, and these against them, began, and this saga, among thousands of other sagas, still continues.

Arash Naraghi raises a discussion and, wounded, hurls a tirade at feminists: he claims that his point in this text is that some women themselves are accomplices of the patriarchal system. Aside from the fact that Naraghi’s actual point in this text is something else, the notion that some women themselves are accomplices of the patriarchal system was stated by women themselves long before this, they continue to say it, and they fiercely criticise anti-woman women and behaviours perpetrated by women against women, they raise awareness about it, and this is not a hidden issue that has been illuminated for us in this note.

What first strikes me in this note is the hidden appeal of the misogynistic views of classical philosophy for certain men who have studied philosophy. It is as if, when their hearts are wounded by women, they embrace Schopenhauer's The Art of Treating Women, crawl into the corner of a cold room, and murmur Schopenhauer's words under their breath like verses from a holy book. They read in Aristotle's Politics that "the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind… The male is by nature fitter for command than the female, just as the elder and full-grown is superior to the younger and more immature… As Socrates says, the courage and justice of a man and of a woman are not the same; the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying." Aristotle further believes that "women are also morally inferior to men. Men are spirit, and women are merely body." Reading these lessons of classical philosophy becomes alarming when graduates of philosophy fail to properly understand the teachings of modern philosophy and do not truly grasp that the anti-woman views of classical philosophy have been refuted, and they do not become troubled that they are trapped in the world of the classics. In the case of Arash Naraghi, in addition to philosophy, the teachings of "religious intellectualism" also come into play. And the bad news is that these teachings have borne fruit in Arash Naraghi's note. Let us review the points of this troublesome fruit together:

First point: Naraghi writes a definition of violence and considers the best method of de-violencing human relations to be legal and genuine equality between women and men. He considers the condition for the realization of gender justice to be the side-by-side effort of the women and men of society together. Up to this point, we do not have much disagreement, and it becomes clear that Arash Naraghi has an eye on the revelatory narratives about sexual assault.

Second point: Naraghi writes, "Some women active in the realm of women's rights try to turn the women's rights movement… into a movement of hatred for men… These women… take up a broad brush and paint a stereotypical image of the Iranian man[1] or the Eastern man, whose most important characteristic is a phallus-centered life… The woman is transformed into a passive, gullible, simple-minded, and ultimately victimized figure… and it makes no difference whether this woman is a university professor, journalist, lawyer, artist, or housewife, adolescent, middle-aged, or elderly." Naraghi considers these "some women" in all professions and ages deserving of such reproach, creates a caricature with the description of "a woman hateful of all men with a broad brush in hand," and deems those women "caricaturists who do not paint a realistic picture of the totality of society." Given the writing of the word "some," we need not be too harsh about Naraghi's insinuation. He sees an "effort" on the part of some women who want to turn the women's rights movement into a movement of hatred for men.

Third point: Naraghi depicts the patriarchal system's image of man, an image "borrowed from the animal world, according to which being a man is equivalent to dominance-seeking, aggression, boldness in self-expression, capacity for creativity and initiative, high self-confidence, courage in the position of challenging, great physical and mental strength, high rational power, leadership ability and responsibility, insatiable sexual desire, high pain tolerance, a protective spirit, breadwinning, being beloved by women, being respected by other men, and so on." And he writes that "many men do not possess these characteristics and, in this respect, are always under the constant pressure of the exhausting expectations and demands of society (including women)." We still have no quarrel; but are you also thinking what I am thinking? Of the common pain that Naraghi cannot see? Of the patriarchal system's image of being a woman in this society and seeing many women who do not possess those characteristics and, in this respect, are always under the constant pressure of the exhausting expectations and demands of society (including men)?

Fourth point: Naraghi introduces women as among the principal agents of the patriarchal system and writes, without providing any instance: “It seems that even in the heyday of women’s rights movements, the dominant image women hold of the ideal man is very close to the image of the dominant male.” It is unclear by what reasoning this statement has occurred to him. Has he had conversations with women and men on this matter, or has he consulted texts and statistics to arrive at such a judgment about the “dominant image women hold of the ideal man,” or is this a claim arising from a mindset that is anti-woman from the outset? Naraghi says that after two hundred years, the character of Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice is still attractive to women, and he cites this as evidence for the existence of this image in women’s gaze in today’s world. I do not know how many men in today’s world have read this novel and not found the character of Elizabeth Bennet attractive. Elizabeth is one of the most renowned female characters in classic novels, and Mr. Darcy is a very traditional character who makes a very modern and taboo-breaking move; after getting to know Elizabeth Bennet and falling in love with her, he turns his back on the ancient traditions of the aristocracy and nobility of nineteenth-century England and marries the intellectual, free, self-confident, expressive, and penniless Elizabeth. Note, Mr. Darcy marries. I will address the subject of marriage in the sixth point. At the end of this point, Naraghi writes that for many of these women (meaning women for whom Mr. Darcy is still attractive), single men are “potential husbands.” It is no good to keep writing in response to such hasty, thoughtless conclusions as if, in the eyes of single men, single women are not “potential wives,” but I am compelled to write as if, in the eyes of single men, single women are not “potential wives” and the rebellious Elizabeth Bennet of the Victorian era holds no attraction for the men of today’s world. I suspect Naraghi is one of those men who still do not favor women of Elizabeth’s type, and his issue, more than women and the straying of women’s movements, is marriage and singleness.

Fifth point: In this point, Naraghi arrives at the issue of infidelity. He says that if married men commit infidelity, “one should not overlook the fact that a married heterosexual man’s infidelity to his wife is only possible with the participation of another woman.” It is astonishing; this was also the view of most people two or three generations before us. All of these words can be swapped with other words. For example, instead of “married heterosexual man,” we could write “married homosexual man,” and instead of “the participation of another woman,” write “the participation of another man”; in the same way, in the sentence If it is not night, then it is day, one can swap the places of night and day. It is a tedious game. Of course, Naraghi here, for the first time in this text, refers to a domestic and controversial instance: Forough Farrokhzad. Naraghi’s view is that “many of the women who raise the banner of struggle against men’s encroachment on women’s privacy and rights do not themselves refrain from establishing sexual relations with married men”; now it is completely clear that Naraghi’s gaze is directed at the recent revelations of sexual assaults. In Naraghi’s view, these women “knowingly and deliberately enter into sexual relations with married men and do not consider participation in this infidelity a violation of the rights of their own spouses and the spouses of those married men,” and then he turns to the life of Forough Farrokhzad, her relationships with men, and “her repeated infidelities and sins,” writing that Forough “established a sexual relationship with a certain married man to use him as a stepping stone for her professional advancement.” And after presenting such a bitter, dark, and humiliating image of Forough, he asks the women who are standard-bearers of the struggle for women’s rights: Why has Forough Farrokhzad always been admired and a source of inspiration for women’s movement activists?

Reading these, I was on the verge of seeking solace in wine and cupbearer just to calm my nerves a little. Then, “it seems to Naraghi” that “this group of women’s movement activists has conflated the issue of defending women’s rights with a particular interpretation of sexual freedom.” And “this same group of women, because they believe that mutual consent is a sufficient condition for engaging in a sexual relationship, therefore, in sexual assault or rape, the consent of one party (usually the woman) has been disregarded.” And he gives an example that in an emotional relationship, if a kiss comes from the man and then, because one or both did not like it and the relationship ends right there, this incident, from the perspective of “these women,” is passed off as rape, but if the kiss comes from the woman, it is described as a courageous act. And after expounding on ethics in marital relations and the definitions of necessary and sufficient conditions for engaging in a sexual relationship, to my utter astonishment, he directs his first outburst at women: “These hypocritical women are not worthy of carrying the banner of women’s support and presenting themselves as defenders of their rights.” To be honest, I do not know what logic and what philosophical perspective was activated in Naraghi’s mind while writing this point that led him to such astonishing conclusions.

Among the accounts published about sexual assault, there have been few that are truly nothing but personal quarrels and spiteful, petty grievances against former boyfriends. And, as it happens, alongside the publication of such accounts, many critiques were written about this movement going astray. It is natural that in any new social movement, some people, unknowingly, can harm the entire movement with their speech, behavior, writing, or actions—much like what Naraghi does with this text—but the situation is not so dire that Naraghi can conclude from it that “These hypocritical women are not worthy of carrying the banner of women’s support and presenting themselves as defenders of their rights.” I will return to this point.

Sixth point: And now the final point, where Arash Naraghi has spoken his true mind, the words of his heart, and has spared himself and us any further headache. In his view, “men who have chosen bachelorhood as a lifestyle” are afflicted by women who “in the heart of a patriarchal society are looking for husbands for themselves… and see single men as potential husbands, and unfortunately, these single men are subjected to harassment and many forms of violence by our educated, modern women who lay claim to feminism.” It is not surprising that even BBC Persian did not agree with publishing this article[2]; after all, the BBC, regardless of its aims, sometimes makes sound judgments, and of course it is also not surprising that Sedanet, the reformist media outlet and the venue for publishing the profound opinions of the mostly single, philosophy-educated men of our generation, agreed to publish this article. According to Naraghi, “these single women consider single men as their share and their bachelorhood as a violation of their rights… These women first approach peacefully, indirectly, and coquettishly… and believe that these men are single because they have not yet met them! Therefore, they try to give these men the opportunity to see their beauties and perfections up close and with an appreciative eye, and to step forward before it is too late.” I swear to God, I have written Arash Naraghi’s views word for word and have not made them up myself. He continues, “When these women do not see the necessary enthusiasm in the other party, the methods become more direct and the signs more overt. Apparently, these women imagine that these men, due to immaturity and inexperience, cannot correctly read their signs of coquetry, or due to shyness and inexperience, cannot or do not know how to step forward. Therefore, they make the signs and innuendos more explicit and unveiled, to the point where they explicitly express interest in the other party and take the initiative themselves to pave the way for them to step forward… If that does not work, the stage of humiliation and provocation begins… Many women are rightly unfamiliar with the culture and etiquette of being rejected, [presumably, in Naraghi’s view, men are familiar with this kind of etiquette and culture!] and women’s threshold for tolerating a negative response is still low… and they try to respond with reciprocal humiliation and belittlement… the relationship turns violent.” What thuggish bullies these women have become! Naraghi continues: “Men are addressed by yesterday’s lovers and today’s enemies with statements such as: ‘Iranian or Eastern men are ungracious and lack the capacity for women to express interest in them,’ ‘You are a very selfish person,’ ‘I feel sorry for you that you are so rude,’ ‘I feel sorry for you that you do not recognize the value of love in life,’ ‘You, who understand nothing of love, why do you speak of love?’ ‘Do you have sexual dysfunction?’ ‘Are you homosexual?’” To be honest, I suspected that one of the reasons for men’s silence regarding revelations of sexual assault might be their concern about their own past relationships with women, and that they were probably silently reviewing their relationships with their “yesterday’s lovers and today’s enemies,” but I never imagined that silence would be broken by the publication of such a note. We were reading along, and Naraghi says, “In many cases, the matter even leads to harassment, threats, and violent abuse.” These words are like the things some of us say among ourselves about our “yesterday’s admirers and today’s strangers”; when we are fed up with the opposite sex.

From this point on, let me address the author of this note, Arash Naraghi, directly; because I do not consider the issue of such an article to be a social and public matter at all. To be honest, this text robs me of the ability to respond from any perspective beyond a friendly and personal one.

Yes, Mr. Naraghi, such things happen often. In your view, if a man is single, he has "chosen bachelorhood as his lifestyle," but a woman who is single, especially educated women and feminists, "see single men as potential husbands." Here, a larger social issue is at stake: marriage. Look, whether men and women in today's world agree with marriage or oppose it, the vast majority of them do not have the ability to marry or the conditions to form a shared life; they do not have the ability to detach from their paternal and maternal families and form an independent married life, for entirely clear economic reasons and relatively clear cultural reasons. This lifestyle, in many cases, is not a choice for either the single woman or the single man; it is a chic privilege you bestow upon yourself. For many, bachelorhood is not a choice; bachelorhood is a compulsion. Most single people live singly out of compulsion, and some single people can still admit that they are afraid of loneliness—loneliness is not their choice—and some of them try to find a helpmate, a companion, a friend, and a spouse. They do not hide their fear and failure behind the false slogan of "choosing the single lifestyle," and it is completely clear to them that "not everyone who shows them affectionate attention is going to become their spouse." In this note, you have a completely patriarchal and contemptuous gaze toward a woman who has studied as much as you have and gives herself the right to choose her lifestyle; you accuse her of ignorance and hypocrisy for being charming, for protesting, for being expressive, and for expressing interest in men. Trying to establish a friendly or emotional relationship, whether from a woman or a man, is a natural thing. What is unnatural is the gaze of individuals who, with misogynistic literature, say and act every day, and sometimes, like you, write that a single woman who tries to build a friendly or emotional relationship with a single man reeks of "al-nikah" and is looking for a husband! Before she even arrives, you cut off her feet; you close the doors of dialogue before they are opened; you state and write false presuppositions and stereotypes as if the man has no agency whatsoever; the man is the prophet Joseph, pursued by the adulterous Zuleikha, and her intention is unquestionably marriage and having a sexual relationship with the man.

On one hand, you consider us women who play the victim role, and on the other hand, you write that we violate your boundaries, harass you, and engage in verbal violence, threats, and humiliation. Don't you think that here, the one playing the victim role is probably not the woman in the story? You do not provide examples for your judgments, but my example is this very note, and based on this note, I write that you have moved heaven and earth on behalf of a handful of men with a very stereotypical mentality, not on behalf of all the men we know and with whom we live, discuss, collaborate, and progress every day with mutual respect. Such an entry point into the issue of sexual assault is a very weak and disappointing approach. This note destroys the possibility of mutual dialogue, especially between the women and men who are the specific audience of the article.

You referred to Forough Farrokhzad’s personal relationships and ask us how a “treacherous and sinful” woman like Forough Farrokhzad can be admired and serve as an inspiration to you? I will try to answer this question in plain language. Because besides you, other men and women also hold such judgments about Forough Farrokhzad. Recall the BBC Persian interview with Ebrahim Golestan about Forough Farrokhzad. It was sheer banality. More than fifty years after Forough’s death, we are still preoccupied with her personal and bedroom relationships. As if, after all this talk, we might ask, so what’s the news from the bedrooms of Shamloo, Akhavan, Nima, and other gentlemen? The patriarchal mind, when it imagines it is criticizing the patriarchal system and warning women complicit in the patriarchal system, is in fact a fervent accomplice of the anti-woman system. Reducing Forough to a treacherous, sinful, and corrupt woman does not work in this context. In her short life, Forough Farrokhzad gave the women of Iran a treasure that others, with thousands of cultural apparatuses, could neither give nor erase. She was the first woman to give voice to the suffering, pain, and sorrow of women and break the silence, something women today do by looking at their own history, by looking at Forough and those like Forough; they write their pains and sufferings, women speak. Our concern is not Forough’s relationship with the men she met in her short life. Forough said things that women had hidden in the recesses of their minds for hundreds of years. Forough Farrokhzad is inspiring because she had the capacity to confront her problems and pains, she did not label the sorrowful solitude that society imposed on her as a “personal choice,” she understood that something beyond our personal choice has afflicted us, women and men, with this long night. With her poems, she gave us the possibility to speak and not be afraid. Forough Farrokhzad’s legacy is more than the poetic treasure she left for all of us. Humiliating Forough Farrokhzad through her private relationships with others is childish, vulgar, and entirely irrelevant to the main issues of today’s world. We do not consider Forough Farrokhzad and other renowned women sacred, we do not make myths of them; what we respect and admire is Forough Farrokhzad herself; her “existence.” We honor Forough Farrokhzad, with all that she was, with all her mistakes, with all her genius, and with all her being. She had the ability to see suffering, the ability to express fear, and the ability to know herself in the most compassionate sense possible. She spoke in the most beautiful way possible, in the most magnificent language possible, she spoke the words of millions of women, she inscribed the suffering of being a woman among you and the corruption of the age. Neither you nor any other human beings are the owners, proprietors, or decision-makers of Forough Farrokhzad’s life. For a very clear reason, you cannot say and write such things because you have no knowledge of what transpired between Forough Farrokhzad and Ebrahim Golestan and Fakhri Golestan and the other people in her life; it is impossible for you to have knowledge, because both you, I, and all human beings can, at best, speak about our own relationships with another, and even then only from our own perspective and not the other’s. Speaking about the relationships of others with others is not proper; proper conduct is for us and you to sometimes take a beautiful bouquet of flowers to Forough Farrokhzad’s grave.

You must move beyond these fruitless polemics so that we can speak of something larger and more important; speak of what social relations and the agents of society have brought upon us. Speak of our fear of one another. Have you ever thought that the singleness we suffer from is the only path this society has placed before us? Have you thought that this singleness is also a commodity that has been imposed on us in the glittering guise of “personal choice and selective lifestyle”? You warn against falling into the stereotype of the “dominant male” and then, by bringing up the discussion of Forough’s relationships with men, you trap your audience in the stereotype of the “whore woman.” Have you ever pondered the source of the desire to crush and break influential women, something you do in this note? How do you see woman? As an ideal being in every respect? That is, a being that does not exist at all, that is, a woman who had better not be a feminist because it diminishes her attractiveness, because it disturbs your peace, and because you are incapable of understanding what it means to be a feminist. The dissemination of this view and these unjust judgments is a powerful arm for preserving the new patriarchal order. The proof is that from your readers, in the comments section of Sedanet, the sound of applause is heard.

This note demonstrates how one can begin a piece with general, universally accepted premises, then insert one’s grievances against a few women into the text and arrive at conclusions that are dangerous, regressive, androcentric, and reinforce single-gender intellectual spaces, incapable of understanding others and unable to engage in dialogue with women; and this text provides a clue to answering the question of how one can naturalize one’s own false presuppositions and justify, write about, act upon, and repeatedly interpret as ethical and wise the inability to communicate with women and the fear and intimidation of feminism; and this note shows how, with confused, incorrect, and imprecise phrases, by objecting to the efforts of some in the path of “hatred of men” (which is an illusory notion), one can become a promoter of “hatred of feminism” and a destroyer of the image of conscious, active women in society; and this note reveals the extent to which the Iranian intellectual or new thinker is confused and fear-stricken in confronting feminism and is unsettled by certain behaviors of women that are signs of their self-confidence and autonomy; and this note shows how men active in the field of thought in Iran seek excuses (in this case: we won’t marry you, don’t pursue us, thanks, ugh!) to not take women seriously, to play games, and to make the least effort to understand feminism; and this note raises the question: if the perspective of religious new thinking on women is so shallow and unintelligent, “how else can one take refuge in the suras of the broken-hearted messengers?”

With all this, Arash Naraghi’s article is not a malevolent text; it is a text devoid of thought. From the Constitutional Revolution onward, and even before that, we have a rich and valuable archive concerning the efforts of women and men to improve everyone’s lives. We have writings from women who were wise in their own way, from women and men who were feminists in their own way, and from women and men who were not feminists in their own way. By reading these texts, one can think and cease fearing feminism and intimidating feminists, and stop turning away from and marginalizing women. By reading the texts of feminist women and non-feminist women, by following women’s issues and the women’s rights movement, and by establishing an empathetic and entirely clear relationship with women, one can understand that we, regardless of our gender, are both chain-mates and comrades-in-arms. One can reach a mutual understanding, cease the unfairness, and not neglect what is more important.

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[1] Emphases are from Arash Naraghi.

[2] Arash Naraghi’s explanation in his note: I sent this note to the BBC website on September 7, 2020. The BBC website informed me on September 11 that the piece was “in the publication queue.” But on September 14, without any further explanation, they informed me that the publication of this piece had met with the editor’s opposition and would not be published.

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Source: Critique of Political Economy

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