The culture-clash narrative allows racism to masquerade as feminism

Evidence

The United State’s ‘war on terror’ and its inextricable links to American support of Israel have converged to produce a particular geopolitical terrain in the post-9/11 period that has enabled blatant racism to be articulated in the name of feminism. As I will show, what binds seemingly disparate strands of this political position together and provides its coherency is the notion of ‘culture clash’: the West, Jews included, are caught up in a violent clash with the Islamic world; the clash is cultural in origin; Islam is everything the West is not. Furthermore, as fatally pre-modern, tribal, non-democratic, and religious, the barbarism of Islam is principally evident in the treatment of women in Muslim communities. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 197

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clearly lays out the components of the culture-clash thesis: cultural origin, Islam as West’s negation, barbarism evidenced by women’s treatment.
• SEED: Potential essay: the genealogy of ‘culture clash’ as an explanatory device that lets gender inequality become proof of civilizational inferiority rather than a structural failing.
• XREF: connects to: Liberal imperialism softened its racism by putting women at the helm. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 488; Lowered expectations toward black women’s feminism is itself a racist patronizing act — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 204