. . . maybe Americans, male and female, are just weary of being told it's their historic mission to straighten out some other part of the world. Especially that part of the world. This, too, is a cost of Bush's presumption: now that we've wasted blood, treasure and credibility on his war, we would rather try taking care of our own problems for a while. Tens of millions of American women, and their children, have no health care insurance. Zero. Are you so sure they should be spending their time and energy agitating about the bizarre laws and customs of a faraway nation they have no power to change?

Here here! Excellent!

Of course, you take a perfectly legitimate position here. But... let's follow Anne's analogy. Should we have kept out of South African disputes? Or was that, you know, different?

The South African example was different in that we weren't dependent on the South Africans for our economic welfare. We had the option of doing without their trade without destroying our own economy. Even so, if I recall correctly, getting the Reagan administration to sign on to an anti-apartheid platform was no easy sell (Mandela's ties to the Commies, y'know). What I want to know is why Bush and his State Department aren't protesting this crap, since, unlike NOW, he has the power to do more than write strident editorials. And once he does and has started another oil shock, then maybe you conservatives can justifiably criticize the feminist movement.

practically a third-world country, isn't it?

I'm sort of surprised at your comment, Fritz. Since the move from cultural assimilation to multiculturalism, the religious persecution of women by Muslims is also a problem within Western countries.

I mean, even such champions of liberal social values as Christopher Hitchens have come down hard on the Dutch for their inexplicable capitulation to Muslim interests in the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Not that health insurance isn't important - it is. But by what calculus should feminists (or other human rights activists) be setting their priorities?

Gender equality (much like other human-rights based ideologies) is not, and should not be, limited to one country alone. The Iraq war is a red herring in this debate, as guns alone have never facilitated a cultural change.

But you're right. Not considering the welfare of people outside our own borders IS part of the reason why there has been little response.

He's talking about the arrogance of attempting to solve problems around the world when we can't even take care of those at home (and, I suspect, is implying that such a focus constitutes a red-herring, by which feminists at home can be distracted from topics that the paternal hegemony here at home finds more irritating). The issue of health insurance is huge, and ought to be a much bigger priority among not just feminists, but people interested in the promotion of human rights.

I imagine feminists in the US will be more concerned about the rights of Muslim women when there are more Muslim women involved in US feminist activism. Not that this makes it ok or anything.

Frankly, if we're going to be alleging egregious priorities, we really ought to be talking about the Congo, shouldn't we?