Men Can't Make Decisions For Women, But Jews Can't Decide What's Antisemitic
By Linda Sarsour, women's rights activist
The stubborn patriarchy that all but rules our society wants to control women's bodies and what women are allowed to wear, and they insist on making these determinations without consulting women, the people who are most affected by those determinations. My allies and I in this fight will not rest until women make the decisions that affect women. On the other hand, it's dishonest for Jews to tell me what's antisemitic because they're just trying to fit public discourse to their agenda, and that's unacceptable.
Threats to ban traditional Islamic dress, the risk of a conservative overturning of legal abortions, and myriad legislative or administrative efforts to curtail access to birth control - all these phenomena persist among groups of men who feel threatened by empowered women. But we will be disempowered no longer - the men who effectively rule our lives must give way to the female leaders of the present and future - no man controls my destiny! At the same time, don't let any Jews - certainly not any Zionist ones - tell you what constitutes antisemitism. Only an outsider can be trusted to bring a sober perspective to such a fraught subject.
Women have come a long way. From the extension of the franchise to women a hundred years ago to the feminist revolution of the 1960's and beyond, it has been a constant, uphill, sometimes disheartening battle. But we persevere despite the setbacks. We came within a few hundred thousand votes of having the first woman president in US history! The fact that we fell short should only spur us to further action, because next time, we can close that gap! A thinking person with a sense of history might be tempted here to invoke the example of the Jews, who fought to reestablish a sovereign state after thousands of years of displacement and persecution, but you can't trust thinking people with a sense of history because they're in league with the Jews. Don't let them deprive you of the willful ignorance that goes with opposing Jewish sovereignty!
The hypocrisy of our opponents never ceases to amaze me. They would smear us all with the charge of antisemitism - which, as we all know, is a smoke screen to prevent reasoned discussion of collective Jewish Israeli perfidy - rather than allow us a say in governing our own lives. They would even distract you by pointing out that I insist they not decide for Muslim women what suits Muslim women best while arrogating for myself the authority to decide what Muslim women want. But I AM a Muslim woman.
But the Jews, no, they're not allowed to decide what suits them. It's too dangerous.