Feb 19, 2004
The mid-February birthday of suffragist icon Susan B. Anthony is a reminder of the long struggle for women’s right to vote, starting with the 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration and culminating with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. It’s an appropriate time to reflect on American women’s subsequent social and economic advances, as well as consider how these gains may be endangered by millions of immigrants whose cultures do not share values of gender equality.
What would feminist founders like Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton make of women on American streets today wearing Islamic veils? Surely the suffragists would be shocked at the predominance of third-world immigration now, particularly of barbaric misogynous cultures that have been welcomed in the name of “diversity.” Certainly the early feminists would recognize that admitting millions from extreme woman-hating societies threatens both the rights and safety of women. Yet the effects of this policy have been largely ignored by today’s feminists and are even foolishly celebrated as part of trendy multiculturalism.
Immigrant women wearing Islamic veils send a message that oppressing women is an acceptable cultural expression. But there are means of control that go deeper than clothing. One such is the practice of child abuse and torture known as female genital mutilation (FGM), in which a little girl’s private parts are brutally cut away; in 1996, Congress found it necessary to outlaw FGM in America because of increasing diversity.
In October 2002, Somalis in a Kenyan refugee camp learned that FGM was illegal in the United States, so dozens rushed to castrate their little girls in advance of coming to this country. The US government then considered banning Somali refugee families because they continued the barbaric practice, though authorities later relented. According to the World Health Organization, the prevalence of FGM in Somalia is 98 percent. Still, multiculturalism extremists believe that Somali culture somehow enriches America.
Despite Americans’ common assumption that immigrants somehow adapt automatically to our culture, today’s newcomers largely retain their traditions, which is not surprising since academia, professional ethnic advocates and much of the press assert that assimilation is an outdated, even racist, concept. Keep your culture, they insist, even though cultural balkanization threatens social cohesion. And because many immigrants have indeed kept their old ways, they have brought honor killing, arranged marriage for very young girls, sexual slavery and other objectionable customs.
Another sign of nonassimilation is the continuing practice of sex-selection abortion by Indian and Chinese immigrants. The New York Times reported (8/15/01) on fetal scanning clinics that pitch ads toward Indians reading “Desire a Son?” and “Choosing the sex of your baby.” The Asian contempt for females has so skewed sex ratios in both India and China that millions of young men cannot find women to marry.
In a direct confrontation between the rights of women versus immigrants, women often lose. It’s quite common for women to be insulted, propositioned and worse by “day laborers,” those illegal aliens who hang around lumber stores to be picked up for untaxed manual jobs. Open-borders advocates repeat the tiresome line that the aliens “only come here to work,” but overlook how those foreigners find time to threaten women while looking for unlawful jobs. It’s disgraceful that these insults are accepted as a normal component of day worker situations which are illegal to begin with.