Daily Dose: 107

Feminism in 3D: Defy, Disobey, Disrupt

Logo: Sheyam Ghieth

White people in the U.S. love to post before/after pictures from Iran and Afghanistan to show how zealotry can stamp itself on women’s bodies. “It can happen here!” many such posts warn. As if it hasn’t happened already. If 1979 was momentous for Afghanistan–the year of the Soviet invasion–and Iran–the year of its revolution–then it was momentous too for the U.S.--the year that the Moral Majority was formed. That white American Christian political organization, associated with the Christian Right and the Republican Party, was instrumental in mobilizing conservative and right wing Christians and turning them into a political force–the political force that has succeeded in bringing the U.S. to where it is today, with Roe v Wade overturned and more zealotry by the day. And always remember the white supremacy at its core. There are no pictures of what women in the U.S. looked like before the Moral Majority “revolution.” to compare with how different they look like now, to gauge the ways it has engraved its zealotry on the bodies of women, so it is easier to ignore or downplay that influence because is not as obvious as the ways that the ayatollahs in Iran or the Taliban in Afghanistan have stamped their zealotry on their respective countries. Pictures or not, “over there” is “over here.”