How does the gender aristocracy benefit from oppressing Third World wimmin?
Kanada and England recently received the grade of "F" on sex slavery and sex trafficking from a report that journalists noted March 2nd.(1) Benjamin Perrin reportedly said:
What Canada has typically done is detain these victims without medical care, then deport them. It's a practice that we've seen in some authoritarian and despotic countries and it has no place in a civilized, just society like our own.(1)
The implication that the rest of the world is uncivilized is typical in imperialist countries, and it's an example of how gender serves neo-colonial purposes in most alleged feminist discussion.
There seems to be universal agreement that the leading cause of sex slavery in rich countries is closed borders. The National Organization for Women (NOW) admitted as follows about the United $tates's importation of 50,000 sex slaves annually:
Traffickers use a variety of methods-from physical force to tranquilizing drugs-to make these women prostitute themselves. Most often, though, traffickers use powerful threats, telling the victims that if they try to run away their families will be harmed or that U.S. authorities will capture, torture and deport them. The women are often subjected to beatings and even forced abortions.(2)
The U.S. Government has made a major point of imprisoning more so-called "immigration offenders." "The number of immigration offenders serving federal prison sentences increased almost ninefold between 1985 and 2000– from 1,593 to 13,676 adult men and women—more than twice the rate of increase for the entire federal prison population,"(3) according to the Government itself.
Here lies the problem for the National Organization for Women. NOW's very name implies that it is about dividing wimmin internationally. This is nowhere more evident than in issues where the world's most powerful country engages in war and allows sex trafficking. In the Philippines there is a nationalist mass organization for wimmin, but it has no agenda of divide-and-conquer and more importantly, it could only enact one by becoming a lackey of u.$. imperialism.
Here in the united $tates, it is intuitive for females to use feminism as a guise to attack other wimmin and divide the world's wimmin. We have problems like this in our Marxist movement too. Starting from the vantage point of the international proletariat and then analyzing conditions country-by-country has proved too much for those Marxists who find it easier to slide into nationalism. Likewise, NOW has to decide whether it is really a "Nationalist Organization for Whites," because wimmin are an international group, no matter how hard and challenging that truth may be. NOW can be a group struggling for higher white unity or it can start from the internationalist vantage point.
What NOW is doing is drawing connections, but only in a neo-colonial way, not an overall way. NOW draws the connection to Iraq, but it does so piecemeal in such a way as to become an in-house critic of a colonial constitution writing process.
NOW has also drawn an advanced connection to immigration and the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act allows deportation of people to places where they will be in danger.
Obviously, this and other parts of the Act pose a serious threat to battered immigrant women who are fleeing violence by seeking asylum in the U.S. NOW and other anti-violence groups have worked over the years to improve immigration law and regulations to protect battered immigrant women.(4)
It's important to understand how this plays out. Pakistan's president recently accused feminists of degrading Pakistan's image in order to get green cards. So the net effect of selectively bringing forward stories of international abuse of wimmin is neo-colonialism. It will always be a tool of the imperialists seeking to build a war climate against this or that country; even though wimmin are battered pretty much everywhere in the world. Even where neo-colonialism does not contribute to a war climate, the State Department and INS use the immigration issue to divide Third World people, by selectively favoring this or that nation for more immigration and more visa rights.
The way to fight Pakistan's president is not by becoming indignant but by changing NOW's demands. If the border were open, there could be no issue. There could be no elaborate ruses to obtain green cards. The United $tates would become one sure place where wimmin internationally could flee if they needed to. So if NOW wants to alleviate the conditions of wimmin internationally, the best thing NOW can do is provide Third World wimmin with greater "choice," choice of place to live. This will also have the effect of increasing wimmin's leverage in their home countries.
What we need to do is change sex slavery to dating. Here it is important to raise the idea of "mail-order brides" to bring out why pseudo-feminism never gets anywhere. Some pseudo-feminists have opposed mail-order brides out of nationalism.
The same people who want "choice" in the reproductive sphere and an absence of government in intimate decisions want government interference in dating "choice." The current law is opposed to dating "choice." It allows migrants visas to the united $tates only if there is already a marital engagement, a practice that itself is going to tend to promote false weddings and sex slavery-like conditions. If NOW is for reproductive choice, it should also support dating choice for men and wimmin regardless of G/L/B/T. When pseudo-feminists oppose "mail-order brides" the wrong way, they contribute to the conditions of illegality that allow for coercion of wimmin. If the borders were open, wimmin internationally would be taking fewer risks on a lot of questions, and that is to leave aside the threat of deportation or imprisonment at the hands of rich country governments.
The gender aristocracy opposes dating "choice" for Third World people, because the gender aristocracy is really about becoming men in the united $tates. The gender aristocracy opposes open borders and only makes exceptions where exceptions advance neo-colonialism--the same way Bu$h opposes stoning in Iran. We have the same thing in class, where the labor aristocracy restricts the border in order to have a monogamous relationship with imperialist employers.
While we think it is fine for a Filipino feminist organization to point out the benefits of not going to the united $tates, feminists in the united $tates should favor dating choice internationally. When pseudo-feminsts selectively tell tales of their disgust for "mail-order brides," they usually do something counterproductive to the problem and end up supporting white nationalism. The solution is not to restrict dating choice to both males and females within u.$. borders but to broaden it for both groups regardless of G/L/B/T. It's time to recognize that certain forms of opposition to "mail-order brides" are a disguised cattiness, a cattiness divisive of wimmin as a group internationally. If the borders were totally open, there would not be "mail order brides" anymore.
The difference between a nationalist and a feminist is that a feminist takes the overall perspective in a thorough way. Feminists do not use wimmin's oppression selectively to divide wimmin by nationality. That is the job of the male chauvinists. Feminists require the international unity of wimmin achieved through painstaking study and action based on conditions in each country.
There is a strange thing going on where oppressor nation people are acknowledging the causes of sexual slavery but failing to take the overall stand required to deal with it. Right now only "extremists" at MIM are unequivocally and totally for open borders, and that is another reason MIM says it is the only feminist organization inside u.$. borders. There should be more feminist organizations. Hopefully we have made it clear that there is only neo-colonialism, not real feminism without the demand for totally open borders.
Notes:
1. http://winnipegsun.com/News/Canada/2006/03/02/1469076-sun.html
2. Worldwide Tragedy: U.S. Not Immune to Sexual Slavery
by Jennifer Wright, Publications Intern
http://www.now.org/nnt/summer-2000/slavery.html
3. "IMMIGRATION LAW PROSECUTIONS DOUBLE DURING 1996-2000,"
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/iofc00pr.htm
4. http://www.now.org/issues/right/12-17-05patriot.html