Tuesday, February 12, 2008

terrorists have caught onto our sexism

Now that terrorists have realized that our culture just assumes that women are innocuous and maternal, "terrorists increasingly favor using women as suicide bombers to thwart security and draw attention to their causes, a new FBI-Department of Homeland Security assessment concludes."

Why would ever expect a woman to be a terrorist? Culturally ingrained sexism subconsciously posits women as the loving counterpart to men. Men are big and bad, women are loving and sweet and tame the big bad man's heart.

Truthfully, such a report can also be propaganda in fueling support for the war against terror. OMG, they are sacrificing the women! Those animals! This is similar to the way that war on terror was framed as feminist; save the oppressed veiled women!

Sorry, Dubya is not a feminist. Or a humanist. But whether or not use of women as suicide bombers is a legitimate increasing danger or not, the truth remains that a female suicide bomber evokes stronger emotional reactions than a male, because of what we believe women are--and what we believe they aren't. Men.

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