Back to the Der Spiegel article on the brutal "honor killing" of Hatin Surucu:

At a memorial vigil held a few weeks after Hatin's death, a mere 120 people showed up. Almost none were Turkish. In fact, most were from a lesbian and gay organization that -- outraged by the crime -- organized the make-shift ceremony.

Where were the feminists?

Whether in Germany or America, I'm still baffled by feminist silence over honor killings, and I'm wondering whether attributing it solely to anti-Americanism might be overlooking a more pragmatic reason.

If we assume that feminist theoreticians aren't complete morons (for the sake of argument, OK?), surely they must understand the following two basic concepts:

I'm wondering whether the war with the West is the key to understanding. Might it be that many feminists would privately acknowledge the horrors of Islamic patriarchy? Yet because Western "capitalist patriarchy" has been enemy number one for decades, they now see an opportunity to sit back on the sidelines and watch two enemies battle it out. Isn't this is in line with the basic principle of never interfering when two enemies go to war? Even if the West is seen as the more powerful of the two, the reason for sitting out a war while enemies battle it out is that both enemies will inevitably be weakened by it.

Supporting the West would, in feminist terms, require acquiescence to the innate superiority of capitalist patriarchy, and, seen this way, any victory by the West would be seen as defeating feminism.

If feminists are thinking this way, they are very wrong. While women are excluded from all male activities under fundamentalist Islam, in the West they serve in the military. Two have been Secretaries of State. The next presidential election is shaping up to be a woman running against a woman.

War between patriarchies? Hell no!

If anything, we're in a war which would protect (if not advance) feminist gains. Silence by American feminists about the horrors of Islamic patriarchy hurts their own cause.

It also makes them increasingly irrelevant.