Sommers notes:
The subjection of women in Muslim societies--especially in Arab nations and in Iran--is today very much in the public eye. Accounts of lashings, stonings, and honor killings are regularly in the news, and searing memoirs by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi have become major best-sellers. One might expect that by now American feminist groups would be organizing protests against such glaring injustices, joining forces with the valiant Muslim women who are working to change their societies. This is not happening.
If you go to the websites of major women's groups, such as the National Organization for Women, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the National Council for Research on Women, or to women's centers at our major colleges and universities, you'll find them caught up with entirely other issues, seldom mentioning women in Islam. During the 1980s, there were massive demonstrations on American campuses against racial apartheid in South Africa. There is no remotely comparable movement on today's campuses against the gender apartheid prevalent in large parts of the world.
. . . One reason is that many feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism and find it very hard to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. They are far more comfortable finding fault with American society for minor inequities (the exclusion of women from the Augusta National Golf Club, the "underrepresentation" of women on faculties of engineering) than criticizing heinous practices beyond our shores. The occasional feminist scholar who takes the women's movement to task for neglecting the plight of foreigners is ignored or ruled out of order.
This is a major, detailed article that deserves bookmarking. Sommers goes on to show how in American feminist academic circles the Taliban's treatment of women is equated with the views of Focus on the Family. She also discusses the rise of Islamic feminist groups that push for the dignity of women without destroying the family or denigrating the opposite sex and religion. There is now, for example, WISE - " Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity". Sommers says of the various subgroups composing WISE:
They are all vehemently opposed to such practices as forced marriages, honor killings, genital cutting, child marriage, and wife-beating. They are passionately dedicated to the educational, economic, legal, and political advancement of women. The feminism that is quietly surging in the Muslim world is quite different from its contemporary counterpart in the United States. Islamic feminism is faith-based, family-centered, and well-disposed towards men. This is feminism in its classic and most effective form, as students of women's emancipation know
Don't look for much support from American feminists. I repeat, this article is truly informative and important reading.