European feminists are in a bind.
The current crisis over North African and Middle Eastern migrants’ violence toward women is proving that the PC culture they have so carefully constructed is cracking around them, forcing into conflict two of their sacred principles: Blame whatever it is on the white man and, in cases of rape, always believe the woman over the man.
The latest is the high-profile sexual-assault case in which a 13-year-old Russian-German girl claimed to have been kidnapped by migrant men and raped.
She now admits she made the story up.
The alleged rape had become an international incident. As the Guardian reported: “A Russian-German community group staged a protest, supported by the Pegida-related Bärgida movement. The far-right National Democratic party also demonstrated in Marzahn.
“The mood was exacerbated by a report on Russian state TV, in which the girl’s relatives claimed her allegations were not being investigated.”
As a pillar of the progressive movement, the feminists want to be on the side of the refugees flooding the EU from the Middle East and Northern Africa. After all, the refugees are an oppressed minority group, and therefore should be on the feminist team fighting the Old World’s white patriarchy.
But the masses of refugees include lots of men. Lots.
In fact, an estimated 75 percent of refugees to the European Union last year were men, and they weren’t exactly keen on fighting for women’s rights.
In fact, most of these guys really like the patriarchy, and a patriarchy far more aggressively anti-woman than anything privileged Western feminists have encountered in the liberal enclaves of Berlin and Brussels.
Attacks on women by groups of immigrant men on New Year’s Eve (most notably in Cologne, Germany, but also in numerous other EU cities) were headline-making, but hardly the first of their kind.
Reports of sexual assault in and around the refugee centers were only quietly acknowledged in the press and political class since they conflicted with the narrative that the EU could, at a steep cost, absorb millions of refugees looking to escape civil war.
Liberal feminists struggled to respond: Some chose to ignore the refugee angle entirely and just blame all men, such as one Canadian feminist who suggested a curfew for all men was in order, writing, “You’ve had your chance, bepenised ones. And you’ve blown it.”
In a debate in the German newspaper Der Spiegel, Alice Schwarzer (described as “the grand dame of German feminism”) bravely acknowledged the unique problems created by this wave of immigration, while Anne Wizorek, representing Germany’s younger generation of feminists, complained about the issue of sexual violence becoming a political tool.
“Now that men with immigration backgrounds have committed sexual assaults,” she wrote, “it is being instrumentalized in order to stigmatize them as a group.”
She added: “I am not denying that the patriarchal structures are stronger in some countries than in Germany. But the core of the problem is not Islam, it is patriarchy.”
Of course, violence against women is nothing new.
But certainly anyone concerned with women’s rights ought to recognize something is going terribly wrong when prominent politicians, such as the female mayor of Cologne, are suggesting women should just keep an arms-length from men in public spaces — a form of victim-blaming that ought to have feminists up in arms.
All of which is why the false Russian-rape story was so difficult for feminists: It helps their position on immigration, but drives a stake through the heart of the assumption that women should always be believed and that they wouldn’t dare lie about something as intimately destructive as rape.
Of course, there’s a way out for feminists: Refocus on the core principle of defending women’s equal rights and fair treatment. This requires recognizing that the West — including Western men — have actually come a long way in protecting women from physical harm and enabling their full participation in the public sphere.
This progress can’t be sacrificed in the name of multiculturalism. Newcomers must accept Western values, including women’s equality.
Feminists might prefer the days of fighting small slights against Western women, such as the brave push in Sweden for a gender-neutral pronoun. Yet there are cultures where women are truly second-class citizens.
Now many adherents of those cultures are heading West. Someone needs to be ready to speak out on behalf of the concept of women’s fundamental equality.
Let’s hope feminists, after a long hiatus, are once again up to that task.
Carrie Lukas is the managing director of the Independent Women’s Forum, and vice president for policy of the Independent Women’s Voice.