Still Pistof, Still Fact Free

Atrios points to this disingenuous response to Katha Pollitt from Nick "Who's Your Daddy" Kristof, self-appointed Saviour of Third World Women. Here are some points to ponder:

1. Pistof doesn't address the most important new point in The Nation article, which, not surprisingly, he also doesn't link to. If the Feminist Majority Foundation is "AWOL" on the issue of sex trafficking, as Pistof claims, why did Pistof's assistant "spend hours" on the telephone with the FMF, discussing the FMF's activities on the issue, as Pollitt claims? (Note that Christine Cupaiuolo reports that the NYT edited that salient fact out of a letter from FMF President Eleanor Smeal which was published in the paper.) If you wanted to know, say, the details of the Dannelly Air Base in the early 1970s, would you spend hours on the phone with George Bush?

2. Kristof also dodges the criticism by changing the issue. In his column, he said that the Bush Administration had "led the way" on the issue, and that "Conservative Christians have called on Mr. Bush to do more," while feminist organizations were "complacent" and "shamefully lackadaisical" on the issue. Now Pistof drops the comparison, and simply says that "mainstream feminist" groups are provincial for not focusing more on gender-based discrimination abroad. But "mainstream" Christian conservatives in the U.S. and the Bush Administration have focused much more on their domestic agenda of outlawing abortion and gay marriage, prayer in schools, etc. than they have on sex trafficking (or genital mutilation, bride burning, etc.) in the Third World. If Pistof was honest, he'd be writing "[w]hy should a conservative religious agenda put more effort on banning gay marriage and pornography than on millions of children of God around the world who are denied education, health care or even life itself?" Or at least he'd admit that his original comparison was dishonest and disgusting.

3. Pistof then says that NOW is "a bit like a civil rights organization in New York in the 1960's saying: 'We're basically a New York organization with a local agenda, so we won't worry about the civil rights struggle in the south.'" Ignoring the dubious claim that New York State was a civil rights paradise in the 1960's, if one to were use Pistof's standard, one would criticize the 60s civil rights activists for focusing on the American South because there were places on the globe with fewer freedoms and poorer education, health care and living conditions than those available to African-Americans in Selma or Birmingham. And, of course, American feminists might be able to devote more time supporting the causes of their foreign sisters if the Bush administration and the religious right weren't devoting most of their time to denying reproductive rights and civil rights here at home.

4. As always, the real subject of any Pistof writing is how wonderful Pistof is. Pistof chides Pollitt (who he won't stoop to name) for not being like him and "actually going" or "actually traveling" to foreign lands and meeting women who are abused. Maybe Pollitt can afford such a trip, even if she can't get the New York Times to fund it, as Pistof did. But most American feminists don't have an underwriter or the spare cash (and time and lack of other obligations) for such an adventure. And he again pats himself on the back for "rescuing" the two Cambodian women with cold, hard cash, even though he previously told his readers that they shouldn't try to do the same thing. Only a worthy like Pistof is allowed that special privilege.