“Me Too” is not an invention of Meryl Streep. When Simone de Beauvoir spoke of the “other sex”, she meant only the white woman. British suffragettes were actively involved in colonialism. Lawyer, human rights activist and author Rafia Zakaria holds up a mirror to mainstream Western feminism in her book Against White Feminism. And the view leads into a deep abyss: racism, classism, exceptionalism, capitalism, neoliberalism flourish within a collective movement that has taken up the cause of anti-discrimination. On Wednesday, March 24, Zakaria will present her book, which was published in German by Hanser, at an event at the Amerikahaus; the author is connected digitally from the USA. In her essay, Zakaria combines the autobiographical with the structural level. At the age of 17 she came to the USA from Pakistan as part of an arranged marriage, studied law against her husband’s resistance, left him, fled to a women’s shelter with her child, became an expert in immigration law and sat on the board of directors of Amnesty International USA, where she also experienced exclusion as a non-white.
Rafia Zakaria, “Against White Feminism”, Wed., March 24, 7 p.m., digital reading by the Amerikahaus Munich on the YouTube channel www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD_cwgxkGA4
