Feminist terrorists/terrorist feminists : tracking the rise of the violent feminist threat

The global reverberations of shock induced by events such as the attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York and Washington are bound to produce extreme reactions. However, the response of icon of the North American religious right, Reverend Jerry Falwell, stood out as particularly intemperate. 1 In a Washington Post article of September 12, 2001, Falwell is reported as having seized the moment of the Al-Qaeda attacks as an opportunity to reprimand feminists, among other liberal civil liberties groups, for their indirect hand in 'God's punishment of America'. The article reads as follows: God gave U.S. 'what we deserve', Falwell says. Television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two of the most prominent voices of the religious right, said liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility for Tuesday's terrorist attacks because their actions have turned God's anger against America. 'God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve', said Falwell, appearing yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network's '700 Club.' ... We make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen' [my emphasis] (Harris 2001, C03). Since at least as far back as the emergence of radical feminism in the late 1960s, 'feminism', in its various guises, has been a thorn in the side of the North American Christian political right and has consequently inspired many an extreme reactionary comment. As outrageous as Falwell's remarks may be, what is significant for my purposes is the explicit connection they draw between the occurrence of terrorism on United States' soil, and the circulation and institutionalisation of feminist principles and practices within dominant North American culture. In Falwell's formulation, feminism is, however indirectly, causally connected to, and responsible for, terrorism.