Open letter to a misogynist from a member of the weaker sex

Dear Abdeslam Bouhani,

Your book, Sauvez la femme sauvez le monde. 2010. Les Editions Maghrébines. Aïn Sebaâ, Morocco, is terrible. So, so terrible. For so many reasons.

Let’s start with the title. While waiting for friends to arrive at Mohammed V airport last July, I came across your turd of a book. The title thrilled me, which is perhaps my own mistake, what with the cliché and all. But still, I mean, what feminist wouldn’t be excited about a book title about saving the world through saving women! Alright, sure, it IS inherently problematic to frame women as ‘needing’ to be saved. Nonetheless, the title had me thinking, ‘what a food for thought, what a great idea to make the title both provocative AND possibly even make it the focus of a larger debate about women as empowered instead of women as being ‘in need’ of liberation or whatever.’

But no. No, no, no. Your book is not about women. You hate women, whom you repeatedly refer to as the weaker sex.

Bouhani asserts that women, as the ‘weaker sex,’ are particularly vulnerable to the pressure of advertising, as they struggle with libidinous weakness (98) [way to go all Old Testament, guy]. The uneven way in which advertising affects women motivates unhealthy behavior in them stemming from narcissism (such as bulimia) and sows discord instead of cohesion between men and women. His analysis is not only heteronormative, but frightfully essentialist. For him, somehow women’s desire to elevate her social position is perverse and narcissistic. Bouhani further describes women narcissists, with ‘profound megalomania’ and ‘immense interest in themselves, their appearances, and their images’ (99). Bouhani criticizes women for complaining about violence against them and not being accountable for the violence that WOMEN perpetrate against men by exposing their bodies. Furthermore, women enjoy suffering, and suffering is a part of their nature. The proof is the pain of childbirth, which women willingly and enthusiastically repeat over and over again (101-102).

I am too traumatized to say any more on this point, because your misogyny pissed me off so bad last night at 3 AM that my roommate and I had a taut, heated discussion on women abusing men. Shoot me in the face. Roommate—don’t worry, we’re cool.

Your book is about railing against advertising, without offering any prescriptions. The suggestions you make are hollow and shallow at the same time—thoughtful solutions require feasible plans with explanations about how to achieve them. Instead you offer up commentary about the way the world ought to be. Anyway, it’s a relief that you don’t burden the reader with the substance of how to achieve a ‘world according to you.’ It’d be awful.

Even though the title implies that the book is about women, women almost don’t factor in at all, but for the one chapter. Otherwise you your silliness in no way applies an explicit gender analysis or critical commentary about how women fit in. Useless.

While you condemn advertising in all forms for the ways in which it victimizes the world, you, like so many others, totally waste the opportunity to talk about how the greater interconnection of individuals across society and the growing affordability of access to new technologies are improving the lives of the poor, marginalized, and voiceless of the world. But why would you?

Your real problem is with the ubiquity of images of women’s bodies in all postures. Your title to ‘save women [by] sav[ing] the world’ is totally divorced from the notion of equality between the sexes. Rather, the title, and the analysis within the book, refers to saving men from the ‘abuse’ perpetrated against them by the widespread use of women’s bodies in advertising. By sparing men this abuse, women too will be spared. Fucking ridiculous.

Also, you SUCK at citing. Absolutely, miserably fail at it. Your spelling and punctuation also are sad. Why didn’t you edit your turd?

And finally, I hate you and your turd for annoying me so much that I write this letter when I could be working on my dissertation chapter on gender relations in Morocco. At least you didn’t make me barf by adding some sanctimonious religious facet to your nonsense.



Ugh….fine, I will admit that your fondness for Marxism is charming, and your way-too-brief coverage of the impoverished is insightful…but I must temper even this paltry praise with more criticism. Where is gender in all this? Where, I ask you? You seem to believe what you wrote about the new matriarchal society. Now that IS fresh! I want more of that, even if it is total fantasy.

And the bit at the very end about replacing sex in advertising with laughter is precious. But your book is still crap. I wish I had stolen it instead of having contributed financially to your inanity. Now here is something to make you smile: why isn’t turd in the MS Word dictionary?