Do Women Really Need Saving? Critiquing Western Feminisms 1 Colonization

In Fatima Gailani's article "Do Women Really Need Saving?", she talks about the cultural differences of Islam and the War of Terrorism.  Why do we think Muslim women need saving. Are we saving them to ensure them better lives? To be like us Americans? To end the war between Afghanistan and the united states? Reading this article, my first impression was that feminists wanted to "save" Muslim women because they are weak and view America as their savior against abusive men. In 1906, there is a collection of documents written by Christian missionaries. They claimed that it was their duty to liberate Muslims from sexual abuse, oppression, seclusion, etc. There was a quote in the document stating that Muslim women will "never cry for themselves, for they are down under the  yolk of centuries of oppression" Relating back to Chandra Mohanty's readings, we viewed Muslim women as third world who were oppressed uneducated, restrained from domesticated duties.

However, we failed to understand cultural differences. In the article, Fantima mentioned that some Muslim women refused help from American feminists because they viewed Iraq as a country making significant gains. in their minds, they refused to come to the U.S. and become "americanized" with the price of forgetting their way of life. and language.