Week 4: Colonialism, Feminism, and Islam

Anmol Singh

This week's readings provide insight into the ways in which Western discourses around Islam are highly gendered and result in the justification for violences as a part of modern day ‘civilizing’ projects; further, these critiques work to recreate colonial era power dynamics by continuing to normalize Western values as unquestionably universal, democratic, and civilized with Arab and Muslim communities as representative of everything that is in complete opposition. The importance of a gendered analysis of such discourses are especially relevant in a post-9/11/2001 era of heightened Islamophobia which has been renewed through the lens of white, liberal, Western feminisms. One need look no further for evidence of the gendered nature of post-9/11/2001 brand of Islamophobia than to a speech given by the former first lady herself, Laura Bush, as cited by Abu-Lughod; “The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.” (Abu-Lughod, 784, 2002) In short, “The War on Terror” era in which we find ourselves, as well as its supporting rhetoric, rest upon foundations of Orientalism and Islamophobia; these widespread and unquestioned ideologies have created Muslim and Arab communities as inherently violent and misogynistic, thus, justifying the waging of an illogical war, where the intersections of cultural imperialism, in regards to questions of gender, become the guise behind which the United States continues in a long tradition of militarism within Arab countries.

Both pieces also work to highlight that women who choose to veil and women who do not veil are not groups that are homogenous, further, these groups are not in opposition with each other or able to be split into easily digestible oppressed/ liberated, conservative/ liberal binaries. Abu-Lughod makes mention of this in her piece “Selective Repudiation as a Dynamic of Postcolonial Cultural Politics”; “...while confirming that unveiled women were more feminist than their veiled counterparts on matters of women’s education, work, political participation, and rights in marriage, showed that on most issues the majority of women shared what could be called feminist goals. The margin of difference between the veiled and unveiled groups was often only slight.” (Abu-Lughod, 252, 1998) Further in her piece “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?”, Abu-Lughod states; ““...veiling itself must not be confused with, or made to stand for, lack of agency.” (Abu-Lughod, 786, 2002) In conclusion,  it becomes clear throughout both of these readings that Western discourse and its obsession with practices of veiling have more to do with a historical process of picking-and-choosing to make either hypervisible that which can serve the agenda of Empire and a tradition of imperialism and invisibilization that which doesn’t neatly line up with said agenda.

Discussion Question: What approaches can we take to continue to unlearn notions of cultural superiority disguised through universality? What can be understood as a universal value? Is universality in complete opposition to plurality, or a multitude of answers and truths?