Week 5 Reading

I really appreciated this week's readings as an objective analysis of feminism and Islam without saying that Muslim women are either oppressed or autonomous. For example, in "Unholy Matrimony? Feminism, Orientalism, and the Possibility of Double Critique," Juliet A. Williams, presents both sides of the temporary marriage debate instead of arguing for or against either argument. She wrote that in her personal experience with Ali, she "found [herself] toggling between images of temporary wives as pawns of a state-sanctioned sex industry on the one hand and as liberated sexual free agents on the other hand" (Williams 616). Williams goes on to discuss the ways in which the media portrays opposing views on topics such as temporary marriage.

Saba Mahmoud also focused on the bigger picture when she wrote, "My intention here is not to question the profound transformation that the liberal discourse of freedom and individual autonomy has enabled in women's lives around the world," (Mahmoud 13). Instead, Mahmoud defines her own ideas of positive and negative freedom, and leaves the application of those definitions mostly up for interpretation.

Instead on dwelling on the truth of western perceptions, both writers tried to identify the sources of these perceptions, and they then leave the ultimate decision to believe (or not) to the reader. "In other words, it is not the substance...but its 'origin that matters in judgments about autonomy' (Christman 1991, 359)" (Mahmoud 12).

Side note: I did find it interesting that both women DID take a clear stance on one topic: Self-Representation. Williams explicitly supported the concept: "It is now a matter of disciplinary common sense that studies of non-Western women... should emphasize self-representation" (Williams 615). Mahmoud agreed, attributing the restoration of "the absent voice of women" to "feminist scholarship" (Mahmoud 6).

A Separation

I really like the movie, "A Separation". It was incredibly well-done from the pacing and editing to the acting. The story is consistently fascinating and I could empathize with all of the characters at the same time as cursing them for lying and manipulating those around them. In terms of the movie's relation to gender, sexuality, and Islam, the film carefully tells a truthful story of gender relations in Iran, run by Shari'a. From Simin and Nader's divorce because of their disagreement whether they should leave Iran to bring up her daughter in a more secular society to Razieh's fear of her husband's reaction to her work as a caretaker, the movie demonstrates the restrictions of men and women in marriage. Nader refuses to ever acknowledge his wrongdoing, keeping his patriarchal ego in tact, while Hodjat lets his anger dictate his actions demonstrating his immature view of masculinity. Meanwhile, Simin is unhappy in her marriage and in Iran which limit her ability to live as she wishes, and Razieh is desperately tyring to keep her family in tact, which includes paying the bills, raising her daughter, and keeping her husband from getting into trouble while she attempts to balance her religious beliefs. In the middle of this mess is Termeh, who is just trying to survive adolescence, while pleasing her parents and keeping them together. Her parents place too much burden on her from the beginning forcing her to grow up faster than she is ready. Yet, her parents believe they are respecting her right to choice, but put her in compromising positions. Termeh's choices will hurt one parents or another no matter how hard she tries to please both. And Termeh's pain and choice is left as the final scene, brilliantly leaving the audience waiting for her decision with Nader and Simin.

Week 4 Response

Mohanty's Under Western Eyes was a great piece to start out with for this week's reading, especially for me as a student new to both Islam and Gender Studies. I was intrigued by Mohanty's comparison of the cultural ideology that is 'Woman,' versus the real and material 'women,' and how the two are represented and discussed differently. This way of thinking is very new to me; surprisingly (and unfortunately), as a journalism I've never delved so in-depth about how the act of writing and simple discourse could hold such power. This knowledge production concept is further emphasized by Mohanty's piece and it's obvious how important and completely significant it is in feminist discourse. She remarks that third-world women, and essentially all women are unfortunately grouped together by way of objectification status, where they are judged on the way in which they are affected or not affected by certain institutions and systems in society, rather than their person. This is quite a complex concept that Mohanty manages to explain quite clearly (though I'm sure I haven't completely wrapped my mind around it yet). However, I am left with some questions at the end of Mohanty's piece. Is it entirely the fault of 'western feminist discourse'? How did things get so bad? What can and should be done now to amend this unfortunate issue in feminist discourse?

Sarah Robinson GSI Blog Post 1/22/12

The readings for this week prompted the insight for me that unlike the other prominent monotheistic religions (Christianity and Judaism), Islam is the only one whose central figure exhibited any sort of open sexuality, and who even recognized the bond between conjugal partners as a spiritual one. On a deeper level, I began to think about how Islam developed during the lifetime of the Prophet, and how after his death his companions projected his message throughout history within the constraints of their own social and political realm. In her description of an Egyptian television writer she praises his work as showing the "social genesis of human weakness leading to mistakes" instead of using categorical assumptions about religion or culture to place blame. Though it may seem odd, my mind immediately wandered to Muhammad, who after last week's readings struck me a character of weak conviction; specifically one who could not even stand up to his subordinates, let alone verbally admonish them. I then made the logical leap to how he structured the mosque as being contained within oneself and within one's world instead of embodied in the physical structure of a building. It is my theory that Muhammad's vision of the mosque as a spiritual concept rather than religious practice is rooted in his tacit personality. Basically, out of one thing can come both a weakness and a strength.

Likewise, the image of the burqa as a form of "portable seclusion" led me back to Muhammad's philosophical vision of an invisible yet spiritually grounded community. Western feminists, as a symptom of operating within the Western academic institution, have only recast the "ersatz" reality Alloula discusses in the context of colonial postcards. The immediate reason for this blurring between the distinction of perception and reality is the belief that women exist as a "coherent group" that experience a "shared oppression." The meaning of "shared oppression" then transmutes into "sameness of oppression,"and Western feminists subsequently view themselves as warranted analysts of the categorical oppression of the "Other." Inevitably, this also leads to the insertion of a categorical understand of the meaning of freedom, which inverts itself as Western hatred in the vastness of cultural contexts contained by what we know as the "East" or "third world."

One final thing that struck me was the "juridico-discursive model of power" employed by both the government and the media after 9-11. Lila Abu-Lughod brings up the "constant slippage between the Taliban and the terrorists," words which became fused in the minds of Americans, along with their meanings. This nuanced form of censorship is exactly what Foucault is so concerned about. When the government employs such a denigrating and pervasive linguistic metonymy, they are not only catalyzing an unfounded xenophobia in their citizens, but manipulating political discourse in a way which renders selectivity as a way of controlling information presented to the masses.

Week 4 Response

The two articles, Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses by Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others by Lila Abu-Lughod critique the assumptions which shape the ways in which both the West at large and Western feminism represent women in the ‘third world.’ They additionally call for the reinsertion of history and cultural context into those representations. The exclusion of historical, cultural, and international contexts from discourses surrounding the “third world woman” within the West, both authors argue, is not only highly problematic, but it also has real effects on the quotidian lives of the women it aims to represents.

Situating Western feminist scholarly practices within discourses of power, Mohanty argues that the “analytical presuppositions” Western feminists employ when representing women in the third world work to create an ethnocentric universalism of representation via the exercise of discursive power (Mohanty, 64). In illuminating the effects that these analytical presuppositions have on women within the third world, Mohanty calls for a more contextualized and historically based representation and analysis in an attempt to correct the exertion of power Western feminism so often demonstrates over the representation of the third world.

Similarly, Abu-Lughod calls for a more complex understanding of Muslim women- one which prioritizes the historical over the cultural. Arguing that the cultural only becomes legible when taken within the historical structural context, Abu-Lughod urges her (Western) readers to refrain from reductive representations and from the apathy inducing notions of cultural relativism. Instead she calls for her readers to actively deal with difference in such a way that categories of difference work to create a more just world instead of reinforcing an asymmetrical balance of power. In pointing out the ways in which many current representations of Muslim women are based on the assumption that Western womanhood is universal, Abu-Lughod makes the important distinction between knowledgeably assisting Muslim women in their quest(s) for justice and imposing Western ‘knowledge’ (including a Western definition of justice) upon them.

In building on this course’s larger discussion of knowledge, it is in this way that both articles illuminate how power can be exerted not only through the ways in which knowledge gets constructed (by whom, for what purpose, etc.) but also through the ways in which that knowledge is enacted and with what assumptions in mind.

Week 4 Reflections

I thought overall Mohanty's article made a number of important points. There does seem to be a tendency in the anthropological and sociological world to treat third world women as if they were one homogeneous group of people. While the practices and traditions that are analyzed may be recognized as diverse and unique, the women's issues that are raised by them all tend to fit in very limited, broad based categories. Something that Mohanty mentions, and that I agree with, is that there is a lack of localized analysis. Specifically, she deals with the issue of the sexual division of labor. Most coverage of this issue, regardless of which culture it's actually focusing on, makes generic assumptions about the role gender plays in the division of labor, thus leading to approximate conclusions about women (as if women were a unified group that all shared the same experiences). Many act as if oppression was a universal phenomena for women. While I would certainly agree that it is a very common place one, I would not go so far as to say it was universal. Yet even if that statement were true, that all women share a connection because they have been oppressed, their forms of oppression, their methods of combatance, are all influenced by their each individual cultural, societal, and even personal context. That was perhaps the one issue I didn't think Mohanty did a very good job of raising. She sort of played into the generalization game a bit herself in that she never accounted for the individual context that could affect the analysis of a woman or a group of women. Even when studying a smaller group within a localized context, it's still not fair or accurate to assume that every woman in that group is undergoing oppression in the same manner. Women are individuals and should be treated, studied, and analyzed as such.

I was really fascinated by the premise of Abu-Lughod's article, that the United States had tried to manipulate that plight of the Afghan women to help justify their invasion of Afghanistan and the War on Terror. I thought it was interesting that she focused a lot on the way Laura Bush helped to perpetuate the image of the oppressed Afghan woman because it reminded me of the way Mohanty's article discussed Western feminist scholars being the primary instigators of the generic image of the repressed, helpless, third world woman. I think both articles touched on an important point; that, more often than not, women are the primary subjugators of other women, at least as far as an East versus West relations go. Part of the strategy for gaining support for the War on Terror was to enlist American women to sanctify the invasion of Afghanistan by making the fight on terrorism synonymous with the global cause for the rights of women. But there is an inherent sense of superiority in that attitude, as if the West were any less oppressive towards women or as if Afghani women would want to live the way Western women do. Once again, there is a lack of consideration for cultural, historical, religious, and local context. Perhaps if the United States had paid more attention to that they'd have been infinitely more successful in their attempt to bring justice to Afghani women and they'd have made a more lasting, positive difference.

Week 4 Response

What first intrigued me about Mohanty's piece is that she sets up the paradigm which had been hinted at in our other readings but never stated outright; women are established as an "Other", just as we had previously discussed was the case for much of the "Oriental" population as a whole. Mohanty explains on page 64 that there is an "assumption of women as an already constituted and coherent group with identical interests and desires". This vast over generalization recalls the Orientalist discourse about colonized peoples, lumping them together into a group which behaved in certain ways and had certain desires and goals. With this in mind, I appreciated that Mohanty's article was structured in subsections dealing with each of the identities and goals attached to women -- "third world women" in particular -- such as "Women as victims of male violence", "Women as universal dependents" and so on.

I find it particularly fitting that Mohanty ends on the line "They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented" because it leads perfectly into Abu-Lughod's first piece. While Mohanty discussed the idea of women as an "other" needing to be represented, Abu-Lughod goes into the "rhetoric of salvation" a step beyond plain representation. I have previously read Saba Mahmood's "Politics of Piety", which is referenced in this piece and which we will read from later in the class, and this article reminded me of it, almost like a more straightforward and shorter version with ties to a particular historical event (being the so-called "War on Terrorism" and associated rhetoric). When juxtaposed with Mohanty's article, it is particularly interesting to see the difference between representation, trying to speak for those who supposedly cannot speak for themselves, and salvation, imposing the "norm" on the "other" and believing that by doing so you are saving those others. I am always fascinated by discussion of hijab in this context, of how in the west it is often viewed as the quintessential image of women's oppression, while the meaning of veiling to the women who actually do it can be entirely different and even empowering. It also represents the meeting of representation and salvation rhetoric discussed in the two readings; the west wants to represent the women they believe cannot do so for themselves, and by doing so present themselves as liberators of those women from the repression of the "other".

The "Dangers of Reifying Culture"

With each of these pieces Abu-Lughod urges us to be critical of and to question not only claims already made, but claims that will be made at the intersection of Islam, feminism, and our interpretations of each. Highlighting the importance of complexity and nuanced understanding, she reveals the "dangers of reifying culture, apparent in the tendencies to plaster neat cultural icons like the Muslim woman over messy historical and political dynamics" ("Need Saving?", 783), even if well-intentioned.

In "Feminism and Islam in Egypt," she highlights how the media has contributed reification of such simplified understandings. She points to the paradox created by the promotion of "women"s emancipation": those who reject feminist discourse as a Western import (Islamist conservatives) are equally guilty as the secular liberals of embracing heteronormative ideals of marriage, barely fighting for equal education, amongst other things ("Feminism and Islamism", 243). To support such a claim, it seemed as though Abu-Lughod sees the work of Qasim Amin as contributing to the textual archive of Western cultural forms, one that only solidifies such a heteronormative understanding of culture and the family, stemming from colonial hierarchies.

Although I find the general framing of these critiques to be incredibly poignant - including the influence of Said's Orientalism on the feminist canon - what resonated with me most was her comment on the proliferation of a problematic human rights discourse. Despite "good intentions," the fight for universal human rights and the spreading of Western liberalism does ring true, in many cases, to a secular form of missionary work, as Abu-Lughod suggests. I thought this only emphasized the importance of analyzing specific political and historical contexts, and the benefit of a cultural relativist perspective in battling problematic notions of "the other."

She prompted the following question for me, which I hope we can answer in future discussions: what is the role of feminist discourse in facilitating a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between Islam and the West?

Week 4 Readings

What caught my attention for this weeks reading is the generalized idea of Muslim women in the west. Abu Lughod’s talks about the idea of oppression that is observed on Muslim women is a foreign idea. She talks about how the veil is a misunderstanding to the west and is taken as “oppression” rather than seeing it as protection to the woman herself.

I feel like if the authors took more time to know the culture of the Middle East and the Islamic culture they would have observed the opposite of oppression and “barrier” for Muslim women because they need to realize that the American way of living is not suitable for everyone else in the world. If the authors got deeper into Middle Eastern culture, they would have understood the importance of the veil to women and if they took time to talk to women about the veil they would have proven there theories wrong.

Week 4 Response

Although it took me a while to settle into Mohanty's essay, I eventually came to enjoy it very much. I was thinking about Said's "Orientalism" the entire time I was reading, even though she did not mention him until the very end. The comparison of Western women as "us" and the third-world women as "others" offered a fresh perspective on Orientalism, in contrast to the male-dominated examples we have been used to seeing. It was interesting to consider that even Western women, who have been deemed oppressed throughout history as well, can reposition themselves in positions of power by assuming knowledge over third-world women. I don't think Western women are necessarily on an agenda to gain power over third-world women; they are simply trying to uncover inequalities. However, they may be unintentionally causing more harm than good when they stereotype excessively.

I think the quote that best summarizes Mohanty's argument is that categorizing all third-world women as one group "assumes an ahistorical, universal unity among women based on a generalized notion of their subordination" (72). The most important word that I picked out here was "ahistorical" because it precisely reflects Said's views that Orientalism perceives the Orient as an unchanging, romantic, and backwards place. Mohanty also claims, in this way, that Western feminist discourse traps third-world women in this static environment as well.

This quote also ties in perfectly to the second reading for Monday, in which Abu-Lughod urges us to reconsider how we view the Middle East. We cannot view it as a backwards and unchanging place, nor can we assume complete "cultural relativism" and accept it for what it is (786). We must always consider that the way that the West interacted with the Middle East had a big influence on how it exists today. We cannot simply blame the Taliban's (or al-Qaeda's or Saddam Hussein's) oppressiveness on Islam; we must understand that the West, at one point, encouraged these people and brought them into power.

Therefore, when we go into the Middle East with the mindset that we are saving people "from something," we have to acknowledge that we cannot save them from Islam (788). Instead, we should be saving them from oppressive regimes (their "Muslim-ness" as a coincidence, not a defining factor) that we may have had some part in creating. As soon as we recognize this difference, we will be able to put our resources into real forms of aid, like education and healthcare, and not into the war on Islam.

Week 4 Readings

In "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses," Chandra Mohanty extensively discusses the relationship between western women and third-world women, and I found this new perspective to be very interesting. We've spent a lot of time and read several excerpts that discuss the relationship between colonial men and women or western men with colonial women, but I feel that Mohanty's discussion is more valuable in some ways because it allows us to isolate and examine only the cultural differences by making gender differences irrelevant. I was very interested in the metaphor Mohanty used when she wrote that western women see third world women as "the lesser production of 'raw materials' in contrast to the 'real' productive activity of the first world." While this stark comparison may have been harshly worded, I felt that it appropriately summarized the argument Mohanty was setting out to prove.

That said, I found Mohanty's writing to be dense and difficult to unpack. I much preferred the Lila Abu-Loghud readings for Wednesday. Like Mohanty, Abu-Lughod addressed a perspective we hadn't yet discussed in this class, and I'd been itching to read about the Muslim woman's justification of the hijab because certainly, some do cover themselves by choice. I was glad to finally read the eastern woman's perspective on western feminism, and I felt that her argument was clear and well-supported. Firstly, Abu-Loghud argues against the idea that all Muslim women are oppressed and forced to wear the hijab. She writes that many cover themselves because of a sense of modesty; the culture in the East is simply different. She writes "Why would [women] suddenly throw off the markers of their respectability, markers, whether burqas or other forms of cover, which were supposed to assure their protection in the public sphere from the harassment of strange men by symbolically signaling to all that they were still in the inviolable space of their homes, even though moving the public realm?" (Abu-Lughod, 785). Thus, Abu-Lughod redefines the hijab as a symbol of status rather than of oppression. I also appreciated that Abu-Lughod took on the conversation of "salvation" when she wrote that "when you save someone, you are implying that you are saving her from something," (Abu Lughod, 788), and I thought it was important to identify this rhetoric as discourse of the "superior."

Week 4 Response

Mohanty's article reflected several of the issues we've discussed and read about already but this time she applied it to feminism. Because feminist writings often advocate for equality and justice, it is easy to forget that the same risks of overgeneralization and knowledge production can greatly affect our perception. Just as Orientalists did with claiming to be the authority on colonized populations, these writings often come from someone claiming authority and yet constructing an "Other" - often with the result that the western woman is the desirable model, the "norm," while women in "third-world" countries are backwards and in many ways inferior (even the wording Mohanty uses is quite similar to Said).

As both Mohanty and Abu Lughod demonstrate, this claiming of authority and overgeneralization (e.g. referring to all women in a country as a singular group, despite social status, religion, etc.) can lead to a gross simplification of the issues at hand. Although it is appropriate to explore trends and try to find ways of improving the lives of the oppressed, Western definitions of oppression may differ drastically from standards in other cultures - such as the wearing of hijab as a personal statement of religious beliefs, not just patriarchal standards. I agree with both of these scholars that, although justice is a thing to be desired, any broad claims need to be very carefully examined and one needs to account for cultural differences (within the culture being studied as well as between the writer and her subject) before reaching any conclusions.

Week 4

I thought it was most interesting when Monhanty explains that the status marked on an action, role, or position does not translate easily across cultures.Her use of the housewife ideology, probably the easiest status/action difference for Westerners to grasp because it is so prevalent in South/Central America, Europe and the Middle East.However, I wish Monhanty had extended her explanation by describing how transnationalism has affected binary construction and monolithic perspectives. For example, underground female genital mutation still occurs in the United States and there are wide populations of immigrant women who support female genital circumcision in the West. Many of these women have actually voiced themselves in scholarly articles. So I think its key, as scholars, to know that one does not have to travel to these countries to hear the silenced alternative perspectives to hegemonic discourses and that literature on the subject has changed, I’d argue significantly, from the 1980s. So these alternative perspectives are very much apart of “our” country, but are still suppressed voices from within borders.

From Mohanty’s article, it is clear that the binary/dichotomy, as analytical tools, are created and perpetuated, by the West to further justify the Western “superiority”. Abu-Lughod extend this analysis by framing it in a non-Western context and saying not only is it wrong for the US to simplify a history but it is dangerous because those people in the Middle East who object to the injustices they may face now, are forced to choose within the binary (for/against) context construction. So the binary construction is not only affecting Western interpretations, but as Abu-Lughod points out, they are also affecting internal interpretations.

Finally, Abu-Lughod’s analysis reminds us of how we may interact unknowingly or in ignorance, to repeating histories. For example, Women in Black, the women’s peace group of Israel, and RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan), perhaps, are non-profit organizations/efforts that may function the same way that Napoleon’s team of scientists functioned. For this reason, Abu-Lughod warns, “we need to look closely at what we are supporting, and what we are not, and to think carefully about why” (p. 787). This framing makes us, readers, participants in the creation of this “saving Muslim” discourse.

Week 4 -- Mohanty and Abu-Lighod

Chandra Mohanty argues that feminists discourse (at least in the 1980s) creates a generalized "third-world woman" that is basically a victim of circumstances. This an inaccurate representation of reality, she says, and is an extension of colonialism, or Said's orientalism. Similarly, Abu-Lighod argues in "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?" that western powers create a narrative of saving women from oppression in order to justify what are effectively neo-imperialistic endeavors, and that this can hurt homegrown, often faith-based initiatives to improve the lives of Afghan women.

Abu-Lighod's post-9/11 writings are particularly relevant in light of the dangers of Islamophobia and the framing of policy in the west toward Muslims as a conflict of civilizations, as organizations such as “Stop Islamization of America” and “Stop Islamisation of Europe” tend to. The us-and-them mentality that many westerners have toward Muslims, particularly Muslims in the Middle East, not only is morally wrong but prevents a collaborative ideal that would allow people on both sides of the Atlantic to create a more stable, less violent, more just international system.

Abu-Lighod's other works focus primarily on the cultural constructions that evolved in response to and incorporating western ideals. She argues that feminism in majority Muslim nations in the Middle East is not an imposed by westernization nor homegrown, but instead emerged through the interaction of the west and the various individual societies (including their brands of Islam) of the region. Because it is this interaction that characterizes the establishment of cultural ideas about the role of women and the content of marriage, her theory rejects the relegation to victim status of which Mohanty warns.

Week 4 Sunday's reading

From an activist point of view, I found Mohanty's argument quite intriguing in terms of looking at the "Other" and analyzing the "Other" with the context of that culture. It is within "western feminists" writing and anthropological work that fights for women's rights in the East, that binaries of west and east, and indigenous and modern arrise as a result. Western feminist writing hold a lot of assumption that are not 100% correct or are not correct at all. Moreover, some of their presuppositions could be quite offensive to women such as that "we are all sisters in struggle." Mohanty's argues against this presupposition in that it creates a binary between Western women and Third World women. Such a dichotomy poses Western women as the norm since after all they have the privilege of writing about 3rd world women. Another issue present is the assumption that all Middle Eastern women are the same in their struggle. However, Mohanty argues that these are not struggles once one looks at the cultural context (as an example: Why women wear hijab in the Egypt?). There it is important to link deeply rooted context with observation.

Abu Lughod seems to be on the same page as Mohanty in the idea linking context (especially political and social history) with observation. She also draws upon the binaries that Mohanty describes with detail; "recreating an imaginary geography of West vs East, us vs Muslims, cultures in which First Ladies give speeches versus others where women shuffle around silently in burqas" (p. 784). Her argument or generous supply of examples of the wearing of the veil was quite interesting in terms of the context that the veil is worn. The West's perception of the veil as being oppressive is exactly what Mohanty and Abu Lughod write about in terms of looking at another culture from a western point of view, which creates an ahistorical and apolitical way of looking at Middle Eastern cultures.

Week Four Post

Chandra Mohanty seems to have a problem with blanket statements about women, such as the claim that prostitution is the primary source of work for African women (Mohanty, 67). It is always assumed that the lack of women’s power is in relation to men, which prevents inquiry into what the real problems are, whether they be sex-bound or not (Mohanty, 68). Western biases preclude thinking of veils in any way but as stifling; the context of 1979 Iran is completely missed (Mohanty, 75).

Lughod's article was quite interesting in pointing out not only the ignorance surrounding women’s issues in Afghanistan, but that paeans to the liberation of middle-eastern women were disingenuous and used as justification for war after the fact. “As Laura Bush said, ‘Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes.’” (Lughod, 784). Addressing one of these points of ignorance, the burqa, I found the anecdote about not wearing pants to WASP weddings thought provoking (Lughod, 785). It seems convincing to compare cultural mores in the Middle-East to western ones; any American would be embarrassed to go outside wearing just underwear, even though that’s a choice. I am ignorant of the consequences in a Taliban context, but I only wonder; would the sole consequence of not wearing a burqa be emotional, analogous to just being embarrassed? More convincing is this: “...many saw it as a liberating invention because it enabled women to move out of segregated living spaces while still observing the basic moral requirements of separating and protecting women from unrelated men.” (Lughod, 785).

Rachel's Week 4 Blog Post

The readings for this week reveal the new face of Orientalism. One of the tasks of Orientalism as we described it before was to define "The Orient." This new form of Orientalism defines women based on their victim status. It paints the women of the Middle East as uniformly in need of saving. It does not take into account that experiences vary between countries, cultures, classes and individual women. Instead, the modern Orientalism carried out by some Western feminist writers relies on broad generalizations that represent the third world woman as inferior, oppressed and without voice.

Lila Abu-Lughod describes this generalization. "There was the blurring of the very seperate causes in Afghanistan of women's continuing malnutrition, poverty, and ill health, and their more recent exclusion under the Taliban from employment, schooling, and the joys of wearing nail polish" (Abu-Lughod 784). Here, the practice of some Western feminists to view the experience of third world women as a single experience, sharing the same causes and attributes is described. Chandra Mohanty's writing reveals her view of Western feminist generalizations by her treatment of the word "the." In many sentences, the word "the" is put in quotes or italicized. An example of this is found on page 76 of Mohanty's work: "For example, how is it possible to refer to 'the' sexual division of labour when the context of this division changes radically from one environment to the next, and from one historical juncture to another?" (Mohanty 76). Her treatment of "the" here shows her beliefs on the ridiculousness of thinking there can be "the" anything. The word "the" suggests that there is one singular thing- one singular division of labor, one singular third world woman experience. By challenging use of the word "the" Mohanty brings attention to the presence and failure of generalizations.

Discussion of the veil serves as a telling example of the broad generalizations relied upon by some Western feminist writers. Western feminists seem to view the veil as an object possessing one singular and oppressive function. However, Lila Abu-Lughod says, "Not only are there many forms of covering, which themselves have different meanings in the communities in which they are used, but also veiling itself must not be confused with, or made to stand for, lack of agency" (Abu-Lughod 786). In her discussion of feminism and Islam in Egypt, Abu-Lughod goes on to say, "Adopting the hijab now has an extraordinary number of meanings and complications that need to be distinguished" (Abu-Lughod 250). Chandra Mohanty also describes the Western Feminist tendency to view the veil in only one specific way. The veil is a multifaceted item that has an extensive number of meanings and connotations, yet many Western Feminists treat it as a universal symbol for oppression. Mohanty and Lila Abu-Lughod both conclude by saying that no change can be reached until cultural and historical specificity is recognized.

Week 4

In 'Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,' Mohanty brings to light an aspect of Orientalism that we haven't yet explored, and that is the relationship between western women and their perceived Other (the Oriental or Eastern woman). Usually, when we think about the misrepresentation of women in the Middle East, we pin the blame on men. But it is true that feminists have been just as much culprits in the representation of 'the third world woman' as "ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, religious, domesticated, family-oriented, victimized, etc." (65). It is important to note that "women" are not inherently similar in their struggles, and that ignoring "historical specificity" to a group of women is not conducive to understanding that group (68). This is especially applicable to the Middle East, a region singularly categorized by Western scholarship and political discourse (as noted by Abu-Lughod's discussion of Laura Bush). How can scholars even attempt to lump a diverse and complicated region such as the Middle East into one category? Yes, there are common threads among the nations and peoples of the region, but, as Mohanty notes, it is ludicrous and simply unhelpful to assume "a singular patriarchal kinship system common to all Arab and Muslim societies, i.e. over twenty different countries" (70). 

The deeper we explore Orientalism in our readings, the more apparent the role of discourse in public policy and opinion becomes. Mohanty differentiates between "a discursive self-representation" and "material reality." What is gathered from discourse and what is real and present have become very disjointed. This relates to the Wa'dud "What's in a Name?" reading. Words are more powerful than people sometimes wish to believe, and they have truly shaped relations between the "western world" and its "other." It is important to erase the concept of "otherness" in our increasingly interconnected world. My favorite quote from this week's readings sums this concept up beautifully. From "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?":

"The reason respect for differences should not be confused with cultural relativism is that is does not preclude asking how we, living in this privileged and powerful part of the world, might examine our own responsibilities for the situations in which others in distant places have found themselves. We do not stand outside the world, looking out over this sea of poor benighted people, living under the shadow--or veil--of oppressive cultures; we are part of that world."(789)

Week 4 - Mohanty

Personally I found the reading on Colonial Discourses by Chandra Mohanty a complicated piece that required close reading but I did my best to pull apart the material to make the most sense and I hope my interpretation is close to what Mohanty had in mind. Mohanty likened the writings of western women feminists on third world women to colonization of the western women on the third world women because their writings create a singular image of third world women that is arbitrary (p. 63). Mohanty is critical of the scholarship of western feminist because they make out third world women to be powerless and ‘victims’ of the socio-economic system (p. 66). Mohanty argues that over generalization is only one of the many flaws in the scholarship.

What I found very interesting is that the ideals of the western women and the literal colonization of Africa by the Europeans affected the marriage system and family structure in the Bemba tribe. Is this what Mohanty is referring to as the colonization by western women…the imposition of culture through literature? Mohanty also mentions that western feminist scholarship does not take into account history and context while writing about certain things like the purdah practice by women in Iran. Does Mohanty suggest that what the western feminists consider oppression in the third world is not perceived the same way by women in the third world, instead it is an acceptable way of life that as arisen from personal choice or circumstances?

I really related to this reading because I have found myself having to defend my heritage as an Indian and a Muslim to people who have very misguided view – once again due to generalization. Like Mohanty states there is often this assumption that people in the third world have not evolved to the extent of those that in the west (p. 80) and this idea can be colonized by misguided scholarship.

Week 4 Readings

Chandra Mohanty's theory that an image of a "third-world woman" is perpetuated in our society reflects the idea of stereotypes in Orientalism that we discussed earlier. According to Mohanty, this image is based on the assumption that all women, despite being from different cultures, religions, and backgrounds, have the same desires and interests, and therefore suffer the same persecutions everywhere. While the feminist intentions behind this are decent, this actually perpetuates the idea of women as victimized by the political system, making them seem weaker than they actually are. For example, some indicate that "the mere existence of a sexual division of labour is taken to be proof of the oppression of women in various societies" but the actual division has little to do with women's subordination. Yes, according to Mohanty it does devalue the work of women, but it also assumes that every political, economic, religious and domestic division is meant and intends to keep women in their inferior place, which is a false assumption.

Abu-Lughod points out a similar phenomenon in her article "Do Muslim Women Need Saving?" She makes the point that an obsession with Muslim women has developed, just as an obsession with the East in general during the times of Orientalism. This obsession, however, is misdirected, for example, in regards to the burqa. According to Abu-Lughod, Westerners believe that "the ultimate sign of the oppression of Afghan women under the Taliban-and-the-terrorists is that they were forced to wear [it]." But in fact, it was not created by the Taliban and instead it "has developed as a convention for symbolizing women's modesty or respectability" upon its creation long ago. We perpetuate these misunderstandings, painting women in the Middle East as weak, oppressed, and imprisoned, and take it upon ourselves to save them, though it seems we are directing our efforts in the wrong places. This similar subordination occurs in Orientalism as well, though it was more deliberately meant to paint "Orientals" as inferior, uncivilized and incapable of running themselves. This indicates that while we have progressed as a society since the times of imperialism in regards to the amount of original research that has been conducted about the Middle East and its culture, we still have our own forms of modern-day "Orientalism" that need abolishing.

Week 4

Mohanty's critique of the various analyses of the "Third Wold Woman" by Western feminists was very intriguing. She talks about how these feminist capitalize on the fact that the objects of research have both 'third world' deficiencies such as the fact that they are "ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, religious, domesticated, family-oriented, victimized, etc." as well as the feminine deficiency of being "sexually constrained" (65). They are doubly victimized and unnecessarily generalized. The feminist theories about women in Islam are similar to the Orientalist perspectives about the East - both groups of people have no history and are unchanging (71). They are accused of having certain 'third world' qualities, such as family, dignity, and service to others, that in reality could be said about any woman in the West.

This apparent superiority of the women's perception of themselves in the West was also discussed in Abu-Lughod's reading. Again, Muslim women as a whole are generalized, and there has been little to no attempt to understand them as individuals, or even to understand the culture of the Muslims in the Middle East. For example, the topic of the veil comes up. In Afghanistan, it is seen as a sign of respectability and protection, not oppression. Abu-Lughod goes on to say "If we think that US women live in a world of choice regarding clothing, all we need to do is remind ourselves of the expression, 'the tyranny of fashion'" (786). This is to remind us that the American way of life may not be the best for everyone and it is necessary to take time and understand the culture of others rather than generalizing all non-Western woman as needing to be saved.

Week 4- Mohanty and Abu-Lughod

This week's readings focus what is and isn't acceptable feminism for Muslim women, concluding that one must walk a very fine line to adequately portray Muslim women's reality and ideals. The first reading, by Mohanty, mainly rejects depictions of Muslim women through the framework of Western feminism. Mohanty finds that western feminism usually argues that all non-western women are objects of their male counterparts, incapable of agency and victims of discrimination. Mohanty disagrees with such broad statements for all women, binding them together as inferior not only to men, but also to western women. She argues that such knowledge production, a common theme in our class, is damaging to non-western women. The criticism I have with Mohanty is that she's completely against grouping people together. Everyone is unique and so are communities, cultures, countries, etc. But if we don't group people, then it's difficult to create any knowledge or action at all.

I preferred the Abu-Lughod readings, which I found to be more nuanced and realistic than Mohanty's. Abu-Lughod also argues that western political colonialism and feminism disregards the differences in what Muslim women want. Many of these women do not envy western models of feminism and look to create a new society, rather than copy a troubled western version. But she also contends that both Islamists and proponents of secularism in the Middle East are borrowing more from the west than they'd like to admit, such as ideals of equal education among genders. Yet, they retain a more cultural approach to many of their ideals, such as supporting the rights of women to wear the hijab and burqa. My criticism with Abu-Lughod was that at one point she seems to suggest that women's organizations that try to raise awareness about violence against women are perpetuating negative stereotypes. If there is violence against women anywhere, it should not be hidden just to improve public relations! I commend these organizations and find it ridiculous that Abu-Lughod doesn't even consider that such organizations are all over the world, especially in America, because violence against women is a global problem. Sorry Mohanty, I just grouped women together, but this is the reality.

Week 4 Post

The readings this week detail many of the problems associated with feminism itself along with the issues raised by imposing a generally Western notion of feminism onto different groups. There is first the problem of who exactly feminists are interested in helping. Mohanty points out the problem of feminism serving women as a group. It situates women as a homogeneous group despite the fact that in one society different members will have different motivations and priorities. For example, younger women may be more likely to care about access to education and reliable birth control, while older women may not be as concerned with this. There are also socioeconomic divisions in motives throughout the group “women.” While upper class women may be concerned about access to education, poor women are likely to be concerned with access to things like food, shelter and employment rather than if they will get to go to college. Therefore, feminism has to situate itself within any society. The idealism must confront the real issues women within the society face.

However, even if the idea of feminism were to situate itself in middle-class Arabia, that does not guarantee that the issues of this group are the same as in the West. Abu-Lughod proposes the question of what kind of feminism is appropriate for the Middle East? In a different socio-political climate and structure it may not be useful to rely on a discourse that is based on Western women, their public roles and ideas of domesticity. To do this would be to undermine the native culture, which should not be the goal. Rather, it would be more instructive to understand the role of women in the native society and find out what they would like their role to be. This course of action is distinct from presuming that these women have life desires identical to Western women. Abu-Lughod mentions that Islamists attempt to legitimate the practice of veiling through celebrities who are “coming home.” This discourse suggests a calling for freedom from Western ideology and a certain nostalgia for tradition. While this is likely an attempt to exploit discontent with Western influence, it highlights that this discontent exists nonetheless.

Week 4 Post

One of the themes in this week's readings was the construction of the "East" as antithetical to the "West." Said's Orientalism first brought this into our class discussion, and both Abu-Lughod and Mohanty build on orientalism in the context of feminism.

Chandra Mohanty's discussion of the "singular, 'third world woman'" (62) challenges the discourse surrounding third world women, and their production as one stereotypical image. This reproduction of the idea of the third world woman mirrors Orientalism as a "consistent archive." Mohanty also addresses the issue of western feminists' works, and how despite it being marginalized, their lack of inclusion of women in developing countries is problematic.

I found her claim that western contrast themselves to third world women in a similar way to orientalists fascinating, as I have read a decent amount of feminist works, yet I can't recall works in which this Orientalism is present. This also ties back to Foucault and the idea of knowledge as power: even though western feminist works are marginalized, they are still given the power of writing about third world women. The third world woman is "sexually constrained, ignorant, poor, uneducated..." while the western woman is "educated, modern, having control over their bodies..." (65). Some of this exact language is present in Said's works on Orientalism, as women in the third world are consistently written about as victims of oppressive native men. Ultimately, Mohanty believes that feminism must be built within the context of its histories and politics. Not only are they used as a foil to western life, but they also are held up to western standards.

Both Lila Abu-Lughod's article "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving" and "Orientalism and Middle East Studies" also connected to the construction of the idea of the East being fundamentally dissimilar to the West. In "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving," Abu-Lughod teased out the discourse surrounding recent Western involvement in the Middle East and its framing as saving the women of the country from oppression as justification for these wars. Similarly to Mohanty, Abu-Lughod insists on contexualizing a tradition rather than assuming that because a majority of women wear veils, a majority of women are oppressed. She discusses the difference in wearing veils in different cultures and the ways in which it is empowering to women in some areas. She touches on the oppression of Muslim women by American and European women in her quote "I do not think that it would be as easy to mobilize so many of these American and European women if it were not a case of Muslim men oppressing Muslim women--women of cover for whom they can feel sorry for and in relation tow hom they can feel smugly superior." That quote was crucial for me in understanding the relationship between western feminists and their counterparts in the east whom they stereotype (Mohanty) and then make use of this stereotype to justify invasion (Abu-Lughod). She talks about the problematic ethnocentrism that accompanies these stereotypes, and that perhaps they do not want "liberation" as we see it.

The quote "It is deeply problematic to construct the Afghan woman as someone in need of saving. When you save someone, you imply that you are saving her from something. You are also saving her to something" (788) resonated intensely with my political senses. I have certainly felt this way in terms of the US's foreign policies surrounding developing nations, but have not necessarily made this connection with politicians' discourse surrounding women.

In her discussion of "Orientalism and Middle East Studies," Abu-Lughod discusses the way in which Said's work impacted feminism. She talks about the issue of Middle Eastern feminist scholars being caught between "representing Middle Eastern women as complex agents" but also critiquing the patriarchal structures and thus playing into Orientalist ideas. This conflict is something I am interested in discussing more--I would love to read writings by "third world feminists," and see this firsthand. I also wonder to what extent these feminists who live in developing nations are aware of the influence western feminism has on their work.

Week 3 Response

The justification of past versus present with Mernissi’s story of her unfortunate trip to the grocery, and that of A’isha, much longer ago, was something I found to be a very interesting aspect of the first chapter of Mernissi’s book. I greatly enjoyed that Mernissi compiled her thoughts into a much easier read, as she is far easier for me to relate to than other authors we have read.
In this reading, Mernissi takes offense at the Hadith that gets thrown at her at the store scene in the beginning of the chapter, which states “ those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity.” Now that is an extremely blunt and biased statement. This Hadith was also used to criticize A’isha, a character whom it seems Mernissi can relate well to. I found it ironic that while A’isha was taking on a battlefield at the head of an army and challenging a powerful caliph, her huband, Muhammad ‘Arafa, who was supposedly quite supportive of her, was the one who wrote books expressing that women virtually have no rights, no do they have political history. I view this as a sad irony that is unfortunately a continuation of the double-talk that Wa’dud wrote extensively on in our past readings. Traditionally, in Muslim households, men are brought up to develop ideas of manhood as unlimited and exclusive empowerment, yet supposedly men and women are said to sit at equal levels. This is an example of the strange gender disparity that is even more magnified within the family, where things are really not transparent.
It also angered me to read that A’isha was also slandered by writer al-Afghani, who published two books essentially blaming A’isha for any and all bloodshed involved in the civil war, and for the split between Sunni and Shi’a. Al-Afghani uses A’isha as an example of why women should never meddle in politics, and this is just so unfair, because there are various other reasons, but because a man was the one who took the authority to write the book, he basically holds authority of what happened.

Week 3 Response

In the assigned chapters from Fatima Mernissi’s text The Veil and the Male Elite, Mernissi delineates the origins of misogyny within certain Hadith and the use of hijab in modern Islamic practices. In working to create an alternative reading of the Qur’an, Mernissi raises questions power, authenticity, and gender. Beginning by investigating the Hadith brought forward by Abu Bakra and Abu Hurayra, Mernissi investigates the credibility of the hegemonic narrative surrounding their validity. Reconstructing history in such a way that she illuminates the personal motives both Abu Bakra and Abu Hurayra may have had for fabricating of misrepresenting particular Hadith. Furthermore, Mernissi’s argument speaks to larger cultural and religious anxieties. Using Abu Bakra’s unstable paternity and Abu Hurayra’s Yemen heritage as reasons why both would be motivated to propagate misogynistic Hadith, Mernissi suggest that religious and national identity were solidified through misogyny. In espousing these Hadith, both Abu Bakra and Abu Hurayra gained a more secure identity. It is in this way that Mernissi demonstrates how, “manipulation of them [sacred texts] is a structural characteristic of the practice of power in Muslim societies” (Mernessi, 7). This manipulation, Mernissi argues, is the true purpose of misogyny within Islam.

In addition to critiquing the use of Hadith to justify misogyny, Mernissi also questions contemporary discourses of the hijab. Arguing that the hijab was intended to be a physical and ideological separation between the public and the private spheres, Mernissi questions the connection between its origin and its modern significance. She notes a shift from the hijab as either a way of separating pedestrians and religious leaders or as a separation between private and public space to the hijab being the barrier between men and women. And while she does not explicitly state the reasons for this shift, she seems to suggest that that shift, (like the earlier use of Hadith) was a tool in securing male power and stability. Just as Mernissi argues the Hadith was descended in a time of uncertainty in regards to the Prophet’s military strength, the hijab in its current use is a tool with which the certainty of male dominance is gained. Thus, Mernissi seems to elucidate the relationship between misogyny and power within these particular Islamic discourses.

Sources: Fatima Mernissi. 1992. "Introduction," "A Tradition of Misogyny (I)," "A Tradition of Misogyny (II)" and "The Hijab, The Veil" The Veil and the Male Elite. Basic Books.

Blog Post- Week3

This weeks readings were shocking and disappointing to me, especially when it comes from a woman who has pretty good knowledge about the Islam and the Quran. What’s disappointing is that she didn’t take the effort of looking at Islam from anther perspective, where we see Islam is completely not sexist and actually supports women in all fields, its like she was waiting for anything to find in Islam to prove that it is a sexist religion. As a Muslim woman that was raised in a fairly religious yet modernized culture and environment, I find this reading very bias and the analysis did not persuade me at all.

What caught my attention mostly was her talking about Hadith and her interpretation of it. Before her talking about Hadith, she should have explained the different types of hadith. Mernissi saying that the Hadith is fabricated is completely offending and unacceptable. Her interpretation of the Hadith is that a woman and a dog are the on the same level, what is meant by the hadith that women can be a source of distraction to men and by saying “dog” its satan.

Also, she spoke about the Abu- huraira “name” and that story is not true. The actual story is that Abu-Huraira saw a kitten on the road and took it and put in in his sleeve and took care of it and when the prophet (PBUH) saw him he gave a nickname “Abu-Huraira”.