Do Muslim Women Need Saving - 1484 Words

Do Muslim Women Need Saving? : A Review By Johanna Loepke With all of its good intentions, people attempting to swoop in and ‘rescue’ Muslim women from what they believe to be an oppressive and violent culture, is actually doing more harm than good. In the novel, Do Muslim Women Need Saving?, Lila Abu-Lughod explores how this type of sympathetic aid from these seemingly superior, progressive, Western countries can reinforce negative stereotypes about women in the place she calls IslamLand (an overarching and ignorant term for where all Muslims reside). The author investigates the consequences of this post 9/11 concern about Muslim women in government and in the media. She explains how the power of choice is relative, Muslim women’s†¦show more content†¦These seemingly known topics are turned upside down as we discover the truth behind each one. After this, the author has us hooked. The structure entices the reader to dive into more complicated material such as honor crimes, social life of women’s rights, and anthropology. The first chapter explores questions of possible Islamic liberation and why, given the choice, women don’t remove their burqas. In response to that first query, the author advocates that freedom and liberation for a country should be based on its people’s desires and values instead of what Westerners believe is the best way of life. Unfortunately, a key finding in this chapter was that the United States took advantage of Afghan women’s situation by using their rescue from the Taliban-and-the-terrorists as a justification for the War on Terror. Westerners view head coverings like burqas/hijabs as restrictive, a symbol of the patriarchy. In fact, many Middle Eastern women describe burqas as ‘portable seclusion’ that enables them to move out of segregated living spaces. Veils are worn as fashion statements or to express piety/virtue or belonging to a household. This exact worrisome practice of colonial feminism focuses more on the religious and cultural practices that persecute women, rather than more destructive issues like poverty, illness, malnutrition, politics, or lack of