Do Muslim Women Need Saving
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Do Muslim Women Need Saving? (2013) is a book by Lila Abu-Lughod
It is based on her 2002 article of the same name, published in American Anthropologist. The text examines post-9/11 discussions on the Middle East, Islam, women's rights, and media. Abu-Lughod gathers examples of the Western narrative of the "abused" Muslim women who need to be saved, and explains how the international focus on "saving" these women perpetuates racist ideas of Muslim societies as barbaric. Abu-Lughod further explains how the narrative of saving Muslim women has been used as a way to justify military interventions in Muslim countries. She deftly questions the motives of feminists who feel that Muslim women should be saved from the Taliban all the while supporting injustices occurring on a structural scale in their own countries.She argues that Muslim women, like women of other faiths and backgrounds, need to be viewed within their own historical, social, and ideological contexts. The book suggests that religion is not the main factor in global inequality, suggesting instead that the most significant sources are poverty and governmental abuses coupled with global tensions. Abu-Lughod's article and subsequent book on the topic have been compared to Edward Said and Orientalism.
