The Depiction of Muslim Men and Muslim Women in Orientalist Discourses - Essay Example

The depiction of Muslim men and Muslim women in orientalist dis s The discussions about women in the Islamic world, which comes to the answer to a question “if women played any role in the history of Islam?", started when the superiorly of the West over East became very serious and East started doubting itself. What did orientalists say? They stated that Islam oppresses women and this is the reason of Muslim societies’ backwardness. Scholars state that all the works of scientists-orientalists come to such a conclusion. According to orientalists only men are people who are valuable for in Muslim world. Now many Muslim scholars try to disprove the oppressed and inferior position of Muslim women and state that such opinion was necessary for West to keep the opinion about the East as about the backward part of the world. The orientalism in the broadest sense is the description of the East and Islam from a certain point of view, which carries a fair share of subjectivity and not always reflects the true state of affairs, but often distorts the reality. The orientalism considers Islam and everything connected with it – a culture, a civilization, a geographical area as something that contradicts with rational human principles of the West. “Whether they are televised or printed, it is not surprising that Western media reports maintain a constant distorted image of Arabs and Muslims. Fabricated stereotypes of Islam are omnipresent in Western media through all means of communication. What is lamentably odd is that Arabs and Muslims are seen as one and unique entity with the aim to be arbitrarily regarded collectively as anti-rational, barbaric, anti-democratic, etc. To achieve this aim the western media deliberately distort many Islamic concepts” (Ridouani, 2011). If to look at a question with the eyes of orientalists, the following picture appears: Muslim women didnt make any contribution to history, they either were sold on the markets or were kept in harems as sexual objects. “Stories about Muslim women living in non-Western countries were often stories about political violence where they were represented as victims of violence and Islamic practices. Representations of Muslim women were also marked by a continual obsession with the veil. Muslim women were often portrayed as victims in need of Western liberation” (Mishra, 2007). Men on the contrary are depicted as tyrants and oppressors, who are humiliating women, and if to look at the issue from the point of view of the West, the East, especially Islamic world, was a huge harem. Сertainly, there are certain reasons why the West adhered to such views on an image of a Muslim woman. During the process of the European values formation, the East, in particular the Islamic world, was chosen as an example of the opposite. The negative image of the East was necessary for Europe. It was built by means of a stereotype about the oppressed and unfortunate women who live in the atmosphere of tyranny created by their cruel husbands. Men in their turn are depicted as tyrants and despots, whose main goal is to humiliate women and make their life unacceptable. The image of the weak-willed and oppressed Muslim women against the background of cruel men-tyrants became stronger in the minds of Europeans in the XIX century. Now the situation reached the stage when it is almost impossible to disprove that “the dominant representations of Muslim men as violent and dangerous and Muslim women as victims of oppression. The dominant images of both Muslim men and women served the same purpose: They established the need to intervene to rescue the women and control the men” (Mishra, 2007). It was happening during the process of formation of the British and French empires. In other words, there is a direct link between this image and imperialism, and also the legitimation of imperialism, which is still happening. Muslim scientists state that when in the 21st century America tries to justify the invasion into Afghanistan and Iraq, it uses a stereotype of an oppressed woman. These sample representations of orientalists also influence the representation of Muslims about themselves and they try to reconcile with the failure. Muslims reconciled with this image refracted through their vision and still didnt refuse the defensive position imposed to them. “Instead of providing scope for critical intervention, dominant discourses in The New York Times thus confirmed Orientalist framing of Muslim men and women. The media portrayals of Muslim men and women in The New York Times jointly reinforced the need for Western intervention in Muslim societies and communities, whether the declared purpose was to liberate Muslim women or to keep Muslim men under surveillance” (Mishra, 2007). So, did women played any role in Islamic history? Answering this question, it is essential not to forget that their role were explained and measured by other measures. The books on history usually didnt take the life of plain people into account. The history is written only taking into account the great events and wars, but there are other forms of historical events registration such as studying of microhistory and chronicles. For example, the Islamic historical tradition always paid much attention to the life of hadith, special attention was paid to memories of life of their followers. In biographies and stories about life of followers of hadith female names could be found near the male ones (Djebar, and Raleig, 2006). Every time when there is a need to confirm the presence of women in Islamic history, to answer the western stereotypes or to find examples in the history of the period of modernization – we find out that names of women are met in special female biographies and encyclopedias (Cooke, 2001). The famous expert Süyuti mentions that he had more than ten women as his teachers. Talking about that, he doesnt mean that there was something strange in this situation, doesnt try to make an impression stating that the Islamic scientist can learn from woman. It means that presence of women in the field of education wasnt unusual. It also testifies that the "female" problem then wasnt relevant yet in the times of Süyuti. On the other hand, a woman and female "problem" occupied one of the main places in the debate, which took place in the Ottoman state when it was going through different stages of modernization. "Womens issue" was being hotly discussed in the talks about modernization and a civilization. New society needed a new woman, and a new woman needed new education. In the traditional Ottoman state a woman had the versatile, but informal education meeting requirements of that time. During an era before industrialization a woman, as well as a man, got an education according to the scheme "from a teacher to a pupil". As modernization was carried out through the western institutes, education became one of its main supports of women. The Turkish intellectuals paid a great attention to the education of a woman (Lyons, 2014). The Ministry of Education understood that stories about successful western women are insufficiently convincing for young Muslim girls though they learn the western languages and customs. Therefore, it is necessary to provide real historical examples. It was important for two reasons: a) First, in the world where there is a division on "civilized" and "barbarous", in other words into "European" and "the rest", in order to get in the list of civilized countries, it was necessary to show the difference from "barbarous" African tribes, the historical heritage. b) Secondly, despite modernization, Muslims wanted to save their identity. In order to do that it was important for them to know, what role was played by their grandmothers to learn from their examples. The misinterpretation of the role of women presented by orientalists prevents the East from demonstrating its potential. The first female writer in the Ottoman and Islamic world, when she mentioned names of women from Islamic history, was guided by these reasons, having called them "predecessors" and "outstanding women". There is no need to imitate Europeans in order to support the rights of women. In one of the articles she urged to imitate Muslim predecessors, but not European. It is not necessary to consider them an example for imitation, to try to resemble them. It is important to be the followers of the well-known women in Islam (Shryock, 2010). On the one hand, Muslims want to find the predecessors living during this period. On the other hand, they try to reflect the life of their contemporaries who can be an example of an educated modern woman, on the piece of paper. Generally, an attempt to find the predecessors in the history begins with the response to the stereotypic statement "there were no women in the history of Islam". However, having responded, it is necessary to learn who the historical predecessors were. It is possible to judge the person by the trace this person left in life. It is the only way to understand, what priorities and values these women were guided by. We need to know the names of the women who played a role in Muslim history before they become the property of purely "female” history. References Cooke, M.(2001). Women Claim Islam: Creating Islamic Feminism through Literature. New York: Routledge Djebar, and Raleig. (2006). The Tongues Blood Does Not Run Dry: Algerian Stories. New York: Seven Storie Shryock, A. (2010) (ed.), Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend, Bloomington: Indiana University Press Lyons, J. (2014), Islam Through Western Eyes: From the Crusades to the War on Terror, New York: Columbia University Mishra, S. (2007)."Saving" Muslim women and fighting Muslim men: Analysis of representations in The New York Times. Bowling Green State University Ridouani, D. (2011). The Representation of Arabs and Muslims in Western Media. School of Arts and Humanities Meknes Read More