Colonial administrators framed Islam as inherently degrading women.

Evidence

Broadly speaking, the thesis of the discourse on Islam blending a colonialism committed to male dominance with feminism—the thesis of the new colonial discourse of Islam centered on women— was that Islam was innately and immutably oppressive to women, that the veil and segregation epitomized that oppression, and that these customs were the fundamental reasons for the general and comprehensive backwardness of Islamic societies. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 504 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Leila Ahmed has identified the colonial basis of this trope, pointing out that the tendency to read the plight of the Muslim woman as indicative of the corruption of the entirety of Muslim culture has its roots in the discourse of colonial feminism employed by imperialists such as Lord Cromer, the consul general of Egypt and no friend of feminist campaigners at home in Britain, to castigate Arab Muslim society for its backwardness on the basis of its treatment of its womenfolk. Ahmed comments on how the same set of assumptions pervades even academic feminist scholarship: “To this day, the struggle against the veil and towards westernization and the abandoning of backward and oppressive Arab Muslim ways … is [sic] still commonly the framestory [sic] within which Western-based studies of Arab women, including feminist studies, are presented.” Lila Abu-Lughod takes up and extends this point, indicating how such “culturalist” explanations for women’s oppression—which lay the blame squarely at the door of Islam—conveniently ignore the longer, entangled histories of the evolution of certain social systems, a story that, given the legacies of colonialism, the Cold War, and globalization, ought really to include Western support for the repressive regimes that have allowed such ideologies to thrive. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 209 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Colonial feminism framed Islam as innately oppressive to women — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 504; Colonial feminism used saving Muslim women to justify imperialism; Victorian feminism was weaponized to justify colonial rule over Muslim societies — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 35 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Colonial feminism framed Islam as innately oppressive to women #corroborates (0.98) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 504
• Colonial feminism used saving Muslim women to justify imperialism #expands (0.95)
• Reading Muslim women’s plight as cultural corruption has colonial roots #corroborates (0.95) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 209
• Victorian feminism was weaponized to justify colonial rule over Muslim societies #expands (0.92) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 35
• The oppressed-Muslim-woman narrative was fabricated to justify colonial invasion. #expands (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 164
• Reading Muslim women’s plight as proof of Islamic depravity traces to colonial feminism #expands (0.90) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 209
• A narrative about Muslim women’s oppression only emerged with European colonialism #corroborates (0.85)
• Islamophobic discourse uses Muslim women as pawns to serve imperial and domestic agendas #expands (0.82)