European portraits of oppressed Muslim women projected fantasy without evidence or access.

Evidence

Frederick Quinn makes the following observation concerning the depiction of Muslim women in many French Orientalist paintings: “A turn of an arm or of the head or a bit of curving flesh became sexually suggestive, representing the permissive East, a theme never far below the surface in such works. Languid women with fetching smiles, their nipples covered with see-through gauze, sans pubic hair, and reclining in inviting positions on comfortable divans became staples of the Orientalist artistic repertoire.” Quinn and other scholars today recognize that many Orientalist depictions of Muslim women reveal more about the European male imagination and its particular erotic and sexual desires than about the complex circumstances under which women in the Middle East or North Africa lived. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 199 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

“I would argue that the use of these images [of Muslim women in religious attire] has also been bad for us, in the countries of the West where they circulate, because of the deadening effect they have on our capacity to appreciate the complexity and diversity of Muslim women’s lives—as human beings,” said Professor Abu-Lughod. “Did we expect once ‘free’ from the Taliban that they would go ‘back’ to belly-shirts or dust off their Chanel suits?” — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 394 (#expands, via linked claim)

Maureen Dowd, columnist for the New York Times, described Saudi Arabia as a “suffocating, strict, monochromatic world of white-robed men and black-robed women.” She characterized the women as “faceless” and “ghostly,” suggesting that their humanity is covered up by their black robes. Referring to the “ghostly women” of the United Arab Emirates, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle made this point more explicitly: “Sometimes you can see their faces. Sometimes just their eyes. Sometimes you see nothing at all of the humans beneath the black shrouds.” A reporter for the Toronto Star described the horror she felt at the sight of Muslim women wearing chadors in Paris: “Those dead, shuttered, hollowed-eyed faces were the ugliest image of enslavement I have ever seen.” She added that such a sight “was literally sickening.” All of these descriptions share in common the assumption that Muslim women who wear the veil lack both an individual identity and a full sense of personhood. They are passive, voiceless victims who deserve our pity but otherwise have nothing to offer us except an opportunity to play the role of savior. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 516 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Western journalists describe veiled Muslim women as faceless victims lacking personhood — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 516; Orientalist paintings of Muslim women reveal European male fantasy more than real conditions. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 199; Veil-scepticism narratives deny Muslim women agency and ignore reverse coercion — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 561 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Orientalist paintings of Muslim women reveal European male fantasy more than real conditions. #corroborates (0.90) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 199
• Western journalists describe veiled Muslim women as faceless victims lacking personhood #expands (0.85) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 516
• Circulating veiled-woman imagery deadens Westerners’ sense of Muslim women’s diversity #expands (0.85) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 394
• Orientalist paintings sexualized and humiliated women to justify Western rescue narratives #expands (0.82)
• Muslim women veil for varied personal-political reasons silenced by rescue discourse #expands (0.80)
• Cultural framings of Muslim women obscure the actual causes of their suffering #expands (0.80) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 249
• Veil-scepticism narratives deny Muslim women agency and ignore reverse coercion #expands (0.78) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 561
• European concern about Muslim women long exceeded any actual stake in them #expands (0.75)
• Muslim PR challenged assumptions about oppressed Muslim women #complicates (0.72)