First ladies and prominent women legitimized war through saving Muslim women

Evidence

The U.S. government has discovered that saving Muslim women is a compelling way to gain support for military intervention. Influential American women—conservative and liberal alike—have been among the relentless broadcasters of this story line. Former first ladies have authenticated the discourse on saving Muslim women by officially reproducing it as concerned American women. In Laura Bush’s post-9/11 radio address, she states, “The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists”; as a result, “the fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.” Hillary Clinton expresses a similar viewpoint in Time magazine where she makes a case for why women’s rights in Afghanistan are an important issue in the War on Terror. She responds to critics who say that the West should not impose its values on other cultures: “A post-Taliban Afghanistan where women’s rights are respected is much less likely to harbor terrorists in the future. Why? Because a society that values all its members, including women, is also likely to put a higher premium on life, opportunity and freedom—values that run directly counter to the evil designs of the Osama bin Ladens of the world.” These statements support a larger official narrative that the oppression of Muslim women and the likelihood of another terrorist attack on the United States are interrelated. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 520

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Lila Abu-Lughod’s ‘Do Muslim Women Need Saving?’ and post-9/11 feminist justifications for war discussed in related reading on gender and empire. — connects to: Imperial feminism frames saving Muslim women as the West’s civilizing mission — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 294
• SEED: An essay angle: how first ladies’ moral authority has been repeatedly deployed to legitimize US military intervention, from Laura Bush to present-day appeals.