Imperial feminism framed Western intervention as rescuing Muslim women from Muslim men

Evidence

Ahmed argues that in the nineteenth century, Western understandings of Islam centered on the oppression of Muslim women. This narrative of the oppressed Muslim woman became popular during a colonial era where theories of race and culture were created to justify European imperialism. Ahmed refers to the use of feminism to support colonialism as colonial feminism. Victorian men argued that European feminism could save Muslim women from barbaric Muslim men, which justified colonialism of Muslim societies, including India and sub-Saharan Africa (Ahmed 1992). … Ahmed (1992) and Abu-Lughod (2013) interrogate the idea that Muslim women who cover their hair in countries like Egypt and Morocco are oppressed, arguing that covering is a sign of class in these countries and has made women’s mobility and participation in society and the workforce more accessible. In other words, wearing the hijab and the burqa empowers many women living in Muslim-majority societies, something that is completely ignored by the West, including feminists and academics who continue to equate the hijab and the burqa with women’s subjugation. While there are certainly cases in which Muslim women have been oppressed and abused, this narrative obscures the larger structural reasons for their subjugation, such as war, political strife, economic instability, low literacy, and high mortality rates. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 35 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

What marks these popular books as emblematic of the post-9/11 era is their authors’ positioning as feminist and their common insistence that the violence Muslim women endure at the hands of Muslim men is not only an indicator of barbarism but, more importantly, a reason to invade, occupy, and civilize Muslim communities. In tracing the role that gender plays in the ideological justifications underpinning the American bid for empire, I show how white nations are invited into the project of empire as members of a superior race, a race distinguished by a commitment to gender equality, democracy, and human rights. Here Muslims are imagined as camp inmates by virtue of being insufficiently modern, a condition that is assumed to be innate. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 62 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A narrative about Muslim women’s oppression only emerged with European colonialism; Suffragists argued women’s rights would strengthen Britain’s empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 149; Imperial feminism frames saving Muslim women as the West’s civilizing mission — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 294 (+24 more)

Broader Connections

• Colonial feminism used saving Muslim women to justify imperialism #corroborates (0.97)
• Victorian feminism was weaponized to justify colonial rule over Muslim societies #corroborates (0.95) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 35
• Feminist positioning becomes a justification for imperial invasion of Muslim lands. #corroborates (0.94) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 62
• The imperative to save Muslim women functions as a colonial governance tool #expands (0.93) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 56
• Some American feminism serves imperial goals toward Muslim women. #corroborates (0.92)
• Depicting feminism as Western-only erases Muslim feminist movements #complicates (0.76) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 227