Media framed terrorism as inexplicable and used women’s oppression as its explanation

Evidence

Journalists promised to take viewers “behind the veil” to reveal a world—termed in varying degrees secret, hidden, and mysterious—that would shed light on why Arabs/ Muslims are terrorists. Terrorism in these pieces is typically framed as without reason, through a standard omission of the social, historical, and political conditions that produce terrorism (a topic I examine in chapter 4). Within this framework—terrorism as incomprehensible—the oppressed Muslim woman comes to offer a bizarre but very potent explanation. The oppressed Muslim woman provides insight, a vital clue, into why terrorism occurs: Muslim men oppress their women and regard the West with contempt for their equal gender relations. As a result, they want to subjugate the rest of the world to impose their way of life. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 530

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanism by which a gendered trope functions as a causal explanation for an entirely separate political phenomenon — terrorism — is a dense, layered analytical insight about how media narratives substitute cultural essentialism for political analysis.
• XREF: Connects to Said’s orientalism and the general ‘culture explains politics’ fallacy found in Huntington’s clash-of-civilizations thesis. — connects to: Media framed a humanitarian’s conviction as a web of terror uncovered.; Media imagery ties Islam to violence against women to justify intervention