The fantasy of unveiling the veiled woman underwrites Western claims to modernity

Evidence

How does it come to be that visions of veiled women dance in the heads of so many that ‘codes de vie’ must be devised declaring that all women must show their faces in the small North American town of Hérouxville, Quebec? In the unconscious structure of Orientalism, the veiled Oriental woman, Yegenoglu observes, signifies the Orient as seductive and dangerous, but the powerful allure and productive power of the fantasy of Orientalism has meant that the European man must dream a dream of possession of the veiled woman if he is to know himself as modern, all-knowing and rational. The longing to possess, to unveil, is often expressed as rescue, and in this way it is a fantasy shared by both men and women. Saving Brown women from Brown men, as Gayatri Spivak famously put it, has long been a major plank in the colonial ship since it serves to mark the colonizer as modern and civilized and provides at the same time an important reason to keep Brown men in line through practices of violence. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 56 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Circulating veiled-woman imagery deadens Westerners’ sense of Muslim women’s diversity — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 394; The veiled woman fantasy lets European men know themselves as modern, rational, and possessive. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims…, 56; The imperilled Muslim woman trope structures Western responses to Sharia (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• The veiled woman fantasy lets European men know themselves as modern, rational, and possessive. #corroborates (0.96) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 56
• Western identity predates and is independent of modernity #complicates (0.78)