The imperative to save Muslim women functions as a colonial governance tool

Evidence

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. In the post-9/11 era, this aspect of colonial governance has been revitalized. Today it is not only the people of a small white village in Canada who believe that Muslim women must be saved. Progressive people, among them many feminists, have come to believe in the urgency of saving Muslim women from their patriarchal communities. As a practice of governance, the idea of the imperilled Muslim woman is unparalleled in its capacity to regulate. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 56

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the ‘imperilled Muslim woman’ as a specific governance concept with explanatory power across liberal and conservative projects alike.
• XREF: Connects to Spivak’s ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ and postcolonial feminist debates the reader already knows. — connects to: Imperial feminism frames saving Muslim women as the West’s civilizing mission — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 294; The rescue-of-Muslim-women narrative originated in European colonialism — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 306