The oppressed-Muslim-woman trope emerged in 18th-19th century Europe, not earlier

Evidence

As Islam spread, it adopted the cultural practices of various empires, including those of the neighboring Persian and Byzantine empires. The Christians who populated the Middle East and the Mediterranean had more rigid customs associated with women. In the Christian Byzantine Empire, the sexes were segregated. Women were not to be seen in public, were veiled, and were given only rudimentary education. As the expanding Islamic empire incorporated these regions, it also assimilated these cultural and social practices. In other words, the particular misogynistic practices that Islam came to adopt were largely inherited from the Christian and Jewish religious customs of the neighboring societies Muslims conquered. The significant point here is that sexist attitudes toward women, far from being unique to Islam, were prevalent among Christians and Jews as well. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 172 (#complicates, via linked claim)

With nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Orientalism, increasing numbers of scholars, authors, and artists were convinced that Muslims belonged to a once great but now separate and intrinsically inferior civilization, one that not only lacked complexity and diversity but also offered little to benefit Western civilization. The fact that the tendency to essentialize Muslims in this way emerged at a time of significant European colonial expansion suggests that Orientalism was neither a disinterested enterprise nor an objective quest for knowledge of non-Western cultures and religions. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 201 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Orientalist paintings of Muslim women reveal European male fantasy more than real conditions. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 199; The invented rape-of-the-Virgin-Mary fantasy persists in modern anti-Muslim discourse; European men invented two opposite images of the same Oriental woman (+7 more)

Related

• Orientalist paintings of Muslim women reveal European male fantasy more than real conditions. (similarity 0.86)
• A narrative about Muslim women’s oppression only emerged with European colonialism (similarity 0.85)
• Changing European society, not Muslim women, drove the oppression image (similarity 0.85)
• Islam’s misogynistic practices were inherited from conquered Christian and Jewish society (similarity 0.84)
• European women’s travel writing both echoed and contested myths about Muslim women’s oppression (similarity 0.83)
• Nineteenth-century Orientalism essentialized Muslims as intrinsically inferior during colonial expansion. (similarity 0.83)
• Sexist practices Westerners blame on Islam were inherited from Christian and Jewish customs (similarity 0.83)
• Eighteenth-century France romanticized exotic others as noble (similarity 0.82)
• Orientalist writers framed Muslim women as commodified sexual objects to be acquired (similarity 0.81)
• The rescue-of-Muslim-women narrative originated in European colonialism (similarity 0.81)
• Anti-Muslim tropes depicting Muslims as inferior, subservient, and in need of saving were deployed to justify Western colonialism and imperialism, rooted in medieval depictions of Muslims as monsters. (similarity 0.81)
• Islamic culture seemed monolithically tyrannical to Southey (similarity 0.81)
• Victorian-Europe discourse reduced Muslim women to harem objects or helpless slaves (similarity 0.81)
• Orientalist writings assumed the Orient was inferior and childlike (similarity 0.81)
• The oppressed-Muslim-woman narrative was fabricated to justify colonial invasion. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Changing European society, not Muslim women, drove the oppression image #corroborates (0.75)
• Islam’s misogynistic practices were inherited from conquered Christian and Jewish society #complicates (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 172
• Nineteenth-century Orientalism essentialized Muslims as intrinsically inferior during colonial expansion. #corroborates (0.55) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 201
• Colonial prejudices sexualized and dehumanized the Algerian Muslim #corroborates (0.50)