Veil bans revived imperialist narratives about Muslim women needing saving

Evidence

The law, driven by the belief that Muslim women were being “imprisoned” behind a “screen” by their husbands or fathers, simultaneously perpetuated two entwined gender stereotypes: that Muslim women are weak and subordinate, and that Muslim men are violent and oppressive. This gendered Islamophobia reified the longstanding imperialist narrative that Muslim men were bent on war and tyranny, and that Muslim women—the immediate victims of this violence—needed saving. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 712

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the save-the-woman justification used across colonial projects; relates to the reader’s cross-national comparative framework. — connects to: Forced unveiling campaigns backfire by driving women to adopt the veil; Imperial feminism frames saving Muslim women as the West’s civilizing mission — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 294; Muslim women veil for varied personal-political reasons silenced by rescue discourse