Victorian feminism was weaponized to justify colonial rule over Muslim societies

Evidence

Ahmed argues that in the nineteenth century, Western understandings of Islam centered on the oppression of Muslim women. This narrative of the oppressed Muslim woman became popular during a colonial era where theories of race and culture were created to justify European imperialism. Ahmed refers to the use of feminism to support colonialism as colonial feminism. Victorian men argued that European feminism could save Muslim women from barbaric Muslim men, which justified colonialism of Muslim societies, including India and sub-Saharan Africa (Ahmed 1992). … Ahmed (1992) and Abu-Lughod (2013) interrogate the idea that Muslim women who cover their hair in countries like Egypt and Morocco are oppressed, arguing that covering is a sign of class in these countries and has made women’s mobility and participation in society and the workforce more accessible. In other words, wearing the hijab and the burqa empowers many women living in Muslim-majority societies, something that is completely ignored by the West, including feminists and academics who continue to equate the hijab and the burqa with women’s subjugation. While there are certainly cases in which Muslim women have been oppressed and abused, this narrative obscures the larger structural reasons for their subjugation, such as war, political strife, economic instability, low literacy, and high mortality rates. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 35

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s prior map; echoes the colonial-savior dynamic and the ‘imperiled Muslim woman’ trope foundational to contemporary surveillance discourse. — connects to: Cassin used women’s status to justify withholding rights from Muslim colonies — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 270; Imperial feminism frames saving Muslim women as the West’s civilizing mission — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 294; Imperial feminism framed Muslim women as needing rescue by a liberal West (+4 more)
• SEED: An essay contrasting Victorian ‘colonial feminism’ with the current ‘saving brown women’ framing attached to anti-Muslim surveillance would extend this thread.
• CANDY: ‘Colonial feminism’ — the idea that Victorian Europeans justified imperialism by claiming to rescue Muslim women — is a sharp, tweetable re-framing of a familiar dynamic.