Helping our Undergrads in the U.S. Question the Notion that "Muslim Women Need Saving"

I agree with Abu-Lughod’s assertion to be weary of Westerners who claim to be saving or liberating Muslim women. Many people from the U.S. (who are not Muslim) are eager to discuss the oppression of Muslim women but have a difficult time recognizing and confronting patriarchy their own culture. I saw some of this with my students a few weeks ago after we watched a PBS documentary called Muslims. The documentary discussed the variety of Muslim experiences and cultures around the world, and explained the hesitance that some Muslims feel about the spread of dominant Western culture. During the time I watched this film with my class, we were talking about culture and the deep ways that culture impacts our views of reality. Even though the video depicted a wide variety of Muslim men (including Muslim men who clearly respect women), many of my students still wrote about how Muslims “treat women terribly.” The video explained that Muslims do not have to wear burqas/hijabs (depending on the country they live in), and that many of the women who do wear them feel proud of it. However, I still had many students write about how women are “forced to cover their faces.” There were moments after teaching that class where I felt frustrated—“were they not paying attention?” Or “It is so much more complicated than that.”

Many of my students’ embodied Abu-Lughod’s assertion that the veil or burqa is strongly connected to contemporary opinions and concerns for Muslim women. This notion of individual expression and liberation through clothing is very central to many (especially young) people in the United States. Dress is talked about as an almost sacred form of self-expression. However, it is rarely recognized the ways that U.S. culture (the fashion industry, pop culture, media, gender norms) also limits these clothing choices.

I think Abu-Lughod’s discussion of freedom was very interesting. I agree that we are all constrained by the cultural influences and resources that are around us. Therefore any discussion of freedom must be contextualized through social-historical histories. Freedom to or from what? Notions of freedom are fluid and change over time. However, I think many people from the U.S. hold assumptions that they almost own the definition of freedom, not to mention the dominant discourse that they are more civilized than other cultures. These implicit beliefs that the U.S. is “more evolved” or is “better” came through in my student’s responses to the Muslims video, even if this is not what they said outright (as seen in some of their comments above). However, I also saw some students perspectives widen through watching this video. One student noted how out of place a Victoria’s Secret billboard looked in city with many conservative Muslims, and that this visual helped her understand how people feel dominated by the spread of Western culture. Another student, who had stood up on the first day of class and identified as a “big Republican” wrote about how he was so young when 9/11 happened, that he did not know about the hate crimes that occurred against Muslim-Americans. He mentioned how sad and disheartened this made him feel. Many students were shocked to see female Muslims who were doctors, PhD students, and activists. 

I echo and appreciate Abu-Lughod’s question near the end of the article that encouraged us to ask, “how we might contribute to making the world a more just place” (p. 789). However, people will still encounter conflict and disagreement, as individuals have different understandings of what constitutes justice. Maybe Abu-Lughod’s “spirit of support” is one way to bridge these differences. I like the way that sounds—but I am interested in what it might look like. Across cultural and spatial divides, what are good ways to communicate and enact this “spirit of support?” One way I attempted to do that was through teaching and through promoting the validity of different perspectives. I am curious about how else people attempt to do this in their lives, friendships, research, or professions?

Below you can find the video we watched in my class: