Do Muslim women need saving?

Abstract

Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. 324 pages. Hardcover $35.00Reviewed by Malek AbisaabDo Muslim Women Need Saving? investigates the political rubrics that sustain and justify file rhetoric and discourse of saving the Muslim which pervades the world of academics, policy makers, journalists, fiction writers, and media figures. Abu-Lughod attempts to shed light on an intricate web of intellectual, political, and cultural relations that underlie the crusade to save the Muslim woman and examines the way in which tins crusade becomes articulated in moral terms. Western self-proclaimed superiority nurtures the claim that Muslnn women need to be saved, which in turn undermines respect for difference and basic values of human justice. Abu-Lughod deconstructs culturalist interpretations of difference, arguing that liberal feminists who accept these interpretations cannot tolerate the needs and sensibilities of Muslim women, which are deemed different from theirs. She notes that consent and freedom of choice, winch are core features of the Western liberal discourse of feminism, cannot be validated in societies that put a great emphasis on tire family.Abu-Lughod's conclusions and recommendations in this book rest on a few central arguments. Fust, she suggests that it is inadequate to attribute the Muslnn women's sufferings only to religion, traditions, and cultural institutions. Rather, emphasis must be placed on the critical role, which socio-economic factors play in women's conditions. Second, she asserts that opportunities and possibilities for women vary from one country to another. Therefore, even if the transgression of women's rights and status, that is gendered inequalities, are universal in nature, they can only be meaningfully examined through the set of local priorities given by women to various issues at a particular historical moment. Thud, Abu-Lughod is keen on stressing differences among world cultures but warns against overlooking similarities. Building on the critique of Western liberal feminism directed by Saba Mahmood, Judith Butler, Talal Asad among others, Abu-Lughod questions the universality of notions of emancipation, equality, and rights. Finally, she underscores the dynamics of imperial power, which helps formulate the basis of our knowledge about Muslim women. This process unfolds specifically through the types of questions we construct and which reinforce reductionist perceptions of Muslim women.The incidents engulfing the September 11, 2001, crisis have indeed intensified the presentation of Muslim women as victims and hence the shoring up of emotions and ideas for Western savior roles. Abu-Lughod tries to normalize the nuage of Muslim women by presenting examples from her ethnographic study of women in rural Egypt. She also turns the attention of the reader to the specific political and economic factors shaping women's lives but also Western discourse on them. She discussed how, for instance, Afghani women's rights came to be integrated into the politics of War on Terror. Veiling, she reflects, should not be seen as the sign of Afghani women's hardships or the cause of their ordeal. Rather, one must examine their daily encounters with poverty, malnutrition, deteriorated health conditions, unemployment, schooling, and discrimination by the male elite. …

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