The Orientalization of Gender

Abstract

Said’s critique of Orientalism provokes a comprehensive review by post-colonial theorists of the bulk of western knowledge regarding non-western countries. This Orientalist literature buttresses the colonial notion of a civilizing mission, which is also supported by many western feminists who provide theoretical grounds to such colonialist perceptions. Such post-colonial feminists as Gayatri Spivak, Chandra Mohanty, and Rajeswari Rajan analyze western feminism’s ideological complicity with Orientalist and imperialist ventures.

Public diplomacy of authoritarianism: Strategic use of Suzanne Mubarak

“…In this vein, modernization has an orientalist bent since it juxtaposes the West as superior and the East as inferior. Women are a rhetorical tool once used to rally Western powers to “come to the rescue” of helpless females who have been shackled by the conservative values of oriental patriarchy (Hasan, 2005; Ibroscheva, 2013, p. 872; Scharff, 2011). This orientalizing aspect of modernization can be appealing publicly in the West, where the perception of the self is articulated through making comparisons, such as the “Western empowered woman” with the “oppressed Muslim woman” (Scharff, 2011, p. 130).…”

Empowerment through disempowerment: Harem and the covert female resistance in Fatima Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

“…Similarly, Rudyard Kipling observes the Indian zenana (which is the closest equivalent to the harem) in his short stories of the 1880s as a site of guilt, danger, and violence (Paxton, 1996: 140). Such notions lead the West to the orientalization of gender against the women of the Muslim East (Hasan, 2005). The zenana of the colonial India was a “dangerous space” on account of its “impenetrable” courtyards.…”

Violence Ritualized

“…Men, in Shahraz's world, both jeopardize women's destinies (in case of Habib Khan and Siraj Din in The Holy Woman) as well as rescue them (in case of Haroon in Typhoon). Critically speaking, this further stamps women's helplessness, making them more subalternized and adding to their othering thus subscribing to the orientalization of gender as discussed by Hasan (2005). Nonetheless, her way of looking at Islam as a remedy to all these and many other socio-domestic problems (as can be seen through her fiction and interviews) is what establishes her as a Muslim feminist who refuses to be part of the contemporary Islamphobia.…”

“…This may be extended to Md. Mahmudul Hasan's (2005) thesis of the oreintalization of gender, as he critiques the tendency of characterizing the women from the East as backward, domesticized, tradition-bound, ignorant and poor. Such caricaturing was long ago initiated by the West and is now kept in continuum by both the Western and Eastern writers.…”

“…Zari Bano’s destiny associated with haqbakhshwana 1 (which is today a rare thing happening anywhere in rural Pakistan) has been made so overwhelming that it appears to be the story of every feudal’s daughter in the countryside. This may be extended to Md. Mahmudul Hasan’s (2005) thesis of the oreintalization of gender, as he critiques the tendency of characterizing the women from the East as backward, domesticized, tradition-bound, ignorant and poor.…”