å Sunday, November 26th, 2017

In “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” Lila Abu-Lughod criticizes how Muslim women and Islamic faith are being utilized to portray War on Terror and why that poses a problem. First of all, in regards to addressing recent terrorist attacks, there is a tendency of focusing on the cultural aspect, such as religious beliefs and the treatment of Muslim women. Abu-Lughod mentions how media likes to talk about women and religious rituals, as though understanding such aspects brings insight into terrorism. As a result, the real root of the problem rarely gets discussed; the historical and political issues are often left unveiled. By addressing and emphasizing how culturally different it is on the other side of the world, it creates a division that further impairs the ability to seek out the truth as to why such sufferings exist and find the appropriate solution.

Such “cultural mode of explanation,” and the unnecessary focus on the role of women in regards to the War on Terror can be seen as a justification for the “right” of Americans to interfere and “take over” Afghanistan. Portraying Afghan women as being inappropriately treated by the Taliban-and-the-terrorist has linked the fight against terrorism to the fight for women’s rights. Abu-Lughod seems skeptical as to whether the desire to intervene by the U.S. forces solely lies upon liberating these women. And if so, what really is the right way of saving these women? Abu-Lughod emphasizes the importance of recognizing differences and accepting that what Afghan women consider to be “liberating” may be different from what the rest of the world is trying to impose on them. As exemplified by the case regarding burqas, what many fail to realize is that it serves as a symbol for women’s modesty, not something that the Taliban has imposed upon women against their very will. As noted by anthropologist Hanna Poparek, it’s like a “portable seclusion” that allows women to be liberated out of their isolated lifestyles. However, the world often portrays women wearing burqas as being confined and repressed, while taking out the burqas means being liberated. Abu-Loghod warns against such misconceptions and hopes to instill the right solutions that is appropriately aimed to bring safety and better life for all.

In the Article by Amelia Cabezas, she is talking about countries benefit from sex industry all over the world but especially Dominican Republic and Cuba. The two countries are different each other, but they are similar at some points. Both countries used to be under control of the United States. She approaches to “sex tourism” in different points of view which is from the tourists who pays for sex and from the sex workers who get money for having sex with the tourists. It is so easy to be a sex worker in those countries. If you are struggling with living, you will easily consider to be a sex worker because that the only way to get out of poorness.  For the workers, the labor helps people to get out of the counties where women only can get enough money by doing that job to survive.  For example, there is one lady in this article who was a young mother of three children. She was working as a sex worker and the working condition was terrible. However, she had some opportunity to get helped by that job. She found some boyfriends who helped her financially. Some people actually find men taking them to their home countries. For the government, they knows allowing sex industries are immoral, but they have to pretend what is going on in that kind of industry. For the tourists, they are traveling to the countries because there are less restrictions on prostitution or other sexual industries. It is hard for the workers fell in love with them because the tourists are just coming to those countries to have fun, and they are not looking for nothing serious. I think it is very important to think about the country or people’s situation and understand the complicated relationship between citizens, industries, and the government instead of just judge them if it is morally bad or not.

Alfie Corteza

Professor Bullock

Assignment #12

In “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” by Lila Abu-Lughod she explains the dilemmas that Islamic woman face in the eyes of Western countries. An example would be Western missionaries making attempts to rescue Muslim sisters, in the early 20th century by correcting their incorrect religion of being a Muslim to Christianity. As if they were in the wrong for practicing such religion that is different from their own, in the eyes of the West the missionaries had thought they were enhancing the lives of women and the society, but in truth, they were only creating problems. It is in a similar case with the Americans once the Taliban were removed from the region, they had expected that the freedom would cause the women to throw off their burqas and rejoice in the freedom that they had not felt before. However, it was revealed that they did not throw away their burqas but remained in use as it was used to maintain the image of respectability and modesty. Also, it was a way for the woman to roam around the city without a male companion because it covered them with separating and protecting them from unrelated men. Thus questioning whether or not if the Muslim woman does not need any rescuing of any kind. Besides, the fact that Westerners are “rescuing” these women in the Middle-East implies that they cannot take care of themselves and are inferior, while the West displays themselves as superior as they have the power to rescue them. Lughod questions the priorities of these non-profit and government initiatives as they focus on a small detail, for example, the liberation of the woman’s veil, instead of the importance of making the world itself a better place to live. Lughod mentions that the only reason why the United States and the West involve themselves is to benefit their military and economic goals.

In Lila Abu-Lughod’s essay she talks about the need to define what it means to be a Muslim women and have Islamic beliefs from the western world perspective. In doing so, an us versus them atmosphere was created between the two regions. There was a focus put on analyzing the culture, faith and gender dynamics rather than the history behind the current state of the government that the U.S was involved in. Everyone wanted an explanation, so religion and culture became the scapegoat instead of getting to the real root of the problem. There was a very specific picture that was being created where the westerners had to go in a save the Muslim women from a life of oppression as seen in the juxtaposition between first lady’s speech and the women in burqas. Muslim women were used to justify the war. In Laura Bush’s speech she made a distinction between people she saw as civilized, or the westerners, and Taliban. She expressed sympathy for the women and children sustaining the idea that we need to intervene and they need to be saved. She wanted to make it seem as if the American bombings were necessary to save the women and children saying that our intervention women have more freedoms. She equated the war on terrorism to be the war against the oppression of Muslim women. This was critiqued because it simplified the struggles of Muslim women ignoring the poverty and malnutrition they faced which can only be worsened with bombings. She believed that they had “selective concern” where they focus on specific issues that are seen on the surface but ignore the root of the problems. Often times the root of the problem is also similar to the issues in the west. For example, there was a fight to end the practice of sati and child marriage in South Asia, but there was no effort to give women a solid educational foundation where marriage wouldn’t be such a focus or necessity. Some of the men fighting to liberate these women were against women in their countries voting. It can make you question if the real goal is to liberate women or is it to make everyone oppress women in the more “acceptable” way.