Abstract:
Many global feminist issues revolve around the obsession with the burqa. To many in the Western world the burqa symbolizes the oppression of the women ‘behind the veil’. This image of Middle Eastern and South Asian women, scurrying around silently is often presented in our media to reinforce this idea. In, Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?, Abu-Lughod focuses on the negative connotations associated with the burqa and religious traditions that carry oppressive, anti-feminist undertones with our society. In National Discourses on Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh: Enabling or constraining women’s choices?, various women’s organizations and their plans of action to empower Bangladeshi women are explored. In Kathleen Holscher’s article, Contesting the Veil in America: Catholic Habits and the Controversy over Religious Clothing in the United States, bans against burqas are becoming more and more popular and the same issue arises in the U.S. as well. With such controversy surrounding the burqa and the women who choose to wear them, one must understand the cultural meaning behind this form of religious clothing. The larger goal of this essay is to analyze the misconception of Western feminist and women’s organizations that these women must be ‘unveiled’ or liberated as our society sees fit.

Works Cited

Abu-Lughod, Lila. "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on

Cultural Relativism and Its Others." American Anthropologist 104.3 (2002): 783-90. Print.

Holscher, Kathleen. "Conttesting the Veil in America:Catholic Habits and the Controversy over

Religious Clothing in the United States." Journal of Church and State 54.1 (2012): 57-81.

Print.

Nazneen, Sohela, Maheen Sultan, and Naomi Hossain. "National Discourses on Women's

Empowerment in Bangladesh:Enabling or Constraining Women's Choices." Development.

2010. Web. 05 Apr. 2012.

journals.com/development/journal/v53/n2/abs/dev201011a.html>.