Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving - 1617 Words

Lila Abu-Lughod is an American anthropologist whose work is focused around descriptive ethnography and mostly based in Egypt. Her work aims to tackled three main issues: the relationship between cultural forms and power; the politics of knowledge and representation; and the dynamics of gender and the question of women’s rights in the Middle East (Columbia). Lughod in her book Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? sets out to get rid of stereotypes that muslim women because of frequent ‘honor killings’ and the practice of veiling need to be rescued. She coins the term for the exploration of saving muslim women ‘Islamland.’ There is the perpetuating stereotype and dominant narrative that muslim women need saving and islam is a threatening†¦show more content†¦Apart of the problem is American feminist, beyond critiques of minority exclusion, is there goal to fix these oppressive patriarchal cultures is misdirected. Many do know fully understand t he practices they are fighting against and are too quick to judge them as â€Å"wrong.† â€Å"American feminist began to focus spectacularly oppressive practices that were easy to mobilize around: female genital cutting, enforced veiling, or the honor crime† (Lughod, 8). She explains in her book how debates on the veil and discussions of honour crimes are deployed as 21st century political projects. Lughod challenges the assumptions that these countries need to be saved and critiques the west obsession of ‘culture’ as the cause for repressive regimes. Abu Lughod in Writing Against Culture raises critiques of what anthropologist are supposed to study. She raises the issue of the difference of feminism and anthropology. Lughod talks about how anthropology really came from the divide between the west and the non-west. And naturally because the west is the hegemony anthropology has be mainly dominated by western anthropological thought. Which is why Lughod su ggests anthropologist need to realize this difference and move to writing against culture (Lughod, 1). Though in more recent years the crisis of representation is beginning to get more voices from different cultures that are non-western. She challenges