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Lila Abu-Lughod's Article Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?

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In the article Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?, Lila Abu-Lughod seeks the ethnics of the “War on Terrorism” which uses liberating Afghan women as a justification and presents an anthropological reflection on Muslim culture. In this essay, I will discuss the influence of colonial feminism, politicalization of the veil, and cultural relativism on the roles and status of Muslim women in Afghanistan. Initially, the “colonial feminism” makes people focus more on the veils of Muslim women instead of the real problems they meet, such as poverty, unemployment and lack of education. The speech of Laura Bush argued that “War on Terrorism” is not only “a fight against terrorism” but also “a fight for the rights and dignity of women”(U.S. Government 2002, 784). This implies that many people sees Muslim culture as inferior to their own culture; they believe that Muslim women are oppressed and need to be saved. Moreover, Abu-Lughod mentions …show more content…

Cultural relativism implies the idea that we should try to understand others’ culture instead of judging and interposing it by our own culture. However, the different cultures are the result of communication between people. She states that cultural relativism is dangerous because it advocates “cultural others” and aggravates ethnocentrism and racism (Abu-Lughod 2002, 786), and it is different from respecting difference. “The reason respect for difference should not be confused with cultural relativism is that it does not preclude asking how we, living in this privileged and powerful part of the world, might examine our own responsibilities for the situations in which others in distant places have found themselves.”(Abu-Lughod 2002, 789) We should not consider people that have different culture as others, because we all live in the same world. Also, it is important to be respectful to Muslim women’s way of having a better life other than imposing our thoughts on

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Feminist anthropology is described by Barnard as a commentary on “power relations, symbolic associations… as well as a discourse of issues such as reflexivity, the gender of the ethnographer and therefore the place of the ethnographer in anthropological fieldwork” (Barnard, 2000, p.139). This focus on women has come to fruition because of the lack of female representation in ethnographies, they were not portrayed as having agency (Barnard, 2000). Lughod’s ethnographies seek to portray specifically Muslim women with a sense of agency and as being dynamic characters. (Lughod 2013). While she is considered to be a feminist anthropologist, she has rejected certain aspects of feminist ideals regarding western feminists wishing to save oppressed women of color in 3rd world countries (Lughod 2013)

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