Saving Muslim Women Analysis

Lila Abu-Lughod thinks the idea of “saving” Muslim women and more specifically saving Muslim women from the veil is problematic in the sense that it puts Afghan women in a position where they are in need of saving from an outside source; that they can only be saved by the others. This is continued by detailing many women’s groups as well as Laura Bush during a radio speech she had given that continuously has an air of Western and European sources of having a superiority complex. As if Muslim women need to be save from brown men; “white men saving brown women from brown men” (784), she continues on by pointing out that this is really arrogant to take this position that puts a Western view of freedom, agency, and equality over what Muslim women

She doesn’t believe Muslim women need saving, what she’s trying to get us to understand is that Muslim women do not need saving, they need help in creating spaces for those women we’re trying to “save” to be safe and are able to live lives that aren’t restrictive and difficult to live. This is idea of saving Muslim women is tied to modern politics because the return to “saving” Muslim women reared its head again after September 11. The United States’ response with political elites, such as, Former First Lady, Laura Bush, and her radio address urging that U.S. involvement through military force had created space for women who were once “imprisoned in their homes” (784) to get more involved in public life while ignoring the implications of that involvement. Furthermore, other women’s liberation groups had taken on Laura Bushes colonial feminism, which had an almost obsessive nature in needing to “save” Muslim women through their veiling practices. This Abu-Lughod explains has a lot to do with lack of cultural competency and understanding that different cultures have different ways of living and moving through this world and rather than trying to Westernize other people and their cultures their needs to be a sort of cultural relativism that respects and works on understanding cultures and the people in them for who they are, their practices, and