The Stereotypes Of Syrian Women

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The Syrian Uprising started as a peaceful movement in 2011 but soon began a political conflict. Within a few months, the movement created this power-struggle between women and men. Women were portrayed as defenseless due to the actions of men. Thus, this paper will use different representations to argue whether Syrian refugee women have or lack agency. It will outline the generalized representations that Syrian women hold in regards to media and the general public. This paper will first analyze the website, two films and two articles that focus on Syrian women refugees. Second, it will give an insight of each representations strengths and weaknesses. Thirdly, it will identify biases of each form and then propose ways to find out more information …show more content…

This article is from a volume of a book that provides several case studies of Syrian women. The focus of the stories is to show readers the stereotypes that are imposed by western media. Hayek's area of expertise is refugees and women’s perspectives of the war. She has written several articles based on human rights issues. The author Katty Alhayek claims that Syrian women are the main segment of the Syrian Uprising (Alhayek 1). She states that Syrian women have a representation imposed on them by global and social media where they are seen as powerless females. The media robs them of their agency and does not show the women’s complex stories of struggling for freedom and resisting against discrimination and injustice (Alhayek 2). The author argues against these stereotypes and uses six stories of Syrian refugee women to prove her …show more content…

Their lives were constantly at risk, and migration was the only solution for them. The benefit of migration is protecting themselves and their families but the cost was having to leave their country that is in shambles. These women could not have done anything if they were to stay in Syria, but their activism can continue once they migrate. Migration for Rim and Hala means that they are able to move upwards in society. Both women can continue their activism to bring peace and change the lives of other Syrians. Stories such as Rim’s and Hala prove that not all women are oppressed by men and that they do not lack agency. In terms of capital, both Rim and Hala held capital. The women both had the privilege of receiving an education so they held cultural capital. Both women also held economic capital as they came from middle-class families. But they sought symbolic capital as they lacked social