A letter to American Feminists


To American Feminists,

The notion of our veil is a poorly constructed one in American society, especially after the disastrous strike in Sep.11th, 2001, reflecting the mass misrepresentation of women’s lives in Arab. The media’s popular portrayal of us as universally helpless and dominated by the the patriarchy that continues to exist in Arab culture (as if any society is free of it) has reinforced American perceptions that Arabs and Muslims are degenerate and twisted, thus worthy of domination and bombing. While the lives of some Arab women may fit this stereotype (just as “barefoot and pregnant” rings true for some American women), the experiences of so many cannot be perfectly labeled. Historical visions of Arab women have been dominated by the Western-generated frenzy over the odalisque, which perpetuated the misconceptions through your ignorance. Rather than making those waging these struggles invisible under a pervasive stereotype, it is our job to inform and act on such concepts as oppositional consciousness, in the hope that Americans, especially American women understood the long and enduring history of Arab feminism.

Best regards,
An Arab Feminist

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