This document summarizes Kathreen Smith's paper on how Western women viewed Eastern women through an Orientalist lens. It begins with a review of Edward Said's seminal work Orientalism and how he failed to consider gender. It then discusses literature that has built upon Said's work by analyzing representations of Eastern women and the role of Western women in colonial projects. The document examines how early Western female travelers viewed harems and Eastern women as exotic, childish, and inferior. It also discusses how Western feminism took on a "civilizing mission" towards Eastern women and reinforced Orientalist stereotypes. The gendering of Orientalism shaped politics post-9/11 by portraying Eastern women as helpless victims in need of liberation.

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Kathreen Smith
Middle Eastern Studies Seminar
Dr. Issam Khoury
April 26th, 2015
Orientalism, Gender, and Modern Time
1. Introduction
In 1978, Edward Said published his groundbreaking book Orientalism, which shook the
humanities field of study especially when it came to Middle Eastern studies. Said’s book
became the foundation to the field of post-colonialism study. In Orientalism Said explains
how Orientalism study has challenged the West’s knowledge of the Eastern world and has
deconstructed the West’s cultural representations of the East. Said explains how Orientalism
is the way of viewing the East with exaggerated differences that are negative compared to
the West culture and way of life. Orientalism includes seeing Arab world and culture as
uncivilized, backward, exotic, and, especially after 9/11, very dangerous. Said’s theories are
dependent of two assumptions: “first, that the sense of self against which the Other is
positioned embodies the age’s cultural hegemony, thus representing the dominant voice; and
second, the ‘self’ exists as a trope of positive function and value against which an alternative
‘not-self’ can be measure” (Foster, 2004, pg. 6). What Said forgets to do is go through the
gender lens in studying Orientalism’s impact.
Even though Edward Said forgot to include gender as a lens through which the West gaze
at the East, many women and gender studies scholars have critiqued him and built off his
Orientalism it include this lens. Feminist, women’s studies and gender scholars have found
the misrepresentation of Arab women in many travel writings, past and present media, and

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academia which effects how Western women view Eastern women, and even their
relationship with one another today. The more scholars have critiqued and used Orientalism
has a framework the more they began to see how western women were active participates in
colonisation with imperialist and Orientalist ventures.
This paper intends to look at this question; Edward Said omits gender as a lens through
which the West gazed at the East. How did the Western women view women of the East and
how does this complicate Said’s “Orientalism”? When discussing the matter the West
includes Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, while Arab women include women
in the Middle East and North African region. This paper will begin with a short review of
Edward Said’s Orientalism, literature review, then proceeds into more in-depth research on
how Western women view Eastern women in modern day and how current events through a
gender lens have complicated Edward Said’s Orientalism.
2. Review of Orientalism
Edward Said’s Orientalism was published in 1979 and shook the academic field. In his
book he talks about how through out history the West gazed at the East. When the West
looked at the East they saw savages, people less intelligent who needed to be governed (Said,
1979). The East was a subject race; in which would be dominated by a race that thinks they
know them and knows what is better for them (Said, 1979). “There are Westerners, and
there are Orientals. The former dominate; the latter dominated, which usually means having
their land occupied, their internal affairs rigidly controlled, their blood and treasure put at
the disposal of one or another Western power” (Said, pg. 44, 1979). This chilling quote in
summarizes what happened when the West colonized the East, especially the late 1800s.

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Said goes on to describe how the West sees the East as gullible, almost childish, to the
point they need the parenting of the West (Said, 1979). He points out as well how through
out human history the world was divided into regions, compared to which was better then
the other, and of course those who came out better decided which ones were the best (Said,
1979). Once the Arab world became more independent, Orientalism became challenged since
the Orient was not silenced anymore (Said, 1985). Said states there is a need for “greater
crossing of boundaries, for greater interventionism in cross-disciplinary activity, a
concentrated awareness of the situation- political, methodological, social, historical – in
which intellectual and cultural work is carried out” (Said, pg. 107, 1985). I want to argue that
Said means this not only in research and academics, but also how we are creating history
now. To be aware of the past and change how we see the East in the future. Edward Said does
great work on forming the theory of Orientalism, yet misses seeing it through the vital
gender lens.
3. Literature Review
Lila Abu-Lughod explains in her review of Orientalism how it has affected Middle East
Feminist Studies. Abu-Lughod begins by saying, “Orientalism was not meant to be a work of
feminist scholarship or theory. Yet it has engendered feminist scholarship and debate in the
Middle East studies as well as far beyond the field” (Abu-Lughod, 2001, pg. 101). In her
essay she considers four ways in which Said’s Orientalism has complicated feminist and
Middle East studies. First was how Said’s work “opened up the possibility for others to go
further than Said had in exploring the gender and sexuality of Orientalist discourse itself”
(Abu-Lughod, 2001, pg. 101). Second it provided a strong rationale for other field of
research to go beyond the stereotypes of the Muslim and Middle Eastern women, as well as

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gender relations in general (Abu-Lughod, 2001). Third being that it reexamines feminism in
the Middle East with the issue of West/East politics engaged in it, and fourth “Said’s stance,
that one cannot divorce political engagement from scholarship, has presented Middle East
gender studies and debates about feminism with some especially knotty problems,
highlighting the peculiar want that feminist critique is situated in a global context” (Abu-
Lughod, 2001, pg. 101).
Abu-Lughod goes on to provide examples of Muslim and Middle Eastern scholars who
done studies inspired by Orientalism with a closer focus on gender. One study in particular
was the 1998 book by Meyda Yegenglu, Colonial Fantasies: Toward a Feminist Reading of
Orientalism (Abu-Lughod, 2001). Abu-Lughod points out how Yegenoglu explains how Said
neglected to really describe the distinction between lantent and manifest Orientalism (Abu-
Lughod, 2001). Yegenoglu suggests that latent Orientalism, which is the unconscious,
“untouchable” certainty about what the Orient is, should be at the core of analysis (Abu-
Lughod, 2001, pg 103). Abu-Lughod goes on to explain how Yelenoglu challenges Said; “In
other words, she challenges the way Said and other relegate gender and sexuality to a
subfield in their analysis of colonial discourse” and how Yelenoglu analyzed “how
representations of culture and sexual difference are constitutive of each other”(Abu-Lughod,
2001, pg 103).
Lila Abu-Lughod then goes on to explain how Orientalism has provided a strong
framework for researchers to be more careful and sympathetic in their research (Abu-
Lughod, 2001). More Middle East and feminist scholars have now recognizing “that
stereotypes of the Middle Eastern woman have been crucial to negative depictions of the
region and it’s culture…” (Abu Lughod, 2001, pg 103). Abu-Lughod explains how in the

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1960s and early 1970s research on Middle Eastern women focused on the status of them in
their societies while comparing it to the status of Western women, while in the late 1970s
there was a shift in research to include Orientalism framework and to explore more the
complexities of Middle Eastern women’s lives (Abu-lughod, 2001). As well as the
representations or stereotypes of Muslim and Middle Eastern women were “Linked and
integral to projects of domination that were on-going” (Abu-Lughod, 2001, pg 105).
Research now began complex findings of how gender is inter-webbed with colonialism and
imperialism, how Western women viewed Eastern women through out history, and how to
decolonize feminism to bring a global sisterhood.
As Lila Abu-Lughod discussed in her essay about how Western women were active
participants in colonization and imperialism; Shirley Fosters expands on this of the
representations of Harem1 in the writings of early women travelers. Foster’s essay notes
how European women were involved in the production of Orientalist cultural, was seeking
to show that women travel writers were able to offer a counter-hegemonic viewpoint
(Foster, 2004). Many early male Westerners say the harem was a place of sexuality,
promiscuity, forbidden territory and exotic (Foster, 2004). Many early female Western
travelers began going harem as a tourist attraction, in a sense de-humanizing them. Western
women varied on their responses of the harems, some with their feminism overridden with
national and class affiliations, and others more on how it was childish (Foster, 2004). Foster
explains “The frequent reference to harem women as childish, even when this not overtly
1 Harem or zenana is the separate part of the Muslim household reserved for wives,
female family members, and female servants. Also know in early European writings
as seraglio (Foster, 2004).

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contemptuous, similarly separates the (inferior) observed from the (superior) observer”
(Foster, 2004, pg .11).
Yet some western women questioned their orientalist upbringing, “Alongside the
insistence on viewing Eastern culture as a violation of ‘civilized’ moral and social codes,
there is, then, some recognition of an alternative position that questions rather than seeks to
vindicate Western superiority” (Foster, 2004, pg. 11). Though it did not go much further
then that. Many western female travelers viewed the East as childish, over sexualized,
without morals or values, that men use them as sexual products, and describing their beauty
as lesser then their own (Foster, 2004). Foster describes, “Underpinning all these responses
is an assertion of a positioned self, distanced from the Other and seeking to assert its own
cultural superiority” (Foster, 2004, pg. 13).
Though Foster describes the Harem encounters, Serge D. Elie puts a name to it, calling it
the Harem Syndrome. Elie describes such idiom as “a part of a continuing clash of
perceptions between protagonists of the European West, looking through a (neo-)
Orientalist prism, and those from the Arab East who are antagonistic toward the west,
looking through an Occidentalist optic” (Elie, 2004, pg. 140). Elie describes how the image of
women in the East and their role “become a stick with which the West can beat the East”
(Elie, 2004, pg. 140).
Elie explains how recent research to an extent still sees through an Orientalist views and
sites work that is breaking this tradition (Elie, 2004). Elie describes three shortcomings of
research and Orientalism though: 1. “The Process of discursive colonization has not been
abandoned… “ (Elie, 2004, 156), with still seeing it as a West vs East debate, and
undermines the effectiveness with addressing the challenge of the fundamentalist narrative

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of emancipation (Eli, 2004), 2. To leave the Occidentalist-Orientalist “gauntlet” is not as
simple as researchers make it (Elie, 2004), and 3. Post-colonial thought has evolved with the
help of poststructuralism and it’s dissemination to other terrains (Elie, 2004). Elie is very
critical about Orientalism and its impact on gender studies.
While Elie maybe very critical of the work done, Md. Mahmudul Hasan’s essay, The
Orientalization of Gender, takes on civilizing mission of the western feminist and critques
their view using Said’s Orientalism theory as a framework. Hasan begins with
representation, “in representing the Arab-Islamic cultures, the western orientalist discourse
was further driven by the slant of the Christian West and the Islamic easter, which provided
an added fantasy in the Orientalist mind – the ‘othering’ of the Muslims” (Hasan, 2005, pg.
26), adding another layer of complexity of religion to the mix. Hasan begins his essay with
reviewing Said and Orientalism, critiquing it in the end of this sections, “one of the most
important limitations of Orientalism is that it relates the Orientalist project only to the
‘masculinist nature of the colonial discourse’” (Hasan, 2005, pg. 28). Hasan then elaborates
the need for looking through the gender lens, “The feminization of the ‘Orient’ and the
essentialization of its women by the Orientalists and feminist alike is a potential area of
discussion, which this study will elaborate to some extent” (Hasan, 2005, pg. 29)
Hasan goes onto his next section, “Orientalism, Western Feminism, and Eastern Women”,
in which he begins to critique western feminist dialogues of Eastern women. Hasan
describes how the western women see themselves as educated, modern, having control and
freedom while the eastern women are seen as traditional, domesticated, uneducated,
ignorant, poor, and victimized (Hasan, 2005). Hasan describes eastern women being seen as
passive, not able to have a voice, and waiting for westerners to save the day, which bleed

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into the thinking of western/white women were superior to eastern/Muslim women
(Hasan, 2005). Hasan then presents the idea of being “double colonization” or “double
orientalization” among women of the east, meaning not only were they seen inferior due to
race or ethnicity but also had the patriarchal oppression coupled with Orientalist
manipulation (Hasan, 2005). Then Hasan proceeds to discuss the concept of “triple
colonialization”, meaning “the Orientalists portrayed Muslim women according to the three-
fold mental image in mind: ‘Oriental’, woman, and Muslim” (Hasan, 2005, pg. 32). Hasan
continues to describe a little more in depth howrace, gender, cultural stereotypes, political
imperialism, and dehumanizing ideology all connect to give Arab or Muslim women their
image they have today in the Western world (Hasan, 2005).
Hasan then brings religion in once again in the section, The Christian West vs the Muslim
East, which relates to his section later on about Muslim women and Christian men. Hasan
explains how many Christian men would sleep with Muslim women to get them to convert
and save them, and this was okay because they ended up being the Christian hero (Hasan,
2005). This was another way the West was trying to dominate the East, with religion. Later
one Hasan then moves to the topic of Western Feminism and Colonialism. Hasan explains, “If
we consider the practice of western feminism and how it deals with non-western women’s
experiences, we dins the same Orientalist procedure of ‘dominating, restructuring, and
having authority’, and ‘ruling over’ the feminist thinking of the subaltern women” (Hasan,
2005, pg 39). Hasan criticizes western feminism for having a colonializing undertone when
trying to “help” its sisters, and how early own women were complicit in the colonization of
eastern societies (Hasan, 2005). Hasan then transitions to how the Media’s role-plays in the
representation of Arab/Muslim women.

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Hasan gives the examples of the stoning of women, female gentile mutilation, burning of
women, etc, which is used to wreak “havoc upon eastern society’s culture mosaic and
suppresses its dynamics” (Hasan, 2005, pg. 43). Which ties into how the Media portrayed
the Hijab as a synonym to oppression. This lead western feminist astray and gave them a
goal of “unveiling” eastern women and liberating them (Hasan, 2005). It is another way
western feminist can push their imperialistic background onto eastern women, making it
seem their way is the right way. Hasan then concludes his essay, “For the sake of forming an
international sisterhood that accommodates women of all denominations, ‘European and
Euro-American women must first decolonize their minds and recover themselves from the
state of unknowing’” (Hasan, 2005, pg. 51).
While Hasan focuses on many different areas of gender orientalism, Maryam Khalid’s
essay brings in the concept of gender orientalism in post-9/11 politics. Khalid proposes that
gender orientalism is necessary to understand Bush’s War of terror. Khalid proceeds to
explain how the view of eastern women being helpless, abused, raped, veiled, uneducated,
and limited in the western media helped justify Bush’s invasion of Iraq (Khalid, 2014). The
Bush administration then used it as a tool to get the public on board with the War on Terror,
to become the white savior in helping the Oriental Muslim woman be liberated from the
“evil monstrous Islamic men” (Khalid, 2014). Khalid makes the case that Orientalism is a
discourse of gendered racialization, making the East constructed in the opposition to the
West (Khalid, 2014).
In conclusion of this literature review, there are many more works using Said’s
Orientalism as a framework to guide their research with a gender focus. As seen above
“gender orientalism” can be researched and shown through out history and even in today’s

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political matters. The rest of this essay I will be research how western women today view
eastern women, and if this still complicates Said’s Orientalism.
4. Research
Edward Said’s Orientalism, as stated before, has changed the dynamics of feminist and
Middle Eastern studies. It also has stated some flaws when studying women in the Arab
world, “The dynamics of this situation in which Orientalism has been embraced in the
putative Orient is very interesting-if troubling- and is worthy of more attention”
(Fleischmann, E et al., pg. 30, 1997). Many still think that the binaries of the east verse west,
tradition vs. modern, as still seen in the field of research and academics (Fleischmann, E. et
al, 1997). This has lead to the continued the incorrect comparisons between Western
women who are modern and eastern women who are “stuck” in tradition and oppression
(Fleischmann, E. et al, 1997), in result has hindered the studies of women in the East.
Though scholars say there is progress, which is giving power against the anti-Muslims.
When talking about research of women in the Middle East, many scholars have critiqued
their research to be conducted with and for women instead of about women (Abdo, 1993).
Though these can be complicated when class, race, religion, and economic structures are
involved (Abdo, 1993). Adbu (1993) did ask a good question with regarding research of
eastern women, “Who sets boundaries and who establishes limits as to what can be
researched and what cannot be touched? Is there anything inherently unethical or immoral
in the concept of ‘outsider’?” (Adbu, pg. 35, 1993). Giving all this, the Orientalist still views
women of the east as either the normal victims or the “mother heroine” when going against
traditions (Adbu, 1993). This is included in Western feminism, especially since it is fueled
with racism, orientalism, and Eurocentrism when talking about Eastern women.

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Reina Lewis takes describes it as how white women gaze at the female subjects of
orientalism, and how white women are cultural agents in normal life (McEwan, 1996).
There is actually a difference between how western women gaze at the Orient verses how
western men gaze at the Orient (McEwan, 1996). These “gazes” have resulted in the
stereotypes I have explained above of eastern women. The main debates about how women
are seen are through the veil and ‘harem’ (Golley, 2004). Harems were described as a venue
of erotic fantasy, sexuality, while also being described as a “closed space within which
females are imprisoned” (Golley, pg 523, 2004). What western feminists and women are
doing is using a basic tool by social scientists with the harem: “dividing the social sphere
into ‘public’ and ‘private’” (Golley, pg. 526, 2004).
With the veil it became different. Western women see the veil as a form of oppression. Yet
many forget the political significance for many women of the east, especially during the
Iranian revolution in 1979 for example. It is also used as an anti-colonialism and anti-
western symbol for many Arab women, also political. The veil has more then religious
significance. Golley (2004) puts it as this; “both wearing the veil and discarding it in
different situations should be seen as a symbolizing political struggle and women’s political
agency”. In the entire veil has given Arab women an empowering effect, much to contradict
to what western women think (Golley, 2004). Yet the veil has been a symbol of how
women’s bodies, especially Arab women’s, are used as “the battlefield for the ‘post-colonial’
cultural struggle between new ‘capitalist’ forces and old ‘traditionalist’ ones.” (Golley, pg.
527, 2004). Veiled women are essentially a “foundational trope for Orientalism and
colonialism” (Maira, pg. 632, 2009).

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This was shown in post-9/11 and the War on Terror by the Bush administration.
Missionary feminism was then used as a justification of the US invasions in the Middle East
and South East Asian Muslim countries (Maira, 2009). Sumaira Maira (2009) talks about
how Arab women, especially veiled, are seen as “good” Muslims in need of the US saving,
while the “bad” Muslims are Arab men. These “good” Muslims were normally Muslim
women, who man first-person testimonials against Islam and it’s oppression of women,
which affirms humanitarian struggles there (Maira, 2009). Normally these women are elite,
elegant, and put to the American viewers that these women need to be saved from the
stereotypical “bad” Muslim which is always male, bearded, and working class (Maira, 2009).
This is very opposite of the “good” Muslim. “But clearly, Muslim women spokespersons are
important for a liberal feminist narrative about Muslim societies: their ‘personal
confessions’ are promoted and marketed because they provide ‘authoritative’ and authentic
testimonials about their oppression by Muslim and Middles Eastern men” (Maira, pg. 637
2009).
The irony is though to make these marketed idols successful you need a supply of the
“bad Muslim” male to justify assault on civil liberties (Maira, 2009). In the US there is a deep
anxiety about Muslim and Arab men, this scare that they are potential terrorist and religious
fanatics, which also oppress their women (Maira, 2009). This also fuels “the politicals of
rescue of Muslim women”, which is so “steeped in liberal concepts of individualism,
autonomy, and choice that shape a binary and neo-Orientalist world view” (Maira, pg. 641,
2009). This takes away from the violence of the poor, less education, and much more issues
when imperial feminist only are concerned with the violence against Arab women that is

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associated with patriarchal traditions (Maira, 2009). It is obvious gender and the orientalist
view is very prominent today in America’s culture and America’s politics.
5. Conclusion
Gender has complicated Edward Said’s Orientalism differently through out history.
Beginning in the late 1800s and early 1900s it began with the sexualization of Arab
women and the need for Christian men to save them from the “savage” Islam. Then it
progressed to being how women are veiled and oppressed and in need of saving from
imperial feminists. Yet no one through out the time until recent advances in academic
fields cared enough to ask them how they view themselves. Gender is a powerful tool
when it comes to media, politics, economics, and much more. When seeing it through a
orientalist view the West can produce this white savior complex of feminism that
disregards the history, culture and life of Arab women.
Until the west can unlearn its colonializing ways and superior ego, we really cannot
truly see the Arab women for who they are. Arab women live on a spectrum of rich, poor,
educated, uneducated, Muslim, non-Muslim, single, married, holding to their culture, and
those living in western ways. There is no one ways to research or study Arab women, but
you have to go through many lens and try to withhold the Orientalist view that sets back
the studies.

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