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Islamic Women In The Middle East Essay

Decent Essays

In recent years, America’s attention has been gripped by stories of women who have escaped from the Middle East. Each has a unique story, but they all have the same themes of oppression, abuse, and domination. Americans rushed onto the scene ready to “save” Middle Eastern women and many of the activists are now been highly praised for the influence they made in the region. Others, however, have come to question whether the Muslim women in the Middle East really needed the U.S. to rescue them from Islam. *Insert Thesis* Gender discrimination and violence against women were not part of the Human Rights Agenda until the 1990s when feminists began to push for this change (p84/book). One of the slogans of their campaign was that “Women’s Rights …show more content…

Therefore, following 9/11 the fight for rights for Muslim women increased greatly. More organizations appeared in the Middle East and more women have published stories of what they lived through in the Middle East (p25/87). Not only has this cause grown since 9/11, it has only taken on more importance for importance for the American population with activists being booked for speaking engagements, earning awards, and some even receiving honorary doctorate degrees (p96). The media has always taken on this view of Middle Eastern society. For example, the cover story for the August 2010 edition of TIME magazine was titled, “What happens if we leave Afghanistan?” inferring that ground troops are protecting the Afghani women (p27). In April of 2011, a German human rights campaign published a poster that shows a road lined with blue and black trash bags with a Muslim dressed in full blue cover sitting among the trash bags (p9). The picture is captioned with the words, “Oppressed Women are easily overlooked. Please support us in the fight for their rights.” (p9). This perspective, that Muslim women, are fragile beings that need Americans to support has plagued much of American society in recent

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