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Bursting the Bubble

War and the women caught under the wheels

by Dilara Yarbrough '06

“Are you a virgin?”

It was the type of question we all hope never to hear from a taxi driver. Yet this was my situation speeding down an Istanbul highway to my grandparents’ house late at night. “Excuse me?” I replied in disbelief.

Having grown up in Iowa City, I was never schooled in taxi etiquette.

I had told him that my last visit to Istanbul was four years ago, and I lived in the United States. The disclosure of this information prompted the question, which he repeated: “are you a virgin?” Weighing my options, which consisted of jumping out of a speeding taxi onto the highway or trying verbally to diffuse the situation, I chose the latter. I launched into an indignant speech about how “women in America are not like the American women you see on T.V.! Many Americans are actually very conservative…”

Glancing at the driver and suspecting my lecture failed to erase years of bombardment with Hollywood images, I hastily added: “Even in America we uphold our Turkish culture.” Without further incident, I was delivered home.

Just as Baywatch and Pamela Anderson fail to capture the complexity of American female sexuality, images of “the veil” in United States media misrepresent the oppression of Muslim women. Such images, history and current events have shown, are more dangerous than any taxi ride.

Before and during U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. media increasingly portrayed Afghani and Iraqi women as oppressed.

In the first ever solo radio address by a U.S. first lady in 2001, Laura Bush framed invasion of Afghanistan as a benevolent act that would liberate Afghani women from oppressive conditions. “Only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women’s fingernails for wearing nail polish…

The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”

In their exploitation of images of helpless veiled women (with unvarnished nails), the U.S. government and media use, the same rhetoric Islamic fundamentalists use to oppress women.

Both position women as symbols of national sovereignty. Islamic fundamentalists use images of veiled women to fabricate a myth of national culture that resists imperialism.

The U.S. exploits images of veiled women as evidence that a country is incapable of governing itself.

The propaganda of the “War on Terror” insists that Muslim women cry out for liberation, which can be accomplished only if their countries are invaded and occupied by the United States.

Middle Eastern feminists face an increasingly difficult task as they fight both Islamic fundamentalism and Western imperialism. Both forces endeavor to deprive them of the freedom of self-determination and choice.

Just a few weeks ago, Bush deployed Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes to the Middle East to meet with groups of women in order to improve the United States’ image.

When Hughes tried to tell Saudi women at Dar Al-Hekma College they were oppressed because they could not drive, the women replied that they would not choose to live like Americans.1

For many women around the world, driving and painting nails are not issues of concern and should not be considered an international barometer of women’s freedom.

The message to Hughes and to women of the United States was that they needed to listen to the concerns of women in Middle Eastern countries rather than imposing American values.

Women all over the world suffer gender-based oppression but as Feray Salman told Hughes in Turkey, “We can never, ever export democracy and freedom from one country to another.”2

Invasion has not improved the situation of women. In fact, in many cases, Western invasion or the threat of it has worsened conditions for women. In war-torn regions of today’s Iraq, women report it is often dangerous for them to leave their homes to do things they did without a second thought before U.S. invasion.

A Baghdad scholar, Amal Al-Khaderi, said oppression of women came with invasion: “This is Iraq since the wars. This Iraq where women are covered, stay inside, do not speak their mind, this is not Iraq, not the real Iraq.”3

Middle Eastern feminist response against Hughes demonstrates women are tired of being exploited as symbols to justify invasion, then victimized by war.

People in the United States who care about women’s rights must not be tricked into believing in the Bush administration’s politically and economically expedient idea of women’s ‘liberation.’

Where were the images of ‘poor veiled women’ when the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran/Iraq war? What about when the U.S. supported the Taliban in Afghanistan against Russia?

Conservatives opposed to extra-marital sex and birth control would never liken themselves to the promiscuous American women in Hollywood movies, nor would they characterize American women as constantly eager for sex.

So why do officials of the Bush administration insist on portraying Iraqi and Afghani women as eager for ‘liberation’ from ‘the veil’?

(Footnotes)

1 Weisman, Steven R. The New York Time..September 28, 2005

2 Kessler, Glen. The Washington Post. September 29, 2005.

3 Sandler, Lauren. The Nation. December 29, 2003.

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