About the author Robin Lee Riley is an assistant professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, Syracuse University. Depicting the veil Transnational sexism and the war on terror Robin Lee RiLey Zed Books London | new yoRk Depicting the veil: transnational sexism and the war on terror was first published in 2013 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London n1 9jf, uk and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, ny 10010, usa www.zedbooks.co.uk Copyright © Robin Lee Riley 2013 The right of Robin Lee Riley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 Set in OurType Arnhem and Monotype Futura by Ewan Smith, London Index: [email protected] Cover design: www.alice-marwick.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available isbn 978 1 78032 512 5 Contents Acknowledgments | vi Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 Rescuing Afghan women. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2 ‘Real housewives’: married to the enemy. . . . . . . 43 3 ‘Where are the women?’ Muslim women’s visibility and invisibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 4 We are all soldiers now: deploying Western women . . 112 5 This is what liberation looks like . . . . . . . . . . 143 Notes | 151 Bibliography | 157 Index | 176 Acknowledgments This book is partly inspired by an Iraqi woman I met while walk- ing at Green Lakes State Park near my home. We had a funny and, for me, haunting interaction, in part due to my lack of Arabic and her new English that had me thinking about her for a long time afterward. I am grateful to the department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Syracuse University for a leave and for support on this project. Gwen Pough’s refusal to entertain my doubts about whether I could write this book meant more than I can say. I was reminded again and again while writing about the enduring im- portance of the work of Chandra Talpade Mohanty. Vivian May provided outstanding feminist solidarity. My love and gratitude go to my chosen family, Hannah Britton, Diane Fine, Nancy Cantor and Steve Brechin, Naeem Inayatullah and Sorayya Khan. Your love and support lift me again and again. Dana Olwan is an amazing person and a brilliant scholar whose friendship has been a gift and an inspiration. Given the nature of this work, happy distractions are critical. Thanks to my family for faith and patience and for getting and staying healthy. Deb Ford was a great cheerleader (in a good way). Matt Himley and Reecia Orzeck give great conversation and NBA stats. The unexpected but much-longed-for appearance in my life of Robyn and John, Griffin and Lewey Vincent has enriched it beyond description. Harvey Milk Riley-Himley and June Jordan Himley-Riley are such wonderful companions who make me laugh every day. Margaret, as always, I’m so lucky. vi for Robyn Introduction Three allegorical figures have come to dominate the social land- scape of the ‘war on terror’ and its ideological underpinning of a clash of civilizations: the dangerous Muslim man, the imperiled Muslim woman, and the civilized European, the latter a figure who is seldom explicitly named but who nevertheless anchors the first two figures. (Razack 2008: 5) Aafia Siddiqui, Huda Saleh Ammash, Aesha Mohammadzai, Rihab Taha, Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fateh al Sada Fattah. These are not house- hold names in the West and yet they are all women whose lives have been irrevocably altered by encounters with the West.1 These are the names of some of the faceless, disembodied women for whom the ‘war on terror’ has meant unwanted notoriety, loss of loved ones, false accusations, displacement from home, and demonization. These are their names. Contact with the West in the form of government and media attention has meant that these few women who actually have the attention of the Western media – most women don’t – further lose their identity as persons because, instead of being identified by their names in the Western press, they are now called: the woman without her nose on the Time magazine cover, Dr Germ, Mrs Anthrax, the female al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden’s wife. This lack of identi- fication, misidentification, or renaming has its roots in the history of colonialism, in Orientalism, in visibility/invisibility problems for women in wartime (see Riley 2008), and in transnational sexism. The war on terror, like any other war, has enormous impact on the lives of women. Since September 11th 2001,2 media of various forms in the United States and among English-speaking Western allies have been focused on Osama bin Laden and ‘terrorism.’ The media creates and elaborates ideas of who this ‘terrorist’ enemy is and how ‘they’ came to ‘hate us.’ The concept of terrorism in this discourse is something that only happens to the West. It is never perpetrated by the West. By way of attempting to provide some explanation for the events of September 11th 2001, hundreds of stories were told on television, newspapers, magazines, radio, etc., that included expositions on Islam, terror, jihad, 1