Lo sguardo dell'Altra. Donne dell'islam e nuovi femminismi orientalisti

Abstract

In post 9/11 one of the main focuses of the debate over Islam concerns the situation of women in Muslim countries. The rhetoric of Muslim women�s liberation has produced a huge wave of Islamophobia and has generated (Neo) Orientalist representations of the �oppressed� Muslim women in need of imperialist interventions. The promoters of this campaign are both Western �feminists� and �dissident� Muslim women who, by pretending to fight for human rights, have produced a sensationalist Neo-orientalist literature based on the assumption of the existence of a unique, eternal and denigrated �Muslim woman�. This article explores some Neo-orientalist issues fabricated around the myth of �the Muslim woman� by Western women observers also with the complicity of female �native informants�.