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Summary Of How Not To Talk About Muslim Women By Saadia Toor

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Saadia Toor’s essay, How Not to Talk About Muslim Women; Patriarchy, Islam and Sexual Regulation of Pakistani Women, demonstrates that irrespective of the objective behind the commentary on Muslim women, the mainstream media’s discourse on Islam portrays it as an all-encompassing term to describe the entirety of the Islamic society. Discourses that allow for singular explanation of a culture essentializes its existence regardless of its context. The specific discourse on the ‘Muslim World’ is explained through misogynistic and oppressive terms which deem the entire Muslim population to be sexist, backward, even uncivilized peoples.
Saadia Toor’s article seeks to examine the Western discourse on Islam, which she posits to be misleading in its ‘unveiling’ of Islam while also constructing it (Toor, 10). Furthermore, Toor suggest that West takes this position to authenticate certain political projects, hence this discourse is ideological.
The West has a vast history of providing ideological justification to combat any negative reactions to exert their beliefs on whole societies. According to Toor, this technique was used during the European colonialism to assert to both Indigenous peoples as well as the Western people that their presence was due to a ‘civilizing mission’, which was positive contrast to the reality of occupation of land, people and resources. By casting the non-European women as oppressed individuals, the Europeans colonizers were able to exert a position as

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