More Sexualized Burqa-Clad Women

These are what I found when I was trying to find more information about the Lil' Kim-in-a-burqa photo I posted earlier. These were tagged "burqa nudes" and I found them here. Sigh.

Note: I know these women aren't actually wearing burqas, and that a veil across the face most definitely isn't a burqa, that's just what the person who put them up on flirkr labeled them as.












Also, this photoshopped image of Scarlett Johannson was found here.

Posted by Gwen Friday, February 15, 2008 at 5:42 PM Labels: , , , , , ,  

16 comments:

  Lisa

February 15, 2008 at 6:09 PM

These are crazy. This must be the perfect woman. She can't look at you or talk to you... But her body is completely accessible, she's totally fuckable (indeed, she can't say no because she doesn't really exist as an individual).

So instead of every woman belonging to one particular man (patriarchy), all women belong to all men (that's fraternity).

Gross.

Also, when you're photoshopping a woman's face into a burqa without permission, that's super creepy.

  Anonymous

February 16, 2008 at 7:47 AM

For the first photo:
I ignored the wrapped around burka imagery, because it looks like the woman is being strangled or something. But her body is beautiful - I like how delicate her shoulders and collarbone look in that lighting, very sexy. A beautiful female form.

The Muslim Blowjob photo - again, dumb joke, so I just ignored the bomb imagery. Her body is the most natural looking and beautiful to me.

The sixth picture, where the woman seems to be wearing some sort of burka bag, is the creepiest. I don't like that picture at all, it's more like a body bag.

The rest I have no feeling for except the one that is turquoise tinted. That's the worst, looks to me like a dead body. I don't like that picture at all.

  Gwen

February 16, 2008 at 9:35 AM

The Muslim blowjob one's body looks "natural"? Have you seen any real women lately? We don't look anything like that. That is a body that has been manipulated and controlled (through dieting, shaving, breast implants (?), etc.) to look like that. Not even close to natural.

  Lisa

February 16, 2008 at 12:27 PM

The comment by Anonymous 7:47 is an excellent example of the entitlement people feel to judge women's bodies. The comment is so authoritative, even calm in it's assuredness that it's judgement is called for. And notice how it thrives on the fact that the women's faces are obscured. It is almost as if the lack of individuality make such evaluation even easier... he can love the women's bodies, calling them "beautiful" and such, without having to deal with the fact that these bodies are also women with personalities that he may or make not like. This illustrates what I suggested was true in the first comment (her being totally fuckable, in this case with words, without being an individual who can have an opinion about it).

Very interesting. Thanks for the fodder, Anonymous.

  Anonymous

February 16, 2008 at 1:11 PM

It seems lisa's and gwen's comments are far more authoritative than anyone else's here, to me.

  Anonymous

February 16, 2008 at 1:32 PM

"DIALOGUE: We are aware that images are polysemic and that people will use them in many different ways, so our commentary, when offered, is never meant to control how people use the images (as if we could anyway). We welcome comments that offer additional or alternative interpretations of images, in fact we'd love them, but let's not get into any fights about what an image does or doesn't mean."

So much for polysemy!

Do you want dialogue or do you want 'fodder' to dismiss? One post, and another human being becomes an 'it.' Yikes.

  Lisa

February 16, 2008 at 4:26 PM

Anonymous 1:32, I accept your criticism of my use of the word "it." I was trying to talk about the comment ("it") and not the commenter, but I did slip up later and refer to the commenter as a "he," even though I don't know the sex of the commenter.

Still, I think your criticism of my response to the comment is undue. The commenter didn't exactly offer an alternative interpretation, the bodies were simply evaluated.

Granted, though, for better or worse, my reference to the post as "fodder" was mighty snarky. It is likely best to leave the fodder alone and let others do what they will. Then again, staying silent in the face of oppressive rhetoric (and, yes, I do believe the evaluations to be oppressive rhetoric) allows such rhetoric to appear unproblematic. I felt compelled to call out the phenomenon, as much as you did when you did the same to me.

To dialogue!

  Anonymous

February 16, 2008 at 5:30 PM

Lisa:

I don't know what you mean by 'rhetoric,' but the first anon poster actually gave some reasons, which are the very opposite of rhetoric. And the opposite of oppression. He/she was appealing to your intellect; note the calm tone, which was also interpreted as a minus. I'm not sure how anyone could make some sort of scientific, rational case for beauty (to escape your accusation of 'rhetoric' and 'oppression'), but reread the post.

The poster provided a context - ignore the burka that was strangling the woman's face, in the first photo. Isn't the rest of the woman gently and beautifully lit? If it was a torn photo instead, wouldn't it be a lovely female form? Can you put aside your outrage to at least see this? Here you have a poster who is explicitly REJECTING the violent strangulation imagery, and yet you are outraged. Odd. Then, the beauty admired is gentle, delicate, natural, which also incurs your wrath. Hm. Also odd.

Far from oppressive and rhetorical, this poster has, in a very tidy, brief way, given you reasons for why the negativity was rejected and why the positivity was accepted in that first photo, yet you somehow feel oppressed and feel the need to liberate yourself from this burden. Very odd, it seems to me. I actually expected a more complex response than indignant outrage from that post. There's some complexity there in the viewer's POV, completely discounted by the commenters here.

In the age of the net, we are far more media savvy than our parents generation. You seem to operate under the presumption of 1950's Pavlovian psychology, stimulus/response: Ooh, someone is trying to outrage me with fascist porn, therefore I MUST become outraged. Ah, I don't think so. We're more sophisticated these days than that, aren't we. I see celebrities, politicians, bloggers trying to provoke, persuade, entertain me to their viewpoint at every instant of the day; I hardly am susceptible to this kind of ham-handed manipulation. I don't think you are, either. And it seems pretty clear this poster wasn't either. Reread the text: the poster just sidestepped the violence to women, it wasn't even an issue. He/she says it is STUPID (hello!?) and ignores it. Why does this outrage you? Recall the simple minded media consumption of the Islamic militants with the Muhammed cartoons: they saw offensive images and were OUTRAGED in a knee-jerk way. No ability to step back from the imagery. As if feminists need to be 1st Waver puritans, humorless who have to be offended first, human second. Old school, old media mindset.

I have a sneaking suspicion that you believe that Good must be Beautiful and that Evil must be Ugly, as in a Disney movie, where the princess is pretty Ariel and Ursula is a sea slug. In my experience, real life is far more complex (and interesting than this) and ugly, nasty people can be very attractive on the outside and good, virtuous feminist men or women can be unattatractive. Or anything in between. I think you see my point.

Why do I belabor this point? Because my husband wrote that first post! And I visit this site all the time, and he happened to see what was on the screen when I was making dinner. I was amused at the immediate, visceral outrage that didn't even bother to ask questions, but merely to act, in good PC fashion, as judge and jury. I WANT to read this site in the future. I WANT to remain loyal. But this kind of cartoon invective is just unacceptable. Let us continue with honest dialogue, not just conversation on false, delimited terms.

  Anonymous

February 16, 2008 at 7:13 PM

Here are my two cents on the exchange above. To me, it does not seem that Lisa was attempting to stifle dialogue, but rather pointing out that we need to consider the messages conveyed by each picture in its entirety. In the pics, we have the objectificaiton of female bodies which (I guess) we're supposed to ignore because, ironically, it serves to highlight the freedoms that women in some parts of the Muslim world do not have. So, by commenting just on the aesthetics of the pictures or the (relative) attractiveness of the female form, we fail to account for how problematic the overall messages are--1) Non-Muslim women have more freedoms; 2) Women are eye-candy for us men. Perhaps that is why the first anonymous does not seem to realize that "Muslim Blowjob" is more than just a "dumb joke" and "just ignored the bomb imagery".

So, there are my two cents, y'all.
Feel free to keep the change.

  Gwen

February 16, 2008 at 8:24 PM

I'm a little confused by the idea that we can just "ignore" the parts of images we don't like--hey, the first one is supposed to bring to mind the images at Abu Ghraib, but as long as the lighting is nice and I find the physical form attractive, the repetitive use of a certain type of woman's body in clearly objectified poses that are meant to evoke ideas of violence just isn't meaningful. We may not ACCEPT them, we may not AGREE with the imagery, but to pretend the public at large can just dismiss parts of images and, therefore, they don't exist, seems naive. These images play into a long history of the exoticized Other woman who is sexually available but silenced, and I think that's a cultural history than can't just be shrugged off by saying "well, if you hold your finger over that part, the rest isn't so bad."

And sociologically, "rhetoric" isn't used in the way it's used in more popular speech to mean manipulative or empty speech. But from reading the comments, and the clear familiarity with media studies, I suspect everyone who's been posting knows this distinction.

We in general don't really respond to comments too much on the blog--we're just putting these images up there for people to use as they will, and we're more interested in finding new stuff (I keep hoping we'll run out, but we never do). I found these images and they particularly depress me because I face, on a nearly daily basis, students who believe that women in other countries are unambiguously oppressed, that they have no agency, and that we are enlightened and sophisticated. Muslim and African (not clearly defined) are used as examples all the time. I think it's fascinating that these images were posted by someone who maintains a blog in which s/he appears to be arguing for more equality for Muslim women by posting pictures that objectify them and portray them in ways that take away any chance for agency (that is, a personality or voice).

Do we get emotional sometimes about the things we post? Of course! That's part of the reason we so rarely post comments--we just put the images out there and try not to put ourselves into the position to say "this is what this image is about," although we do sometimes include commentary about what WE see in them.

And given that, even if you hate any or everything we say, if you like the images and find the useful, why do our comments matter? Ignore use, and do what you will then.

And we are not humorless. We are comedic freaking GENIUSES, I assure you. Or anyway, I am. Lisa is just comedically GIFTED.

  G

February 17, 2008 at 6:42 AM

As a feminist Muslim woman who covers I found these pictures fascinating.

The "burqa", which is in fact a cultural practice with a name specific to Afghanistan (the Islamic practice is called "hijab" which is covering the hair and the body and leaving the face and hands open and “niqab” when the face is covered as well) can be both oppressive and empowering to women.

The discussion of the Scarlet Johanson picture is especially revealing. The writer presents two kinds of images: of oppressed women and of hyper-sexualized women.

  Anonymous

February 17, 2008 at 7:43 AM

There are so many problems deeply embedded with Gwen’s response that I really don’t have time to address all of them. This is the result of a clash of frameworks. But let’s take a look at a few.

“I'm a little confused by the idea that we can just "ignore" the parts of images we don't like--hey, the first one is supposed to bring to mind the images at Abu Ghraib,”

I’m sorry, what was that? What was all that stuff about polysemy? Like so many academics, all that rhetoric about polysemy simply goes out the window the minute her agenda is in danger. The image has no intrinsic meaning. None. Gwen is suddenly insisting there is one true meaning. A male or a female can simply admire the beautiful form on its own terms, and not someone else’s. But this is precisely the kind of interpretive freedom that a feminist like Gwen cannot tolerate. You see, the image MUST mean something about the current political geopolitical context. This is deeply, deeply doctrinaire and hardly a serious attempt to address real people’s perceptions. Gwen may not like an apolitical perception of this image, but too bad. Real people do it all the time. This is why so many people cannot take feminists like Gwen seriously. Far too dogmatic.

The irony is that a feminist, one would think, would be about empowering women to let them choose beliefs and perspectives on their own. The dilemma this produces is that freedom and independence are neutral, and we have the classic problem of the woman who chooses reactionary goals (I want to stay home and raise babies). But if one defines feminism as choosing only the RIGHT goals this leads to the often bullying, puritanical self-righteousness of so many academics, which we also saw in these very comments at the start. It’s a pickle! But back to her words…

“but as long as the lighting is nice and I find the physical form attractive, the repetitive use of a certain type of woman's body in clearly objectified poses”

Ok, slow down there. The first photo is just a standing woman. Objectified? Not really. Again, I will merely state one more time – just because some simpleton puts a scarf around a woman’s head doesn’t mean I have to accept it or even look at it. Maybe YOU are anchored to the image in such a concrete way, but I am not. How is that for a feminist! It is in your self-interest to belittle my imagination and volition and intellectual agility in the name of feminist liberation! Can you perceive the irony of your position, Gwen? I doubt it. You are married to your own intellectual impotence to keep yourself a victim. I am not so trapped and do not see myself a victim. Oh how odd.

“that are meant to evoke ideas of violence just isn't meaningful. We may not ACCEPT them, we may not AGREE with the imagery, but to pretend the public at large can just dismiss parts of images and, therefore, they don't exist, seems naive. These images play into a long history of the exoticized Other woman who is sexually available but silenced, and I think that's a cultural history than can't just be shrugged off by saying "well, if you hold your finger over that part, the rest isn't so bad."

And how do you know, Gwen, that this exalted ‘cultural history of the exoticized Other’ (been reading Said? His work is not without its own deep, systemic biases) affects mainstream interpretations? Again, you speak in gross generalities. And let us just agree to disagree on a former point – I think people are far, far more sophisticated consumers and processors of media imagery than you seem to imagine them. I’ll just move on for now.

”And sociologically, "rhetoric" isn't used in the way it's used in more popular speech to mean manipulative or empty speech. But from reading the comments, and the clear familiarity with media studies, I suspect everyone who's been posting knows this distinction.”

I would believe that if you didn’t respond in such hyperbolic fashion. Unfortunately, it was the emotional, self-righteous groupthink displayed here that clued me in to the fact that you are, in actuality, probably using rhetoric in PRECISELY its meaning as empty, manipulative speech.

”We in general don't really respond to comments too much on the blog--we're just putting these images up there for people to use as they will, and we're more interested in finding new stuff (I keep hoping we'll run out, but we never do). I found these images and they particularly depress me because I face, on a nearly daily basis, students who believe that women in other countries are unambiguously oppressed, that they have no agency, and that we are enlightened and sophisticated.”

Yet you are singularly invested in minimizing my own intellectual agency to make your points! I hope you can see this contradiction. My goodness, here you are coming down from the mountaintop to teach your students that we are not so free and other women are not so enslaved. But while you are undercutting one rigid, false dichotomy (us-free, them-enslaved) but you are simultaneously reinforcing another rigid, false dichotomy (these images MUST be seen as oppressive, an enlightened person could find no interpretive flexibility here, the hermeneutic situation is a light switch of barbaric ignorant patriarchy/enlightened feminism with no experiential plasticity to muddy the issue). The breathtaking simplicity and incoherence of this framework is disappointing in a university setting.

“And we are not humorless. We are comedic freaking GENIUSES, I assure you. Or anyway, I am. Lisa is just comedically GIFTED.”

Perhaps you are. But not when the One True Faith is threatened, I gather. I found very, very little humor in your posts, mostly just miffed self-righteousness. I would suggest a true intellectual thinks to better comprehend reality, not to force it into some conceptual one-size-fits-all straitjacket. Leave dogma to the Bush years, may they rest in peace.

You told me about yourselves, so a little about me. I am a mother. I have a doctorate and am excellent at my job. I have a loving husband. I am an atheist, firmly support abortion rights, and have never voted anything but Democratic. But it is sloppiness such as this that keeps me from identifying as a feminist. At any rate, I am potty training my daughter as I write this, and I must be going now. She is quite the handful.

  Lisa

February 17, 2008 at 11:07 AM

ge&b,

Thanks for commenting. I agree that the various ways of covering women's bodies can be both empowering and oppressive. Certainly, in addition, the demand to display is it's own sort of empowerment/oppression. For me, that's definitely what makes these images so interesting. :)

  Anonymous

February 17, 2008 at 11:09 AM

Just to clarify, to say that an image is polysemic isn't to say that it has no meaning and can be fairly interpreted in any way one wishes... only that it can be interpreted in more than one way.

  mary_m

February 21, 2008 at 10:37 AM

Maybe I'm being a jerk here, but I believe that if you can't say it in less than five paragraphs, maybe you shouldn't say it at all.

In anonymous blog comments, anyways.

  Anonymous

February 24, 2008 at 2:36 PM

mary_m: Hear, hear.

One of the first things a student is taught in high school is to consider the context of the media that they're told to analyze. When someone "just ignores" aspects of the image as a whole it reveals more about themselves and their analytical habits. In a history class one cannot "just ignore" the societal context of the events you study; in a literature class one cannot "just ignore" the historical and cultural backdrop that the work is set against. That sort of complacency, benign or not, would get a student marked down up to a full letter grade in class. Just a thought.

- J.

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