Oppression In America

In recent years, America’s attention has been gripped by stories of women who have escaped the Middle East. Each story is unique, but they all share the same themes of oppression, abuse, and domination. Since then, Americans have felt compelled to “save” Middle Eastern women and many of the activists are now been highly praised for the influence they have had in the region. Others, however, have come to question whether the Muslim women in the Middle East really need the U.S. to rescue them from Islam. The notion that Muslim women in the Middle East are oppressed is too general for anyone to really claim and has not even been proved as credible. Oppression, especially of women, is a complex phenomenon that can be influenced not only by religion
Attention was placed on problems such as veiling, forced marriage, and domestic violence. Organizations from around the world and of varying sizes and backgrounds rushed to the Middle East to help these women and to free them from the grasp of their husbands and fathers (p173). Around this time, women who had grown up in the Middle East but had since migrated to western countries began to relay their stories to writers and publish personal memoirs. Although written and published by authors of many different political backgrounds, every one of these books delivers the same message (a1p258). They portray Muslim women in the Middle East as silent and invisible and as having no control over their own lives (a1p258). Some of those stories have been revealed as hoaxes; others have been carefully written so that the reader connects the author’s experience with the culture even if their experience is not representative of the culture (p89). These books have become very popular with Americans because of the rags to riches storyline and the notion that Americans at home could help these women as well
really is. America’s approach to every problem in the Middle East has been laced with the attitude that Westernization is the answer to all of the problems in the Middle East. The interventions claiming to bring freedom and rights for women have killed hundreds of thousands in the Middle East (p 114). Americans attack Islam, claiming that it is sexist and the men and their “testosterone-laden” values are the cause of all women’s oppression (book?). What Americans often don’t realize though is that sexism can also be found in the protestant Christian faith. Examples include not ordaining women, referring to God as the father, and not allowing women to use birth control (71-72). More importantly, the practice of veiling which is highly critiqued by Americans originated in Christian and Jew cultures as a way of keeping daughters from meeting other men once they were already promised for marriage (book). In addition, Americans stress the exploitation of women and the male dominant culture in the Middle East, while ignoring the fact that the very same problem exists in American culture. Frat violence, plastic surgery, and the beauty industry all speak to the role that males play in Western culture (p10). Some even criticize the prevalence of rape in the Middle Eastern, even though they are a common in the United States as