The Politics of Hijab in American Culture

Wayne State University Wayne State University Dissertations January 2020 The Politics Of Hijab In American Culture Noha F. Beydoun Wayne State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations Part of the American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Beydoun, Noha F., "The Politics Of Hijab In American Culture" (2020). Wayne State University Dissertations. 2380. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/2380 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wayne State University Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. THE POLITICS OF HIJAB IN AMERICAN CULTURE by NOHA F BEYDOUN DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate School of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2020 MAJOR: ENGLISH Approved by: ______________________________ Advisor Date ______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ © COPYRIGHT BY NOHA F BEYDOUN 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DEDICATION To my mother and my daughters— the sky and its stars ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I begin in the name of God, the Lord of all beings big and small. I sincerely extend my appreciation to my dream team dissertation committee: Dr. Sarika Chandra, Dr. Lisa Winters, Dr. Chera Kee, and Dr. Evelyn Alsultany. They were incredibly knowledgeable, kind, and flexible. I am indebted to the invaluable wisdom offered to me by the most inspiring director a graduate student could ask for. Working with Dr. Chandra has been a truly enriching experience both academically and personally. Dr. Alsultany influenced my scholarly interests far before the pursuit of this degree—and has extended her help in ways far beyond the typical role of an outside reader. I am so grateful. I am also grateful to Wayne State University for supporting my research interests and for facilitating the pursuit of this degree. I extend appreciation to Dr. Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni for his scholarly insight and helping me contextualize my argument in faith and community. I am indebted to my family for their unconditional love, stability, and support. My father’s wisdom and foresight is deep like the ocean, and my mother’s spirit keeps me afloat. My siblings are my safety net that never allow me to fall. Abeir, Toufic, Emal, and Ali kept me wrapped in warmth and joy through this rigorous process. I also acknowledge the women in my life who formed a tight circle of strength around me, who listened to my incohesive sentences while this project took shape--and to Dr. Maryam Berri (MD) for insisting that I fix them. Finally, to my sweet daughters Eman and Zaynab. Their radiant faces light up the sometimes-dark pathways of uncertainty life takes us through, and they have led the way through faith and hope. By far, my favorite function in life is to be their mother; I believe that completing this project was part of mothering them. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication..………………………………………………………………………...…………......ii Acknowledgments…..…………………………………………………………………………....iii Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………......1 Chapter 1: Hijab and Political Advocacy Groups…………………….…………….……….......47 Chapter 2: Hijab and the Contemporary American Novel………………………….……...........92 Chapter 3: Hijab and Nonfiction-Memoirs………………………………………….………....142 Chapter 4: Hijab and Political Iconography………………………………………….………...186 Conclusion: Moving Past Identity Politics…………………………………………..…………230 Appendix A ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........235 Appendix B ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........236 Appendix C ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........237 Appendix D ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........238 Appendix E ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........239 Appendix F ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........240 Appendix E ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........241 Appendix G ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........242 Appendix H ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........243 Appendix J ..………...……………………………………………………………..……...........244 Appendix K ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........245 Appendix L ..………...……………………………………………………………..……..........246 Bibliography…………………………………..………………………………………..……....247 Abstract…………………………………………...……………………………………..……..263 Autobiographical Statement………………………………………………………....………...264 iv 1 INTRODUCTION : In this project, I examine the relationship between the politics of hijab in contemporary American culture and United States imperialism. Historically, the United States government has created a well-known narrative that people who identify as Muslim are uncivil, premodern, and a threat to western civilization 1. This narrative is propagated through modes of popular political and cultural media and has been necessary to legitimizing American global hegemony 2. Post 9/11, the so-called “war on terror” has depended on creating the war through the construction of Muslim terrorist figures. So, too, was the creation of the “Muslim woman” figure both domestically and overseas as a symbol of subjugation in need of liberation. The strongest example supporting the narrative that Muslim women need “saving,” media emphasizes, is that they are especially oppressed, as evidenced by the presence of a head covering—her hijab (Abu Lughod, 2002). Propagating across various U.S media outlets are images and discourse creating an “uncivilized Muslim man,” and, more commonly visible, the oppressed “Muslim woman 3” figure burdened by a black hijab--face covered and voiceless. Many scholars have considered this construction of a Muslim terrorist 4, and, importantly, the oppressed Muslim woman, as a government strategy that justifies overseas practices to secure national resources and geopolitical interests. Accordingly, constructing a culture domestically—within the United States—directly serves and informs US 1 Jack Shaheen has published multiple articles tracing the ways Arabs and Muslims have been vilified in American popular media and culture both pre and post 9/11. See for example, “Media Coverage of the Middle East” (1985), “Rules of Engagement": A Highwater Mark in Hollywood Hate Mongering With U.S. Military "Cooperation” (2000), “Hollywood’s Muslim Arabs” (2000), “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People” (2003). 2 In Orientalism, Edward Said famously coins the term “orientalism,” in which 18 th century travel writers described the Middle East as barbaric and uncivil . Said argues this discourse was essential to establish “Western” hegemony over Eastern parts of the world. 3 See, for example, Elia (2006), Droogsma (2007), Maira (2009), Alsultany (2013) 4 Mahmoud Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Pantheon Books. 2005 . Print. 2 imperial interests abroad. The politics of liberating the “oppressed” Muslim woman figure within the US, for example, entails that the West can somehow save her from veiling and forced marriages she is supposedly subjected to in the East; such rhetoric that entails protecting particular freedoms of choice for Muslim women in the US mask governments simultaneous engagement in practices of disciplining Muslim men (such as through surveillance) in Muslim communities (Maira, 641). Furthermore, such narratives that operate domestically also shape the public’s understanding of Muslim majority countries, and directly service the justification of US imperial practices. Imperial feminism, for example, assumes that the United States can take its “freedoms” to other parts of the world, to liberate oppressed Muslim women, even if it is through means of war (Maira, 641). Accordingly, notions of liberation and freedom are often negotiated through the hijab of such constructed Muslim women figures, and the narrative of their oppression, as I will show, is used to justify US government’s imperial practices beyond the nation’s borders. Yet, migrations of Muslims into the United States (from as early on as the late 19 th century and early 20 th from countries including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine, fleeing their homelands from war 5) continues. As the population of Muslims in the US continues to grow, their increasing presence in the US, as an otherwise “foreignized” civilization, cannot be ignored. Technology and cultural mediums have given Muslims their own platforms to speak (through popular mediums such as fiction, political advocacy groups, memoirs, activism, political media, etc), and creating this narrative of “othering” has become far more complicated than the typically depicted scenes of the imperiled Muslim woman figure. Immigration, in particular, for example—of people of “deviant” cultures and “origins” that have otherwise been “othered” by the United States government and media—has necessitated the creation of cultural values that ensures the continued 5 https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/islam-in-america/ 3 subjugation of people 6. Activists, scholars, and ordinary Muslims Americans within the United States have pushed back against the stereotyped social constructs of the iconic “Muslim woman 7” figure created by popular media, and these narratives will be the subject of this dissertation. Accordingly, in order to legitimize their place in American society, women who identify as Muslim find themselves in various cultural venues to (re)write their stories particularly

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