Depicting the Veil Transnational Sexism and the War

This powerful book exposes how gendered Orientalism is wielded to justify Western imperialism.

Over the last ten years, Western governments and mainstream media have utilized concepts of white masculine supremacy and feminine helplessness, juxtaposed with Orientalist images depicting women of color as mysterious, sinister and dangerous to support war. Oscillating between "Mrs. Anthrax," female suicide bombers and tragic, helpless victims, representations of "brown women" have spawned both rescue narratives and terrorist alerts.

Examining media and pop culture from Sex and the City 2 to Vanity Fair and Time Magazine, Robin Riley uses transnational feminist analysis to reveal how this kind of transnational sexism towards Muslim women in general and Afghan and Iraqi women in particular has led to a new form of gender imperialism.

Robin Lee Riley is an Assistant Professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Department, Syracuse University, USA. She is the author of Feminism and War, Zed Books, 2008.

List of illustrations
Introduction
1. Rescuing Afghan Women
2. 'Real Housewives,' Married to the Enemy
3. 'Where are the Women?': Muslim Women's Visibility and Invisibility
4. We Are All Soldiers Now: Deploying Western Women
5. This is What Liberation Looks Like