Depicting the Veil

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.