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Assignment 11

Lila Abu-Lughod focuses on the veiled women of Afghanistan and argues on the United States’ negative “vocations of saving others.” This essay comes after the U.S. war in Afghanistan and criticizes how Westerners analyze Muslim women. One aspect that Lila Abu-Lughod says many criticize are the head-dresses, especially the burqa, that many Muslim women wear. Abu-Lughod argues that many of us see these garments of clothing as a sign of submission when it may in fact be a way of empowerment and uprising. Besides being a symbol of class status, head-dresses allow women to leave the house in a just manner without any harassment from men. The burqa, and other forms of head-dresses, have a deeper meaning tied to their culture. Muslim women voluntarily choose to wear these garments because it represents strong ties to their families as well as possessing respectable morals.
Lila Abu-Lughod urges us to be wary of our “vocations of saving others.” She argues that we are used to imposing our opinions and what we consider to be politically correct onto other nations. Therefore, we fail to make a connection with other cultures with a different history than ours. Instead of always fighting for a specific gender or race, when we deal with other nations, we must consider culture as a very important factor as well. Lila Abu-Lughod’s solution to this issue is to be more culturally aware. Instead of using military forces to solve problems, we should come up with ways to make the world a more just place for all. We can go about this by holding debates and conferences between all groups of people and learn from one another. To make this successful, Westerners need to be accepting of differences because other nations might have different definitions of what is just or unjust.