Abstract
Through the analysis of Emer Martin’s novel Baby Zero (2007), Chapter 12 explores how transnational feminist politics are an appropriate tool to resist and dismantle those dichotomies derived from what Samuel P. Huntington identifies as a ‘civilizational clash’, and a reading of the world which turns women and their bodies into its battleground. This analysis emphasizes the possibilities of approaching the veil trope offered by transnational feminism which undermine not only Eastern veils’ tokenistic and fixed meanings in hegemonic ‘veil narratives’, but also their correlated image of uncovered—equated to liberated—women in the West.
Key authors, texts, case studies or examples: Emer Martin’s novel Baby Zero (2007).
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Notes
- 1.
My use of the term ‘Western’ is a shortcut that is not meant to imply a particular set of countries located in the geographical West. Instead, I try to connote the cultural dominance of Eurocentric ideologies.
- 2.
One need only read/watch the news to see how this discourse prevails in the current confrontation with ISIS and women’s participation in this global jihadist movement. These women are repeatedly portrayed as ‘brainwashed’ victims, ‘seduced’ and ‘tricked’ by ‘their’ men to act against ‘their own interests’ and consequently, in need of Western (‘feminist’) ‘illumination’ and ‘rescue’.
- 3.
These are the roots of the current controversies over the image of women in ISIS who have chosen to dress this way, which constitutes a shock for Westerners.
- 4.
See Ahmad 2009; Mahmood 2008; Martín-Lucas 2014. Many of the chapters in this volume engage in discussions of the complex issue of representation which can be easily linked to the mis- and over-representation of Muslim women and, which enrich the reading of these problematic depictions. For a specific examination of the reception of narratives of difference, and especially the ‘packaging’ of the Third World for consumption in the markets of globalization , see Chap. 5 by James Procter.
- 5.
My use of the term ‘veil narratives ’ refers to any (visual or linguistic) type of text where (un)veiling features prominently as symbolic resource. It is worth clarifying that there is an obvious generalization and homogenization in the use of the English words ‘veil’ and ‘veiling’, Particularly in the West, ‘veiling’ is frequently employed to refer to a wide variety of women’s Islamic dress codes, which obscures the differences between the indefinite number of practices this term is meant to convey while also erasing from view the reality of non-Muslim veiling practices such as those in Jewish, Christian or Hindu traditions (Pedwell 2007, 4).
- 6.
I borrow the term ‘unfreedom ’ from Moallem who explains that in spite of it not being a word in English, it expresses better than any other existing word ‘the negation of the concept of freedom’ (Moallem 2012, 199).
- 7.
Robin L. Riley, Chandra T. Mohanty and Minnie Bruce Pratt’s edited collection Feminism and War: Confronting U.S. Imperialism (2008) contains a broad selection of articles that disclose the historical and geopolitical intricacies not only of the military intervention in Afghanistan but of the many US imperialist wars.
- 8.
A more recent example of this would be the so-called ‘burkini ban’ implemented in August 2016 by several cities and communes along the French coast.
- 9.
For a more extended examination of this complex topic, see Grewal 2005.
- 10.
- 11.
Farah’s martyrdom is highly problematic from a feminist point of view because it may seem to reinforce a rather conventional model of motherhood, the mother who sacrifices herself for her children, her family or her nation.
- 12.
In this sense, I agree with Carolyn Pedwell who argues that certain generalizations implied in dualisms such as ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ veils, for instance, are problematic. As well as obscuring other veiling practices, as made explicit before, Pedwell claims that ‘labelling Muslim veiling “non-Western” obscures the wide practice of veiling in Western industrialised countries by women who may consider themselves both “Muslim” and “Western”’ (Pedwell 2007, 5) and ‘[i]t is also clear that so called “Western” beauty procedures are practiced all over the world’ (Pedwell 2007, 5).
- 13.
The most notable example of this position is perhaps Kathy Davis’s work on cosmetic surgery. Davis has defended the idea that cosmetic surgery is ‘first and foremost … about taking one’s life into one’s own hands’ (qtd. in Bordo 1993, 20; italics in the original) which was contested by Susan Bordo in her acclaimed book Unbearable Weight, initiating a debate that the two authors sustained for some years and one that feminist scholars continue to engage in.
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Rosende-Pérez, A. (2017). (Un)Veiling Women’s Bodies: Transnational Feminisms in Emer Martin’s Baby Zero . In: Martín-Lucas, B., Ruthven, A. (eds) Narratives of Difference in Globalized Cultures. New Comparisons in World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62133-3_12
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