Veiling in the Modern World: Media

Aspect of Globalization: The Media

The media is a prominent force in globalization. It increases global connectedness and plays a large role in the daily lives of citizens around the world. According to Marshall McLuhan, “all media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” Mediums such as news, advertisements, fashion shows, television and movies depict veiling differently depending on the cultural context and the audience (Shirazi, 2001). However, these representations of the veil are often inaccurate or convey conflicting values (Shirazi, 2001). Further, through various forms of media, they are dispersed on a global scale. The media therefore is a prominent player in defining the veil’s meaning around the world.

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Advertisements portray the veil both positively and negatively. The meaning of the Veil depicted in ads is highly dependent on the target audience (Shirazi, 2001). Some advertisements portray the veil as a symbol of oppression, while others hypersexualize it by portraying it as a symbol of exotic beauty (Shirazi, 2001). For other audiences, the veil is alternatively advertised as a symbol of femininity, modesty and beauty (Shirazi, 2001).

Source: Lauramountianbike
Caption: "The Sultan of Bundi had nothing against women. He thought that
everyone should own two or three. You've come a long way baby."

A 1989 Virginia Slims advertisement intended for a Western audience depicts veiling as oppressive and idealizes Western women as liberated (Shirazi, 2001). Shirazi (2001) argues that “when the target audience is western female, advertisers rely on racist stereotyping of Muslim women as oppressed.” Thus, the veil is inaccurately depicted as a symbol of oppression. The slogan “You’ve come a long way baby,” suggests that the Western women viewing the ad have overcome oppression, while the veiled women in the ad have not. The veil is used as a distinction between the seemingly liberated Western women and the seemingly oppressed veiled women.

Youtube

In contrast, the veil is also depicted in a seemingly positive manner. However, this positivity is undermined by its negative impacts and inaccurate portrayals of the veil. A recent lingerie advertisement by the German retailor Liaison Dangereuse featured a woman putting on makeup, lingerie and high heels. She pauses to admire her beautiful figure in the mirror before she covers everything except for her eyes with a niqab. The ad finishes the words “Sexiness for everyone. Everywhere.” Picchi (2010) argues that the ad “sends a positive message that goes well beyond hawking lacy teddies. Whether a person is wearing a sweatsuit or burqa, their true identity cannot be parsed by their outward appearance.”  To Picchi (2010), this ad is a source of female empowerment as it seemingly shows that all women are the same under the veil.

Conversely, the advertisements can be understood as hypersexualizing the veil, thus overlooking the true meaning of the veil to the women who where it. Religion Historian Hanne Nabintu Herland (2009) argues that “the reason why this underwear ad is perceived as provocative is because the Arab headdress is connected to sexuality – and not to morality and virtue.” Banu and Secor (2009) explain that “veiling, for Islam, is usually understood as a Koranic injunction requiring women’s modest dress.” However, this meaning is easily lost through the media’s portrayal of the veil. While the veil is truly a symbol of modesty to many of the women that wear it, the Western world is sexualizing the veil in advertisements.  In doing so, they appeal to the Islamic women they are targeting as well as Western women by sexualizing the veil.

Comics

Source: Humanity in Action

A comic released in the New Zealand newspaper, The Manawatu Standard, addresses this problematic sexualization of the veil through the media. The uncovered Caucasian women depicted in the comic sexualizes the veil by assuming that the other woman wears the veil because of a supposedly oppressive culture. By reducing the woman’s clothing choice to the influences of her “male-dominated culture,” she attaches an imbalance of sexual power to the veil, thus sexualizing the veil itself. This speaks directly to many forms of media that sexualize the veil by attaching inaccurate oppressive meanings to the it, such as the German lingerie advertisement discussed above. The media plays a powerful role in how the veil is portrayed and understood in the globalized world.

News Media

The veil is often portrayed negatively in the news, particularly in the Western world (Munro). Islamic nations are presented in the news as “intolerant and anti-democratic,” particularly post-9/11 (Munro). The veil has become a symbol of this intolerance (Klaus and Kassel 2005, 335). Klaus and Kassel (2005, 337) argue that “media logic determines the representation of social life and governs out political and cultural discourses, with other social institutions adapting to it.” Thus, the media is a powerful force in constructing the meaning of the veil around the world. Though the true meaning lies in modesty and religious expression, news media is redefining the veil in the globalized world (Banu and Secor 2009).

Conclusion

The media can have powerful, detrimental effects on global understanding of the veil. Various mediums project inaccurate images of the veil, which is often internalized as the symbol of Islam. The media’s ability to construct meaning around the veil depending on the context and audience is too often used to delegitimize the veil and to reject Islam. The global reach of the media allows this message to be spread around the world, creating a false understanding of the veil globally.

Sources:

Elizabeth Klaus and Susanne Kassel. “The veil as a means of Legitimization: An analysis of the interconnectedness of gender, media and war,” Journalism, no. 6 (July 2005): 1, http://jou.sagepub.com/content/6/3/335.abstract

Gökariksel, Banu and Secor, Anna. 2009.”New transnational geographies of Islamism, capitalism and subjectivity: the veiling-fashion industry in Turkey.” Area 41.1:6-18. Accessed November 14, 2013. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2008.00849.x/abstract

Kjell Persen. 2009. “Provokes the nudity under the veil.” Tv 2. October 27. Accessed November 20, 2013. http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/utenriks/provoserer-med-nakenhet-under-sloeret-2976425.html

Munro, Mara. 2011. “Sensationalism Veils: The Portrayal of Muslim Women in Western News Media.” Centre for Intercultural Learning, December 19. Accessed November 20, 2013. http://www.international.gc.ca/cfsi-icse/cil-cai/magazine/v02n03/1-4-eng.asp

Picchi, Aimee. 2010. “German Lingerie Ad Lifts the Veil on Muslim Women.” Daily Finance, January 8. Accessed November 20, 2013. http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/01/07/german-lingerie-ad-lifts-the-veil-of-muslim-women/

Shirazi, Faegheh. 2001. The Veil Unveiled: The Hijab in Modern Culture. Gainsville: University Press of Florida.