ABSTRACT
Arab women are often portrayed on Arab television satellite channels as wearing skimpy clothes and dancing in sexually provocative ways. At the same time, it is interesting to note that the Western media continue to depict Arab women in stereotypical ways as evidenced by the plethora of images of them wearing the burqa (Salam AI-Mahadin 2007; Faegheh Shirazi 2001). Who, I would ask, is this Arab/Muslim 1 woman made to appear to seamlessly flow between two such extreme representations? While the Western media appear to be desperate to catch her covered up so that they can jump on the bandwagon of human rights and call for divesting her of her oppressive clothing, the entertainment industries in many Arab countries have now apparently accepted and embraced the eroticisation and sexual objectification of the female body. How is it possible that both Western and Arab media can capture images of Arab women that bear very little resemblance to the everyday reality of most Arab women’s lives today?
