“Women’s Rights Washing”

This chapter looks at “Women’s Rights Washing,” which is the mobilization of women’s rights in order to refurbish a country’s image or for consolidating bilateral relations. This strategy gains its meaning from the inter- and transnational circulation of pro-woman discourses. The image of a country as “advanced” – or making efforts – on women’s rights has become desirable, while an image of backwardness on women’s rights has become undesirable. Using the case of Saudi Arabia – a state with a particularly bad human rights image and an ally of the hegemonic countries – this chapter analyzes how different players participate in Women’s Rights Washing, intentionally or not. While governments, international organizations, and businesses mobilize discourses highlighting progress in women’s rights in order to maintain diplomatic and commercial relations, these discourses only have an impact because they are carried outside Saudi Arabia. Foreign media very often relay government discourses on “Saudi women” – and in the process they make invisible more critical discourses of the regime – for many reasons relating to their way of approaching “Saudi women” in particular and “women (regarded as) Muslim” in general. Complex power configurations, involving states, media, institutions and activists, result in discourses circulating transnationally while others remain invisible.