ABSTRACT
The victimized image of the so called ‘third world’ female subject, trapped helplessly in the brutal effects of war and patriarchy, is remarkably familiar to the Western imagination and discourse (Kapur, 2002). Our memory of the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is almost overwhelmed by images of weeping women and girls who appear imprisoned in their cycle of suffering. Their helpless, victimized images often invoked outrage and pity in the West; genuine emotions that were manipulated politically as Alsultany (2013, p. 165) argues to justify these imperial invasions. Postcolonial feminist research suggests that such victimizing processes suppress non-Western women’s voices; they are ‘either misunderstood or misrepresented through the self-interest of those with the power to represent’ them (Bahri, 2004, p. 199). An important project of postcolonial feminism is to resist and critique mainstream feminist processes that silence non-Western women and colonize their experiences and imagery (Wex, 2008, p. 2).
