australian media and muslim women

Islam and the Veil

Islam has long been the subject of the veil, which has aroused people’s curiosity (Amer, 2014). Muslim organizations have had a significant role in shaping attitudes and language about women over time, which has had an impact on how women and the veil are interpreted in terms of politics. The media now has something to talk about when it comes to the merits of traditional Muslim women’s clothing, particularly the hijab. The relationship between contemporary terrorism and Islamic extremism has come to dominate the discourse, which has come to represent the clash of cultures. In countries like Australia, the representation of women in the media demonizes the Muslim women and thus depicting them as in need of freedom in foreign countries because of lacking the freedom of choice or that they represent a threat to the country owing to their choice to wear traditional Islamic veil.

The Burqa and Hijab in Different Islamic States

Whereas in different Islamic states like Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan the full covering called burqa or chador and the hijab have been compulsory, a criticism against Muslim traditions has seen wearing such clothing banned together with in the secularism interests. In this light, western media has considered the veiled women in the foreign lands as needing liberation or are seen as threats to the places they reside based on their choice of dressing. According to Rozario (1998), the Australian media has taken a central role in generating different misconceptions about the Muslim women making many women anxious to depict a true image of Islam. In the context of Australia, politicians have triggered media stories regarding the veil or hijab thus bringing the issue into the public domain as seen by the activities of the community or schools, which have endeavored to moderate wearing the hijab. Radio hosts have demonized and vilified Muslim women through their talk shows following the acts of terrorism that happened in various western countries (Posetti, 2006).

Representing Muslim Females

According to Hussein (2013), the period after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the murder of Bin Laden was dominated by burqa narratives: from the view of burqa as a sign of Taliban misogyny to the clothing as an undesired intrusion into the West’s enlightened culture. Furthermore, after the 9/11 attacks, the stress was very much on representing Muslim females as passive targets of religiously instigated patriarchal violence with women being considered as major agents of Islamic infiltration. Consequently, the Australian media has represented the women as the targets of Muslim men.

The Veil as a Symbol of Terror or Dissent

As Hussein (2013) relates, the stress has changed from depicting the veil as a sign of oppression into a sign of terror or an iconic symbol of disobedience and an area of dissimilarity. However, despite such scaremongering, the increased visibility of buoyant well-spoken hijab is slowly caused the headwear to lose much of its media and political quiver. The subsequent stage of the moral panic revolved around the burqa including its position in Western societies. Societies denounced burqas for disintegrating the border between public and private space as policy criminalizing face-covering in western states. In Australia, the obsession of the media with the veil has ensured the visibility of women. In the course of the previous decade, Australian Muslim women have shifted from a place of inaudibility to a position wherein many Muslim women have become frequent contributors in the country’s public discourses.

Media Representation of Muslim Women

Hebbani and Wills (2012) argue that in Australia media, Muslim women are represented as the ‘other’ in the multicultural settings. The necessity of unveiling Muslim women has been mirrored in widespread coverage in the media, which depicts the group as passive, oppressed, passive, subservient, Islamic fundamentalism targets, and a danger to democratic ideals as well as possible Islamic suicide bombers. The media represents the veil as a semantically charged religious symbol, which undermines the western values, norms, security, and identity leading to common proclamations of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and ‘of the different [different people and, therefore, ‘un-Australian’ in some way. Many more scholars contend that the media forms the site in which the West uses ideological values to advance their interests subtly and deliberately. The demonization of Muslims through prevalent stereotypes of fundamentalists or terrorists is one way of emphasizing white domination while maintaining the subjugation of those identified ‘others.’ Such impartial coverage in news media represents a case in which the marginalized comprising minorities and women are largely muted.

Conclusion

To sum up, Muslim groups have played a critical objective in defining the discourse and attitudes towards women with the traditional head and facial covering such as the veil, burqa, or hijab. After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, a lot of emphasis was placed on representing Muslim females as passive targets of religiously motivated patriarchal violence with women being considered as major agents of Islamic extremism. The representation of Muslim women in Australian media demonizes them and represents them as needing freedom or that their choice of dress is a threat to security. The issue has changed the perception of the community towards the community in attempts at moderating wearing the veil.

References

Amer, S. (2014). What is Veiling?.North Carolina: UNC Press Books.

Hebbani, A., & Wills, C. R. (2012). How Muslim women in Australia navigate through media (mis) representations of hijab/burqa. Australian Journal of Communication, 39(1), 87.

Hussein, S. (2013). From rescue missions to discipline: Post-9/11 Western Political Discourse on Muslim Women. Australian Feminist Studies, 28(76), 144-154.

Posetti, J. N. (2006). Media representations of the hijab. Journalism in Multicultural Australia, (1), 1-39.

Rozario, S. (1998, December). On being Australian and Muslim: Muslim women as defenders of Islamic heritage. In Women’s studies international forum, 21(6), pp. 649-661.