Author: Medha Menon

  • THE ISLAMIC VEIL: PATRIARCHAL OPPRESSION, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, OR EMPOWERMENT?

    ABSTRACT: Contemporary discourses have come to associate the hijab and the veiled woman with gender-oppressive customs in Islam. This meaning was created and perpetuated by the Western hegemonic discourses, which have homogenized, reified, de-contextualized, and ‘otherized’ it. The Muslim veil has also been politicized, making it a heavily contested symbol that needs to be understood…