Women’s rights as neo-Orientalism: A netnographic analysis of “My Stealthy Freedom” online movemenet
Open Access
- Author:
- Nazer Fassihi, Azadeh
- Graduate Program:
- Mass Communications
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 18, 2020
- Committee Members:
- Matthew Paul Mcallister, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Matthew Paul Mcallister, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Patrick Robert Parsons, Committee Member
Michelle Lyn Rodino, Committee Member
J Dumas, Outside Member
Anthony Olorunnisola, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Neo-Orientalism
Postcolonialism
my stealthy freedom
postcolonial feminism
orientalism
self-orientalism - Abstract:
- In Iran the hijab has an important place as a political symbol of power and authority over women. The hijab, in fact, has become the focus of an important case of Iranian virtual gendered protest in Iran, in particular the My Stealthy Freedom online activist movement against mandatory veiling. This movement originated from the My Stealthy Freedom (in Persian: Azadihaye Yavashaki) Facebook page and later developed into a series of online social networks such as Twitter and Instagram. The broadest question of this dissertation is, how do the intertwined discourses of Orientalism and feminism influence the My Stealthy Freedom (MSF) campaign and how might neo-Orientalist assumptions be embedded in, and even masked by, the use of arguments such as women’s rights, human rights, minority rights and democracy in MSF campaign? To answer this question, I conducted a netnographic analysis of MSF by contextualizing MSF’s Instagram and Facebook posts and drawing on my netnographic observation record of the MSF and its relevant controversies and also examining relevant media discourse about MSF and Alinejad, the founder of MSF. The dissertation argues that the representation of the veil as an emotionally charged signifier of Islam in the MSF campaign reproduces the colonial image of the Middle East without challenging the notion of the fixed category of “veiled Muslim woman.” The “veil” is one such Orientalist symbol. Analyzing visual and textual content, I highlighted the following themes in the MSF campaign representation of the veil: the celebration of individual choice, progressive us vs. Orientalist other, scarf as decontextualized empathy prop and conflated veil. This dissertation also contends that other activities interlinked with the MSF campaign (beyond the demonization of the hijab) are aligned with imperial power. Looking at the framing used in the content of the MSF campaign such as “self-Orientalism”, repeated rhetoric of “saving,” historical fact distortion and romanticizing pre-revolutionary era illustrate the ways in which the Occident and Orient collaborate to create neo-Orientalism in MSF. The MSF campaign’s narrations and representations of different issues not only pose a challenge to the Iranian government, but they are also framed in anti-Islamic discourse that legitimizes a harsh critique of Islam, intensifies Islamophobia, and justifies further Western (especially U.S.) intervention and military operations. The findings of this dissertation complement scholarship and popular writings that argue that U.S. foreign policy, employing popular concepts such as women’s rights and instrumentalizing the MSF campaign, attempts to delegitimize the Iranian government and offer a discursively constructed moral high ground to the United States’ hegemonic anti-Iran propaganda.