Customer Reviews

Veiled Half-Truths: Western Travelers' Perception of Middle Eastern Women

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This book consists of many excerpts from Westerners' travelogues about Middle Eastern women, along with brief commentary by Judy Mabro. Unfortunately, the commentary tends to be too brief, and there tend to be so many excerpts that it's hard to follow the points. Also, although the excerpts are presented in a slightly smaller font than the commentary, it is occasionally difficult to distinguish commentary from excerpt, particularly when many excerpts are presented in a row. It's not clear from the text whether Mabro actually has first-hand experience in the Middle East herself. In quite a few places, her commentary implicitly or even explicitly suggests that the author of the excerpt misinterpreted the culture; however, the excerpt seems to be accurate (based on my limited 3 years experience in the Middle East). For instance, she claims that a passage where an author comments that a husband avoids talking directly about his wife shows that the author is negating the existence of the woman. Well, actually, this does happen; some Middle Eastern men really do avoid talking directly about their wives, especially in the presence of unrelated men. But does my commenting about this phenomenon mean that I negate the existence of the women?

There really is a lot to be learned from reading travelogues, especially about the cultures that produced such writers with such prejudices. However, in this book, Mabro doesn't go far enough in her commentary to really say much that is worthwhile. Her list of references and sources on the other hand, may lead to some very interesting material.

A politicized and rigorous survey of the depictions of `Oriental' women in the writings of 18th, 19th and 20th century European travel books, memoirs, and guides about North Africa, Egypt, the Holy Land, and Turkey. It's fascinating to note the degree to which the writers' own prejudices about the region, Muslim culture, the veil, the harem -- and the place of women in society in general -- colored their descriptions and their conclusions. These skewed first-hand accounts then influenced or reinforced the stereotypes being embraced back home, and even though the sources have faded the perceptions endure today.