Sociological Images

Some of you may have heard about the anti-Muslim protest outside a charity event in Orange County on February 13th. A local chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Relief, a Muslim charity organization that raises money for women’s shelters, food pantries, disaster relief, and other humanitarian work, sponsored a fundraiser at the Yorba Linda Community Center.

Chrissy Y. sent in a video of the protest. It includes chants of “Go back home!”, “USA!”, and “terrorist!” amid loud boos as individuals walked into the center. At around 3:10 a woman accuses a man of beating his wife and being a child molester. Between the conflation of Muslim with being inherently un-American, the conflation of all Muslims with terrorists, and the reliance on the stereotype of Muslim men as brutal oppressors of victimized women, it is an ugly, ugly example of anti-Muslim sentiment:

The sexual assault of CBS reporter Lara Logan in Tahrir Square last week has resulted in two predictable, but utterly depressing types of commentary.

Muslims are backwards

On the one hand are the anti-Islam culture warriors, eager to find in this incident proof of how degenerate Muslims (and Arabs) are. This, despite the fact that there’s no proof the assailants were Muslims, nor that they had any connection to the overwhelmingly peaceful and harassment-free demonstrations. In fact, there’s reason to believe that Logan’s attackers may have been pro-Mubarak thugs or apolitical opportunists. The right wing response to this story was inevitable, but liberal response was also problematic. Film critic and outspoken liberal Roger Ebert tweeted this today:

“The attack on Lara Logan brings Middle East attitudes toward women into sad focus.”

Oy.

I’d like to call Roger Ebert’s attention to the case of Roman Polanski, who has enjoyed a long and celebrated movie career, in spite of his status as a fugitive child rapist. When Polanski was arrested in September of 2009, while attempting to accept an award at a film festival in Switzerland, supporters circulated a petition on his behalf. Over a hundred people in the film industry signed that petition which gratuitously called Polanski’s crime “a case of morals.” Some weeks later, Gore Vidal went so far as to smear Polanski’s 13 year old victim as “a young hooker.”

Has Ebert ever decried the Polanski case for the way it “brings Hollywood’s attitudes towards women into sad focus?” Has he ever criticized Polanski, Vidal, David Lynch, Wong Kar Wai, Harvey Weinstein or any of the dozens of cinematic luminaries who signed off on this petition? Nope. On the contrary, he gave a big thumbs up to a documentary which argued Polanski should be given a pass for his crime.

I hardly expected Russ Meyers’ former writing pal to be an exemplar of feminist discourse, but his tweet yesterday was especially myopic. Does he really believe that the West is so much more enlightened about rape and sexual violence than those primitive, backwards Middle Easterners?

The opportunistic use of feminism is a common feature of the “liberal” discourse in the culture war against Islam. Just look at how Ayaan Hirsi Ali is trotted out by the media (especially Bill Maher and Steven Colbert) to justify imperialist wars and burqa bans, all in the name of protecting Arab and Muslim women from their own cultures. Meanwhile, many of these same commentators ignore the fact that rape and misogyny are also endemic to our own culture. (And that includes our movies, Roger.)

Rape is sexy

The other type of response to Logan’s assault was the usual victim blaming, made extra creepy by the focus on Logan’s good looks and alleged sexual history. The worst offender was LA Weekly blogger Simone Wilson, who, in an extraordinarily trashy piece of writing had this to say:

Logan was in Tahrir Square with her “60 Minutes” news team when Mubarak’s announcement broke. Then, in a rush of frenzied excitement, some Egyptian protesters apparently consummated their newfound independence by sexually assaulting the blonde reporter.

Wilson conflates the historic Egyptian revolution with gang rape. Classy stuff. But she’s not through. In addition to “blonde reporter” we’re also treated to these descriptors of Logan:

“it girl”
“firecracker”
“shocking good looks”
“Hollywood good looks”
“gutsy stunner”
“homewrecker” (this courtesy of a NY Post article from 2008)

As has already been noted, focusing on a sexual assault victim’s good looks and allegedly dubious sexual character amounts to victim blaming. But it also does something even more insidious. It makes rape sexy.

This is par for the course at the LA Weekly, where almost anything can be sexed up. LA Weekly‘s cover art department in the last couple of years has managed to make nearly every topic sexy, from murder to toxic mold and overpopulation.

Murder is sexy:

Toxic mold is sexy:

Overpopulation is sexy:

Rarely do the sexy women adorning the covers of the LA Weekly figure as the subjects of these stories. They’re splayed on the cover to boost circulation, because sex sells and, after all, “what’s wrong with being sexy?” (This isn’t even to mention the content of the Weekly– its abundance of ads for plastic surgery, or its routine back page ads from American Apparel– subjects for a longer post.)

Given this particular aesthetic, it is not at all surprising that an LA Weekly blogger would choose to play up the sexy side of the Logan assault story, taking extra pains to emphasize her “Hollywood good looks.” Even an “alternative” newspaper upholds the local value system. Arab Muslim rapists are bad. Sexy women make great victims. And cinematic geniuses should get a pass.

UPDATE, after the jump:

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Lester Andrist, at The Sociological Cinema, alerted me to a 9-minute short film revealing “Hollywood’s relentless vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims.”   Created by Jaqueline Salloum and Dr. Jack Shaheen’s book, Reel Bad Arabs, it is a stunning and disturbing collection of clips.  The depictions are grossly prejudiced and relentlessly violent.  Andrist summarizes:

The Media Education Foundation also made a full length documentary based on Shaheen’s book.  The 5-and-a-half-minute trailer is a good indication of its content.  It contains many similar disturbing depiction, including a discussion of Disney’s Aladdin, but also points to how Arabs are frequently shown as buffoons (“rich and stupid,” “oversexed,” and “uncontrollably obsessed with the American woman”).

See also our posts on how Arabs are portrayed in video games and Reel Injun, a documentary about the representation of American Indians in Hollywood.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Last month, Lisa posted a video of Devah Pager discussing her research on the effects of race and a criminal background, and the likelihood of being offered a job. Her experiment indicated that White men with a non-violent drug offense on their record were more likely to get a call back for a job interview than African American men with no criminal background at all.

A post at Discover magazine indicates a similar situation for Muslims in France. Researcher Claire Adida looked at the effects of having a name identified as Muslim on job prospects:

Adida did it by focusing on France’s Senegalese community, which includes a mix of both Muslims and Christians…Adida created three imaginary CVs. All were single, 24-year-old women, with two years of higher education and three years of experience in secretarial or accounting jobs. Only their names, and small details about past employers, differed.

The three chosen names were Khadija Diouf (an easily-recognizable Muslim first name, while Diouf is well-known as a common last name in France’s Senegalese community), Marie Diouf (to represent a Christian Senegalese name), and Aurélie Ménard (a common French name with no particular religious associations). To highlight the religious differences, “Khadija” had worked at Secours Islamique, a non-profit, “Marie” had worked for Secours Catholique, another religious non-profit, and “Aurélie” hadn’t worked for any religious-affiliated employers.

The fictional CVs were then sent out to employers who listed secretarial and accounting jobs with a national employment agency in the spring of 2009; the jobs were matched in pairs based on industry characteristics, size of the employing company, and the specific position. Every position was sent a copy of the CV for Aurélie; for each matched pair of jobs, one got Khadija’s CV while one got Marie’s.

The results are striking. Aurélie got the most responses of all three. However, Marie Diouf also got responses from 21% of the employers the CV was sent to. The nearly identical CV, however, when used with the name Khadija Diouf, got responses from only 8% of potential jobs:

The Discover post adds, “Even after Adida included a photo on the applications (the same one, showing a woman who was clearly not North African), she found the same bias.”

Aurélie’s chances of getting a call back were basically identical for each employer in the matched pairs, which would seem to indicate there weren’t glaring differences between the positions themselves that would account for the variation in responses. Adida’s research also helps control for the possibility that employers might be discriminating based on race/ethnicity, immigrant status, concerns about language, or other factors, by focusing on religious-associated names within a particularly recognizable ethnic group.

A recent survey of Senegalese households in France further indicates that religion affects life chances independent of ethnic background. The survey looked at the income of two Senegalese groups, one Muslim, one Christian:

Both groups arrived in France in the 1970s, so neither enjoyed an economic headstart, although the Christians were slightly better educated. The survey’s data revealed that the Muslim households were significantly poorer than their Christian counterparts, even after adjusting for their initial educational advantage. They’re more likely to fall into poorer income groups and they make around 400 Euros less per month, around 15% of the average monthly salary in France.

Here’s the income distribution, clearly showing Muslim households concentrated at lower incomes than Christian households:

Interestingly, the Discover post suggests this might, if anything, underestimate anti-Muslim bias in the job market, because the Senegalese community is relatively assimilated (particularly in terms of language) and not highly identified with Islam. Muslims from ethnic groups more strongly linked to Islam by the general public may face even higher levels of discrimination.

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

In the article “And You Can Be My Sheikh: Gender, Race, and Orientalism in Contemporary Romance Novels,” Jessica Taylor discusses the “sheikh romance,” a type of romance novel that, Taylor argues, follows the following basic formula:

In an exotic land where it is rumoured that men still rule, a tall, dark and handsome sheikh meets a white woman who teaches him how to be ruled by love. (p. 1032)

Sheikh romances are generally set in fictional countries in the Middle East, with a male character described as a “sheikh,” “sultan,” or something along the lines of “king of the desert.” He is, of course, invariably rich and powerful. The female protagonist, on the other hand, is a White woman, usually from the U.S.

The topic is popular enough that Harlequin has a whole series, Desert Brides:

Another popular option is the Sons of the Desert series:

Taylor argues that these novels present a masculinized, exotic, and ultimately pre-modern Oriental Other that is contrasted with the modernized West.

Some examples:

The blurb, from Amazon (elipses in original):

When Sheikh Khalid Fehr rescues innocent Olivia Morse from the hands of his country’s enemies, he guarantees her freedom by announcing she is his betrothed….Khalid has vouched for Liv with his honor… and this desert king is determined that his new wife will fulfill her marital duties, by his side as his regal queen…and as his captive virgin bride!

Description:

Abbie Cavanaugh’s brother is in jail. Abbie can obtain his freedom—but only if she marries the Sheikh of Barakhara. The explosive passion between Prince Malik and Abbie could turn a marriage of convenience into one of Eastern promise. But neither Abbie nor Malik knows the other’s real identity. Can their marriage survive once the truth is revealed?

Description:

After a whirlwind courtship, Sheikh Hakim bin Omar al Kadar proposes marriage. Shy, innocent Catherine Benning has already fallen head-over-heels in love and she accepts….

After their wedding day–and night–when the sheikh claims his virgin wife, Catherine and Hakim travel to his desert kingdom. There Catherine discovers that this is no love match for Hakim–he’s bought her!

For more examples, go to Amazon and search “sheikh romance.” Seriously, there are tons of them — Traded to the Sheikh, Stolen by the Sheikh, The Desert Prince’s Mistress, The Sheikh’s Virgin, Love-Slave to the Sheikh, The Sheikh’s Ransomed Bride (notice the recurring economic transaction theme?), and my new personal favorite book title ever, Hired: The Sheikh’s Secretary Mistress, described thusly:

Sheikh Amir bin Faruq al Zorha lives in New York, but the desert is where his heart lies. Now it’s time for him to marry….Grace Brown, Amir’s plain but indispensable assistant, isn’t exactly queen material. No matter how tempted Amir is to take her innocence, she’s off-limits. Until he returns to his homeland, where the barbarian prince replaces the businessman—and resolves that Grace will be his!

Taylor argues that the themes of these books reflect concerns about gender relations while also setting up an East/West dichotomy in which Western (usually specifically U.S.) women tame the “barbarian” desires of non-Western men. The male love interests are too masculine for current U.S. cultural norms; they attempt to control women in an obvious manner, to force them into marriage, and/or to acquire them by purchase or trade.

But they are ultimately redeemable “barbarian princes.” On the cover, they’re darker than the (generally blond) woman, but only slightly so. They are usually described as having lived in the U.S. or Europe, often during college. They seek to “modernize” their countries, often signaled by their disinterest in or opposition to the harems still maintained by other men in their countries. Referring to harems clearly links this fictionalized Middle East to the past, while the individual hero instead chooses monogamy with one White woman, signaling his modernization.

A woman, and love, tame the dangerous but desirable hero. Interestingly, femininity here is presented as preferable not just for women, but for the male character as well, as a necessary element to balance his hypermasculinity:

…the man is brought to acknowledge the pre-eminence of love and the attractions of domesticity…the theme of category romance is female power…By getting the hero to give in and fall in love with her, and admit it, she brings him into the “feminine” world view…the heroine “civilizes” the Arab hero into a domestic love and he thus becomes an acceptable husband for a white girl. (p. 1046-47).

Ultimately, then, the sheikh romance presents a backward East, a state signaled largely by gender relations. There are two types of Middle Eastern men: those who are redeemable, who can be modernized, and those who can’t. And adoption of a certain ideal of monogamous romantic love, which renders the hero’s hypermasculinity exotic but no longer scary, provides the key to modernizing otherwise barbaric cultures.

The article is in Journal of Popular Culture v. 40, no. 6 (2007), p. 1032-1051.

Many of you may have heard about NPR’s decision to fire commentator Juan Williams last week after he appeared on The O’Reilly Factor and made the following comments:

Look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

Williams was widely criticized for the remarks after video of his appearance showed up on a number of liberal websites, and NPR quickly fired him, arguing that his comments about Muslims discredited him as a commentator (more on that below).

Muriel Minnie Mae, Duff M., and an anonymous contributor all let us know about the site Pictures of Muslims Wearing Things, created in response to the incident. The site deconstructs the idea of “Muslim garb” by showing…well, pictures of Muslims wearing things. Examples from the site include Ismail Merchant:

Husain Abdullah:

Zeb and Haniya, Pakistani folk singers:

Siti Nurhaliza Taruddin:

Omar Fadel (in, as the website points out, the traditional Muslim fedora):

Dalia Mogahed, the sister of one of my former students:

You get the idea. New images (with awesome captions) are currently going up every few minutes, and it’s a great example of the diversity that exists among Muslims, variety that tends to get ignored in stereotypical depictions of Muslims (who are often conflated with Arabs and Middle Easterners, though the world’s largest Muslim population — over 200 million — is in Indonesia and only 20% of all  Muslims live in the Middle East and North Africa).

Even in the cases where individuals are wearing something that others might identify as clearly “Muslim”, such as hijab, is it fair to say they are “identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims,” as Williams stated? Is it that Dalia, above, is stressing her Muslim identity above all else (say, more than being a professional, with the suit, or a married woman, with a wedding ring) by covering her hair? Or, perhaps, does covering her hair make individuals who are uncomfortable with Muslims unable to see her as anything but “first and foremost” a Muslim?

Side note: Since this post brings up the whole Juan Williams situation, I think I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that a number of commentators argue Williams’s comments are being unfairly decontextualized with a selectively-edited video. If you watch the full segment, he starts out with the comments above (the only part that got widely distributed), which indicate a personal discomfort with Muslims, but goes on to disagree with O’Reilly, saying that we don’t blame all Christians for the actions of Timothy McVeigh and that the concern should be not about Muslims, but about extremists. William Saletan of Slate says,

I’m not saying Williams is the world’s most enlightened guy. He’s wrong, for example, about the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero. And it’s certainly unsettling to hear him admit that he worries when he sees Muslims in distinctive dress. But admitting such fears doesn’t make you a bigot. Sometimes, to work through your fears, you have to face them honestly. You have to think through the perils of acting on those fears. And you have to explain to others why they, too, should transcend their anxieties or resentments and treat people as individuals.

Here’s the full video, so you can judge for yourself — is Williams justifying his admitted fears, or arguing we have to work past such prejudices?

Emma M.H., Rebecca A., Natalee B., Josh L., Anna M., Jordan G., and an anonymous reader all sent in a link to a new analysis released by OkTrends, this time of members’ profile essays and the likes/interests/hobbies the essays mention, broken down by race/ethnicity and gender. They list items that were statistically unevenly distributed by race/ethnicity, showing up much more in some groups’ profiles than others’; these aren’t necessarily the most common items listed by each group.

White men:

White women:

Christian Rudder, the author of the OkTrends post, points out an interesting trend: rural identifying/mythologizing. White men mention “I’m a country boy,” while for White women, being a “country girl” features prominently, meaning both groups are more likely to use this term than other racial/ethnic groups. The men also mention liking hunting/fishing, while White women include horses/horseback riding, bonfires, and the “midwest,” as well as country music/musicians. Most OkCupid users, according to Rudder, are in large metro areas. Of course, you can live in a city and still go riding or fishing, or these can be things you did before you moved to the city that you still really wish you could do and so remain an important part of your identity; and given current demographics, it’s more likely that a former rural resident would be White than non-White, thus showing up more in Whites’ profiles. But I also suspect that references to the “midwest,” or things associated with romanticized rural life (you know, running around in a beautiful wheatfield during a thunderstorm and stuff) are a code for a certain type of masculinity and femininity. Among Whites, hunting/fishing indicates you’re a particular type of “guy’s guy,” while being “a country girl” who likes horses and thunderstorms is, I think, a stand-in for implying you’re down-to-earth, nice, not superficial. Being “country” is thus, a lot of the time, shorthand for being authentic.

Moving on, here’s the image for Black men:

We see more self-description than in White men’s profiles — “I am cool,” “tall, dark, and handsome,” “god-fearing,” “calm,” “laid-back guy.” White men (and to a lesser extent women) seem to focus on what they like, not really what they are like, with only “I’m a country boy” and “I can fix anything” showing up in the analysis.

Black women:

If you combined general references to religion, they would stand out even more. In fact, African American men and women are quite a bit more likely than other groups to mention religion:

Data for Latino men:

Like Black men, they more frequently than White men  mention personality characteristics — “I’m a funny guy,” “respectful,” “I’m a simple guy,” “outgoing and funny,” etc.

Latinas, like Latino men, mention specific dances, not just a love of music or musicians:

Rudder notes that Asian men are the most likely of any group to highlight a specific ethnic/national identity in addition to the more general “Asian” label:

I see that above with Latino men, too — references to being Peruvian, Colombian, Dominican, etc. If I had to take a stab at explaining this, I’d guess it was related to differences in how racial/ethnic categories have been applied to different groups. In the U.S. over time, White ethnic categories (say, being Dutch-American vs. Polish-American) have largely faded into the background, all subsumed under the powerful racial label “White.” Distinctions within that grouping have become largely optional, a neat thing to mention, perhaps, but not very socially meaningful. African Americans have often found themselves in the same situation, but due to much more negative forces. The generally shared experience of slavery, racism, and discrimination, as well as negative stereotypes of anyone perceived as Black, mostly erased ethnic identifications among African Americans. Being Black became a master status, such a socially important racial categorization that even those who wanted to be recognized as from a specific location (South Africa, Jamaica, etc.) often found themselves unable to get others to recognize their ethnic distinction.

The broader “Asian” and “Hispanic” labels emerged more recently in U.S. history, and members of both groups often actively fought to preserve distinctions within them. It wasn’t until the ’60s that a pan-Asian identity really began to emerge, such that being called “Asian” really meant anything to people, as opposed to thinking of themselves as Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. And “Hispanic” refers to ethnicity, not race (most Hispanics identify as White); ethnic identities are generally more flexible than racial categories. Aside from personal attachments, many groups thrown into the labels Asian and Hispanic have seen clear advantages to preserving distinctions based on nationality, believing that, say, being Japanese American would be less negatively stereotyped than being simply “Asian.”

So I wasn’t extremely surprised to see that Latino and Asian men specified identifies within those categories…but look back at the Latina image, and then this one for Asian women:

Nothing. Not one specific identifier for either group stood out. I don’t know what to make of that, and would love to hear your suggestions.

There are also specific breakdowns for Asian Indians and Pacific Islanders on the OkTrends, if you’re interested.

Middle Eastern men (a sort of odd category, but whatever) also specify nationalities, which is to be expected as this is another group that has engaged in active contests about their racial categorization in the U.S. (in particularly, fighting to be considered White, not Asian or Black) and also focus on technical/financial careers or expertise:

Middle Eastern women are the only group who prominently mention something about their physical appearance (“petite”), for whatever that’s worth, and again, no nationalities listed:

Of course, as Anna pointed out when she sent in the link, this data isn’t necessarily about people’s actual likes/interests, it’s about what they present as their likes/interests in the dating marketplace. On a dating website, you’re trying to present a profile of yourself…but one tailored to be attractive to others. She wonders to what degree social stereotypes of your racial group, as well as the group you’re interested in dating (if you have any preference) affects how you would describe your interests. That is, it’s possible that in some cases people highlight interests or hobbies that seem to fit social expectations of what they’ll like doing…or what they think the individuals they want to date will want to do, or want their date to want to do. To interpret these results, as OkTrends does, as straightforward evidence of differences in preferences by race/ethnicity, ignores the important fact that these are interests presented as part of an intentional performance for strangers, and may or may not reflect what we actually spend time doing, learning about, or paying attention to in our daily lives.