A New York Times columnist broke the story to U.S. readers in September 2004. In his version, the woman had no supporters in her family, there was no concerned mullah on her side, and her entire society only wanted her to commit suicide. Readers were told that Mai’s entire village watched her walk home “naked” and did nothing to assist her. The columnist did not acknowledge his fellow journalist whose work helped bring Mai’s cause to the public, or if he did, an editor must have dropped the reference. The support of Mai’s father and other family members and the advocacy role played by the small-town imam were also left out. A photo that accompanied one early Internet report of the story showed only a veiled Muslim woman with her head bowed, weeping. Mukhtaran Bibi’s strength was left out of the story, and she was turned into a mute marionette needing Western rescue. Her faith was left out. The positive role of shariah — yes, shariah — in punishing the rapists was left out. The existence of many people in the Pakistani society who were outraged at what happened to her was left out, as was any mention of the fact that there are laws against rape in Pakistan and a judicial system that is willing to enforce them within the limits of rules of law, which exist in the U.S. and should exist in any democracy.

Thank God for alternative media such as Islamica, whose interview with Mai set the record straight on some of those missing elements. It was incomprehensible, if you only read the Western story, how Mukhtaran Bibi had the fortitude to found a girls’ school with her reparations, how townspeople in a culture that values modesty would watch a rape victim walk home naked, or why she would want to continue living in her country after her trip abroad, if it is such a dungeon for women. My office-next-door neighbor, a white American feminist theory professor, came to me questioning the story as reported in the Times, saying “something seems to be missing here,” asking intelligent questions, and seeking alternative media sources.

Muslim Woman as Escapee

Victim stories continue to fill U.S. bookshelves. But wait — if you buy that package, Western media are willing, at no extra charge, to throw in another one: the Escapee package. Aren’t we diverse? There are Muslim women who are too strong and articulate to fit the Victim stereotype. So how does the mass-market deal with them without having to change its stereotyped thinking? By letting Muslim women “tell their own stories,” but only as the flip side of the Victim stereotype. Here are some tips on how to shape a Muslim woman’s story into an Escapee Package:

• Brave Battler of a Bad Birthright. Make much of calling her “brave,” but in a condescending way that only proves her to be the exception to the submissive Victim woman, which still holds as the rule. This specific construction of “brave” only applies to Muslim women. A story about American women seeking liberation from unfair gender constraints will not pat them on the head condescendingly, or see them as locked in battle against their national identity or cultural heritage. An American feminist is not seen as having to be anti-American to be a supporter of gender justice.
• Religion Still Rotten. Erase from the story any comfort she receives from the Qur’an, supportive imams, and any other positive concepts or figures from the religion. Cast her reform as rejection, even when it’s not. Cheer her  while unable to perceive her continuous connection to the resources of the religion.
• Uncle Sam Will Set Her Free. Assume that any liberation will come from the West. Erase any homegrown versions of gender consciousness that are wedded to challenging racism, imperialism, and Islamophobic bigotry as well as sexism. “She could only have demanded her right to pray in the mosque because she was raised in America.” Not because Islam itself gives her the expectation of access to the mosque.
• Veiling Still Vile. Hooray, make our Escapee free-free-at-last from that Root of all Evil in Islamic gender relations: veiling.
• Sold on Sex. Put, in place of Muslim sexual oppression, a sexual liberation that tends to look very much like assimilating to mainstream Western sexual values. Rather than search for a third place, an ethical sexuality free of both kinds of oppression, the kind that disrespects sexuality and the kind that untrammels it over everything.
• Zionist Zinger. For extra punch, throw in some Zionist sympathies for our newly minted Escapee.

The Machine That Eats the Author

People outside the writing world often do not realize how much of this is “the machine” and not always the author. The trade book industry operates under time and money pressures very different from those in my own world of academe, and its organizations have the normal range of human ineptitude and habitual practices that are inconvenient to change. An author typically has no control over her cover, for example, and little say over other marketing devices such as jacket blurbs and catalogue copy used to sell the book. And the industry likes to put authors into niches such as “women’s literature” (read: chick lit) and “brand” their work according to the “platform” they see a writer as having. All these are mass-market practices, understandable because it is a profit-driven industry like any other, but the result is that a book’s reception, the meaning assigned to it by readerships, can be shaped by these factors.

Make no mistake, a Muslim woman writer can whip out a Victim or Escapee story, and a non-Muslim writer can avoid those molds when writing about Muslim matters. It’s about the content of our writing, not the identity of the writer. The Victim/Escapee are well-traveled ruts, easy to fall into. Every stage in the publishing process seems, wittingly or not, to push the writer into those packages. It’s usually couched in reasonable terms having nothing directly to do with Orientalism — it’s about craft, or technique, or marketability, or other such objective factors. It’s always about anything but the unwillingness of white people to depart from stereotyped thinking, from the moment her writing group says, “Yes, you must write about your experience of child abuse/marital rape/forced veiling/honor killing [insert Muslim oppression of choice here], because that’s the story we need to hear from a Muslim woman.Give us more like that, never mind those other topics you also write about,” to the editor saying, “Can you make this more rebellious? We think that’s where the heat of your story really is. The other stuff you write is a trifle boring, and when you talk about loving your faith, it’s preachy — it’s not as accessible to the general reader.”
It is possible for the author to push against the rut of expectations. The Muslim woman author of a recent debut novel told me she was offered a million dollars for her book if she would slant it against Islam. She did not accept, and held out and got another publisher (the prestigious Farrar, Strauss & Giroux) who offered a smaller advance but allowed her to keep the integrity of her writing.