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Notes
1. I shall use the terms Arab and Muslim women interchangeably for the purposes of this paper although there are Christian Arabs and non-Arab Muslims.
2. I have argued elsewhere that the Arab media does not want this type of woman to be the norm, but rather the antithesis of the rise of right-wing religious extremism through combating it with pseudo-liberal consumerism that focuses on selling women a fantasy and men a fetish through these images of “do-me feminism.” Such images are meant to be recreated in the private sphere of the home in the confines of legitimate relationships between men and women. See Al-Mahadin (Citation2007) for a more detailed discussion. For an extended overview of do-me-feminism and raunch culture, see Stephanie Genz and Benjamin A. Brabon (Citation2009).
3. Arab viewers are fully aware that social and religious norms prohibit such modes of dress and behaviour in public. This explains why the majority of Arab/Muslim women would wear such excessively revealing clothes or dance in an openly erotic manner only if no men were around (segregated gatherings, such as women-only weddings) or around their husbands within the confines of a legitimate relationship. Within women-only gatherings, which often resemble a harem context, women wear very little and dance very provocatively and openly. It is also within these settings that women compete in wearing the latest fashions, hairstyles, jewellery, make-up and even in showing off their post-plastic-surgery bodies.
4. I use the term superego to denote the “moralising,” “cruel” and “insatiable” agency that purports to be setting the ethical parameters of how and what women should be like. See Slavoj Zizek (Citation1994).