Nineteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In conservative societies, one can say that women represent one of the most important axes of the conservatives’ attention, whatever are their intellectual and ideological orientations: all women issues occupy these conservatives’ mind and urge them to reformulate everything that revolves around the woman in order to conform to the society’s norms; thus, the woman in societies with religious tendencies, is a kind of a ‘sacred property’, she is representing the living honor of the whole family as well as the society. The researcher assumes that this peculiarity of the position of Muslim women in Asian societies and the importance they represent in determining the shape of conservative life, has contributed to feeding the modern and contemporary intellectual conflict between the Eastern and Western worlds over the visual arts that embody the Asian women, especially when this embodiment seems to be awkward, humiliating or stereotyped. Thus, the image of Asian but Muslim women in particular in the eyes of Western artists has been a controversial topic throughout art history, colonialism as well as contemporary media where visual art occurs. This research considers this controversial issue; questions are raised and answered through an artistic, social, analytical and critical approach. The aim is to bring together viewpoints and clarify confusion in understanding the other, for a better coexistence between East and West in a world that is supposed to be one.