Raha Moharrak was the first Saudi woman to climb to the top of Mount Everest. Her famous words are “I don’t care about being the first, so long as it inspires someone else to be the second.” These are words that Noor Tagouri lives by. Only 22 years old, Tagouri is a first generation Libyan American and a practicing Muslim who wears the hijab (the Islamic head covering for women). She has garnered national and international attention as the first Muslim hijabi anchorwoman in America. The dichotomy between her bodily appearance and bodily performance recovers body arguments as sites of change, protest, and counter-hegemony. Tagouri’s body is an intersectional, material argument for the visibility and value of Muslim women that defies cultural boundaries.
As a Muslim woman in traditional Islamic garb, Tagouri’s presence functions to break down ideological barriers that predetermine her as someone who could not or should not do what she has done. Tagouri’s presence itself is revolutionary and counter-hegemonic because it challenges the reigning hegemonies and stereotypes in media and culture. Unlike DeLuca’s “unruly bodies,” Tagouri constructs a body argument through her alignment with certain expectations. Tagouri wears the hijab, a traditional and accepted Muslim head covering. Tagouri works in media as a journalist, an accepted position and career for Western women. These alignments violate the expectations of competing hegemonies; her body is a site of intersectional conflict between the Muslim and Western worlds. Tagouri’s physical form in her role as a journalist has given a voice to Muslim women who have been depicted by the Western world as submissive and oppressed. In covering her hair and her body, Tagouri is a foil to the trend of scantily-clad female news anchors that serve as complements to their male lead anchors. Tagouri’s body argument illuminates contemporary approaches to countering Western barriers to sex, gender, and religious expression. Her existence also challenges fundamentalist Muslim expectations of women’s role in both voicing and embodying her background. Tagouri’s body can be seen as a contested site that recovers accepted placement and appearance from Western and Eastern cultures, respectively, to challenge the other.
Exploring these elements of Tagouri’s material argument will illuminate the importance of her presence and recover the work that a single body can accomplish rhetorically. Her gender, hijab, religious and ethnic experiences are part of a blended narrative that reimagines how and why females are regulated and disciplined physically. An exploration of gender, clothing, and background will be informed by a focus on hegemony theory, orientalism, and the body as a site of argument.
Gramsci argued that cultural hegemony was a method in which the ideas behind the formation of the capitalist state were not only maintained but also legitimized. Through providing the hegemonic class with consent, one group functions as subordinates while the other dominates them through ideological control. Although Tagouri may consent to the Muslim expectations of clothing, this act of consent challenges Western expectations in her journalism career. Similarly, Tagouri’s consent to work and be active in media as a Western opportunity for females allows her to enter spaces often unknown to Muslim women. Her hijab, therefore, contributes to her body argument. A marker of Muslim identity, the hijab argues for the importance and empowerment of female Muslims as counter-hegemony.
Said theorized the consequences of “Orientalism,” or the artificial construction of “the Orient” by the Western world to describe everyone in the East as uncivilized, savage, and exotic. Dating back to the 1920s, movies like The Son of the Sheik and The Song of Love depicted Muslim women as meek, docile, submissive creatures who had no free will and were wholly submissive to the laws and customs of their male family members. These stereotypes are still prominent today where the image of Muslim woman in hijab has been synonymous with oppression. Tagouri’s gendered body challenges stereotypical submissiveness by serving in a position of power in media. Both Western and Muslim expectations of a hijabi woman are challenged by her presence.
Many theorists have addressed how the body can serve as a site for argument. Informed by Foucault and Bartky, one finds the particular methods of biopower and discipline that construct the expectations of the female, Muslim identity. The work of Condit and DeLuca will further contextualize the discussion of how Tagouri’s body functions as a dual site of cultural counter-hegemony that argues contextually against multiple, oppressive sources.
Tagouri invites scholars to re-engage and recover bodily arguments in contemporary political and cultural climates. Bodies do not necessarily have to be “unruly” or engaged actively in protest in order to argue. Instead, Tagouri consents to certain aspects of Muslim and Western hegemonies while challenging others. Her position between and among the two cultures constructs her as a dual subject. Her actions are thus bound by competing and contradictory notions of the female, Muslim, and pious body. Tagouri is a representative of the female, Muslim counter-hegemony that attempts to carve out productive space for visibility and engagement against restrictions on their bodies and appearance. Although they may object to different aspects of Tagouri’s body argument, both the Western and Muslim cultural hegemonies are threatened by Tagouri. Tagouri both rejects the dominant male gaze of the West by covering her body and the role of the docile submissive woman from the East. Tagouri has created a new space for women to occupy that can challenge multiple reigning hegemonies in a shared location. By arguing against both Muslim and Western notions of the Muslim female identity, Tagouri creates alternative structures for political discourse about global issues and who has access to participate. Her visibility and success can make accessible this route for future participation and acceptance. Tagouri explores alternatives for the Muslim female identity in both Muslim and Western public discourse through the same physical argument.
As a Muslim woman in traditional Islamic garb, Tagouri’s presence functions to break down ideological barriers that predetermine her as someone who could not or should not do what she has done. Tagouri’s presence itself is revolutionary and counter-hegemonic because it challenges the reigning hegemonies and stereotypes in media and culture. Unlike DeLuca’s “unruly bodies,” Tagouri constructs a body argument through her alignment with certain expectations. Tagouri wears the hijab, a traditional and accepted Muslim head covering. Tagouri works in media as a journalist, an accepted position and career for Western women. These alignments violate the expectations of competing hegemonies; her body is a site of intersectional conflict between the Muslim and Western worlds. Tagouri’s physical form in her role as a journalist has given a voice to Muslim women who have been depicted by the Western world as submissive and oppressed. In covering her hair and her body, Tagouri is a foil to the trend of scantily-clad female news anchors that serve as complements to their male lead anchors. Tagouri’s body argument illuminates contemporary approaches to countering Western barriers to sex, gender, and religious expression. Her existence also challenges fundamentalist Muslim expectations of women’s role in both voicing and embodying her background. Tagouri’s body can be seen as a contested site that recovers accepted placement and appearance from Western and Eastern cultures, respectively, to challenge the other.
Exploring these elements of Tagouri’s material argument will illuminate the importance of her presence and recover the work that a single body can accomplish rhetorically. Her gender, hijab, religious and ethnic experiences are part of a blended narrative that reimagines how and why females are regulated and disciplined physically. An exploration of gender, clothing, and background will be informed by a focus on hegemony theory, orientalism, and the body as a site of argument.
Gramsci argued that cultural hegemony was a method in which the ideas behind the formation of the capitalist state were not only maintained but also legitimized. Through providing the hegemonic class with consent, one group functions as subordinates while the other dominates them through ideological control. Although Tagouri may consent to the Muslim expectations of clothing, this act of consent challenges Western expectations in her journalism career. Similarly, Tagouri’s consent to work and be active in media as a Western opportunity for females allows her to enter spaces often unknown to Muslim women. Her hijab, therefore, contributes to her body argument. A marker of Muslim identity, the hijab argues for the importance and empowerment of female Muslims as counter-hegemony.
Said theorized the consequences of “Orientalism,” or the artificial construction of “the Orient” by the Western world to describe everyone in the East as uncivilized, savage, and exotic. Dating back to the 1920s, movies like The Son of the Sheik and The Song of Love depicted Muslim women as meek, docile, submissive creatures who had no free will and were wholly submissive to the laws and customs of their male family members. These stereotypes are still prominent today where the image of Muslim woman in hijab has been synonymous with oppression. Tagouri’s gendered body challenges stereotypical submissiveness by serving in a position of power in media. Both Western and Muslim expectations of a hijabi woman are challenged by her presence.
Many theorists have addressed how the body can serve as a site for argument. Informed by Foucault and Bartky, one finds the particular methods of biopower and discipline that construct the expectations of the female, Muslim identity. The work of Condit and DeLuca will further contextualize the discussion of how Tagouri’s body functions as a dual site of cultural counter-hegemony that argues contextually against multiple, oppressive sources.
Tagouri invites scholars to re-engage and recover bodily arguments in contemporary political and cultural climates. Bodies do not necessarily have to be “unruly” or engaged actively in protest in order to argue. Instead, Tagouri consents to certain aspects of Muslim and Western hegemonies while challenging others. Her position between and among the two cultures constructs her as a dual subject. Her actions are thus bound by competing and contradictory notions of the female, Muslim, and pious body. Tagouri is a representative of the female, Muslim counter-hegemony that attempts to carve out productive space for visibility and engagement against restrictions on their bodies and appearance. Although they may object to different aspects of Tagouri’s body argument, both the Western and Muslim cultural hegemonies are threatened by Tagouri. Tagouri both rejects the dominant male gaze of the West by covering her body and the role of the docile submissive woman from the East. Tagouri has created a new space for women to occupy that can challenge multiple reigning hegemonies in a shared location. By arguing against both Muslim and Western notions of the Muslim female identity, Tagouri creates alternative structures for political discourse about global issues and who has access to participate. Her visibility and success can make accessible this route for future participation and acceptance. Tagouri explores alternatives for the Muslim female identity in both Muslim and Western public discourse through the same physical argument.