The Veil Unveiled

Abstract

Finally, the study ofhijab has come of age. After Shirazi's book, no one will be able to argue that "the" hijab means any one thing divorced from its context. In six chapters, Shirazi investigates the "semantic versatility of the veil" in western popular culture, Saudi advertising, Iranian and Indian poetry and films, and for Iranian, Iraqi, and UAE women soldiers. Not surprisingly, the veil means different things in different contexts, and Shirazi's book is a rich study of this diversity. She reinforces her arguments by the wealth of photographs that depict veiled women in multiple contexts. Just how different the veil's semantics can be is highlighted in chapter I: "Veiled lmages in Advertising." ln this fascinating comparative study of the veil's use in western and Saudi advertising, Shirazi shows that its meaning in an ad depends on the target audience. So when advertisers target western middle-class male consumers, the veil is presented as an exotic and sexualizing piece of cloth. In a 1996 commercial for Chrysler's Jeep Cherokee shot in Morocco, a veiled woman is seen smiling and admiring the Jeep-sending the message that "if he buys the Jeep . . . He may even win the admiration of the most inaccessible of women, the woman with the veil." Western exotica, ...