Hanna Rydh och den onämnbare Andre

Abstract

The article reveals how aspects of Hanna Rydh’s international work, especially her writings on other cultures and “the Other”, have been overlooked, or if mentioned, generally have been regarded as neither problematic nor worth discussing – instead, she has been described as someone who tried to transcend an ethnocentric approach. The silence on orientalist representations in Rydh’s work, and more specifically on her views on Islam, Muslim women and the veil, is therefore rather telling. On the one hand, Rydh advocated tolerance and respect for other cultures, but on the other she was an adamant opponent of Islam and its purported “male values” and traditions. In several texts she bemoans the position of Muslim women, describing them as wholly cut off from the world, locked within harems or behind the veil. And as the president of the International Alliance of Women she encouraged her “oriental” sisters to unveil themselves in order to step onto the modern path of progress.