Moral metaphor and gender in Arab visual culture: Debunking Western myths

Abstract

ABSTRACT There are lots of Western myths about Arab societies, such as the one in which it is common for Arabs to conceptualize the colonization and subsequent control of Arab countries by the West as emasculation. Such myths, unfortunately, come from reliable sources, and do not serve Arabs well. Mythology matters. From a cognitive science perspective, myths are in the synapses of brains, defining heroes and villains, what is right and wrong, and what makes sense [Lakoff, 2006. Whose freedom? The battle over America’s most important idea. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux]. Using a large corpus of 336 Egyptian political cartoons, this article examines the role of the NATION AS PERSON metaphor for moral political cognition in terms of Lakoff’s [1996. Moral politics: How conservatives and liberals think. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press] STRICT-FATHER and NURTURANT-PARENT family models. The results of the present study debunk a series of myths about gender representation of the nation in Arab nationalism. Some comparisons with other Arab countries and with the representations of the United States of America (USA), Israel and Britain are also provided, reinforcing the argument and demonstrating its complexity.