Abstract

In the past forty years, the Muslim Middle East and North Africa have been the scene of a struggle over fashion, clothing, and makeup--over beauty. This struggle is most often seen as being about the veil or as a process of revealing. It is actually a battle between competing visions of female display., Often presented as a contest between Western modernity, on the one hand, and Islamic traditionalism, on the other, the struggle is actually between two competing forms of modernity. One favors a more open society with a greater public female presence as well as a greater acceptance of female display and more open forms of courtship. The other, which we can call neopatriarchal, fears the chaos of unregulated sexuality and leans toward greater social control, segregation of the sexes, and female public modesty.