Women and the Image

The stereotypical image of women remains deeply rooted in Arab culture, with media discourse reproducing representations that reduce their humanity to limited roles, trapped between false binaries. Women are presented either as caretakers of the family, embodied in the role of "keeper of the kitchen," or as consumers immersed in an attachment to beauty and fashion. Despite sporadic attempts to break this monolithic image, Arab media remains captive to a traditional discourse that re-establishes these representations in ever more complex ways. Women are portrayed as contradictory beings, either overly emotional, whose emotions dominate their decisions, or sacrificing themselves for ambitions that are labeled as "deviation" from traditional societal roles. These distorted representations are not only a negative reflection of reality; they also become tools for producing a parallel reality, where the complexities of the female experience are reduced to a superficial caricature. The danger increases when the conflict between motherhood and professional ambition is portrayed as a zero-sum game, presenting women as victims of conflicting choices, rather than highlighting the potential for integrating roles within a comprehensive development vision. The media adopts bipolar strategies: on the one hand, it reinforces the traditional model rooted in the collective imagination, and on the other, it reimports the image of women as a commodity, saturated with consumerism, thus emptying their real issues of substance in favor of a marketing discourse that serves economic agendas.