From Invisible to Actualized: Imagery and Identity in Photos of Women in the Gulf

After reviewing how Middle Eastern women have been photographed historically, the paper explores how contemporary Gulf women represent themselves, both behind and in front of the camera. Initially, women were invisible, then eroticized or exoticized in Orientalist photography, only to appear in early twentieth-century family portraits as both the repository of cultural values and as the new, modern woman. The reaction of contemporary Gulf female photographers to perceptions of themselves as jobless, nameless, faceless, and voiceless is presented in examples of art photography-cum-political commentary. The media coverage of Qatar’s Shaykha Mūza is analyzed in terms of her use of clothing as nonverbal communication and as a form of soft-power politics. It is followed by a discussion of the rules – formal and informal – for publishing photos of females. The paper concludes with a survey of Gulf females’ use of selfies. Thus, three aspects of photography – as art, as photojournalism, and as private communication – demonstrate how Gulf women visually represent their identities.