A first for women in the kingdom: Arab/west representations of female trendsetters in Saudi Arabia

Postcolonial and media literatures have documented the West’s association withMuslim/Arab woman and images of passivity and oppression. The literature has yet to systematically consider western depictions of the Muslim Arab woman who is a trendsetter. How does the western press depict this powerful woman and do western and Arab media depict this woman similarly or differently? This article reports on a discourse analytical study of 32 articles that mention prominent Saudi women achieving positive ‘firsts’ in the Kingdom, half from the Arab press and half from the western press. The articles were coded along 27 discourse variables and then statistically analysed for discourse strategies. Western articles diverged considerably in genre and register. Though replication is required, this study suggests that in response to the consistent findings of western ‘orientalist’ depictions of Muslim woman in weak roles, the western press exhibits wider variation depicting powerful Saudi women.