Maclean's needs to rethink its values

As a journalism student, I aspired to publish stories with Canada's top national newspapers and magazines.

Until yesterday, Maclean's magazine was one of them.

I had a change of heart when I saw the cover of their March 5, 2007 issue (Volume 120, No.8): It was a close-up image of a woman's face wearing a black niqab (full face cover) with only her eyes showing. The cover headline read, "Do immigrants need new rules?"

It is disturbing when a well-renowned and respected publication like Maclean's presents such images as representative of immigrants and Muslim women. The image of the "mysterious" covered woman and her "exotic" large brown eyes belongs to a 19th century Orientalist discourse and should not be in a supposedly progressive 21st
century publication.

"Why do you think they chose that image?" a friend asked. I replied that it's evocative. It's possibly the first image that comes to most people's minds when they think of Muslim women- thanks to the relentless media bombardment of those images. Bottom line: It's catchy. It sells.

Unfortunately, I was not even surprised or shocked by Maclean's choice, as it had become a common one in most mainstream Western media.

Such media outlets are in the business of giving us simple answers to complex questions and issues, rather than in-depth and contextualized intelligent explorations. Whether it's laziness, racism, or ignorance, the media attitude symbolized by Maclean's cover is insulting to Muslims specifically and the reader's intelligence generally.