Aperture Issue 185 

In 2006, women’s rights in the Middle East were at a crossroads. Some countries saw historic firsts – for example, Kuwait had just granted women the vote in 2005, allowing them to participate in parliamentary elections for the first time. Yet elsewhere, conflict and conservatism threatened to reverse hard-won gains. In Iraq, the chaos following the 2003 invasion led to a sharp deterioration in women’s security and freedoms. Reports documented a “dramatic increase in sexual assaults and violations of women’s rights” after 2003, with women kidnapped, abused, and even targeted by both militias and security forces. The very image of the veiled Muslim woman became a global symbol, often misused – Western media frequently portrayed Middle Eastern women in a homogenized, “orientalist” way that erased individuality​, reducing them to cliched icons of oppression. This charged climate made authentic representation of Middle Eastern women all the more crucial. 

Alexandra Boulat’s photography directly engaged with these gender issues, bringing the stories of Middle Eastern women to the forefront. Boulat, a French photojournalist and co-founder of the VII photo agency, spent the mid-2000s documenting women’s lives in Islamic societies often unseen by Western eyes. Her project Silhouettes: Muslim Women of the Middle East and Afghanistan (published in Aperture #185) was an attempt to humanize and understand women in countries where Islam has a large presence. Covering these sensitive topics in 2006 was an exceedingly dangerous endeavor for journalists and photographers. That year turned out to be the deadliest year for journalists in more than a decade, largely due to violence in the Middle East. At least 81 journalists were killed on the job in 2006, “with 64 journalists and media assistants” killed in Iraq alone. 

From its cover to its essays, Aperture No. 185 was deliberately crafted to reflect the pressing realities of its time. The cover image – Boulat’s haunting photograph of two Muslim women draped in pale veils, one standing and one seated on prayer rugs – immediately confronts viewers with the magazine’s central themes. Visually, it’s a powerful, almost minimalist composition: the women’s forms are obscured (“under cover”), rendering them anonymous, yet the scene is intimate and serene. This duality gets to the heart of the conversations about Muslim women: their anonymity and invisibility in the public sphere versus their individuality and humanity. The cover line, “Alexandra Boulat – Women Under Cover,” acknowledges this tension. It’s a clever twist on words that invites the reader to look more closely. Rather than pity or alarm, the photograph elicits curiosity and empathy – who are these women, what lives do they lead, and what do we not see when we only see the veil? In a year when Western headlines often reduced Middle Eastern women to burqas and statistics, this Aperture cover boldly centered their presence in a respectful way. It set the tone that the magazine was going to peel back the literal and figurative covering and examine women’s lives beyond the surface.