In the speech that George W. Bush’s gave after the terrorist
attacks on 9/11, talks about a specific group of people who caused this
disaster. The type of people that he blames this attack on is the terrorist,
specifically the Islamic extremists. In his speech George W. Bush talks about
these Islamic extremists in terms of their; gender, race, class, and sexual
orientation. He defines theses Islamic extremist as being typically male. He describes
these Islamic extremist as being typically male because they are sacrificing
their lives in order follow their extremist beliefs. Typically when one think
about extremist views that cause one to infer that these Islamic extremist can
be seen as being a masculine characteristic. Since they can be referred to as
terrorist, which is someone who terrorizes someone, which is typically someone
that of a masculine characteristics. People who terrorize people can be seen as
being masculine because they are inflicting pain to others and they are being
destructive which is typically traits of masculinity. Another way that these
extremist are masculinized is because in his speech George W. Bush says, “Women
are not allowed to attend school” (2). This shows that men have certain rights
that women are not allowed to have such as going to school or owning property.
Since women are giving up their basic rights because of the type of government
that they have. When the women give up their basic rights to the extremist the
government is seen as being a patriarchal government. The extremist taking away
women rights even further masculinize them as being masculine. In this speech
he also characterizes these Islamic extremist as being of a certain class. The
Islamic extremists in George W. Bush’s speech represent people in the upper or
middle class. These Islamic extremist belong to the upper or middle class
because they typically were either born into a wealthy family or they went up
the ranks on their own. These extremist belong to this class based off of Osama
Bin Laden and how he was brought up. Even though Osama Bin Laden was brought up
as a wealth man, not all of the extremist belong to the upper class. Some of
these extremist belong to the middle class in hope that if they sacrifice their
life for God they will become wealthy in the afterlife. Also in these
extremist’s afterlife they receive many different virgins. This proves that
these extremist have a particular type of sexuality orientation. These
extremist view their sexual orientation as being heterosexuality. The
heterosexuality that they have is a specific type of heterosexuality that
allows a single man to have multiple partners at one time. Also this type of
heterosexuality can be viewed as being desirable because in order to receive
this in the afterlife the extremist need to sacrifice their life in the name of
God in order to receive these virgins. The myth of the terrorist depicts a
specific type of race. The race of this myth of the terrorist depicts someone
who is from the Middle East. The terrorist from the “Middle East” can also be
called al Qaeda. This classifies them as a specific race, which most of them
belong to. The race of the myth of a terrorist is seen as a terrorist characteristic.
The race is seen as being from the Middle East because they are typically seen
as being from Afghanistan. Even though most of the terrorist are not from this specific
area in the Middle East they are stereotyped as being from there because that
is where the specific people who were involved in 9/11 were from. From this
speech we are given the image of the myth of the terrorist as being an Middle
East male from a upper or middle class family, who is heterosexual.
