This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork among female refugees of the Syrian conflict in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo from 2015 to 2018, focusing on the management of organizations involved in the process of refugee protection and asylum. It presents and discusses female refugee narratives that challenge the image of refugee women as eternally vulnerable or oppressed by “culture”, recognizing their agency and describing other intersectional power dynamics. Cleavage and hijab are used by humanitarian agents to explain behaviors and to question vulnerabilities. Thus, this paper contributes to the anthropological debate on Middle Eastern women and refugees though a critique of the humanitarian rhetoric on women's bodies. It offers ethnographic insight on refugees from the Syrian conflict in Brazil, challenging the image of refugee women as eternally vulnerable or oppressed by their “traditional culture”. It seeks to break with the homogeneous narrative about refugees as bodies that need to be saved, and explores the importance of an analysis that acknowledges the agency of women who are recognized as “conservative” by humanitarian discourses.