In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: September 2006

Uncovering Iran

A fantastic BBC radio broadcast, featuring my favorite NYU Law professor, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, and two other Iranian commentators. There’s no direct link, so you have to go to the “Listen to Previous Programmes” tab and select “Uncovering Iran.” They offer unique perspectives on the Revolution, the state of women’s rights in Iran, the issues with religious minorities there, and Iranian history in general. Check it out. A teaser quote about women’s rights in Iran from Professor Mir-Hosseini, who was barred from teaching in Iranian universities after the revolution because (1) she was educated in the West, and (2) she didn’t wear the hijab:

In a paradoxical way, this mandatory hijab… really gave women from religious families a kind of license to be in the public space. I remember when I went to school in Iran in the 1960s/early 1970s there were many girls who came to school wearing the chador [traditional Iranian covering]…. They had to take it off because the schools would not allow them. And universities were mixed, so many of them never got the opportunity to go to universities. But then after revolution these girls had the opportunity to go, because that mandatory hijab gave them kind of a license.

Now, Professor Mir-Hosseini doesn’t wear the hijab herself, and is obviously aware of the various feminist implications and issues surrounding it. But she does make an interesting point when she says that the hijab really has two sides to it, and that it has brought great benefit to many women who would otherwise be disallowed from participating in the public space.

The problem, of course, is that women shouldn’t have to be the ones always shouldering the burden of the apparent male inability to function with women in the room. Those who are invested in maintaining sexist social structures have always used women’s clothing and bodies as a means of social control, whether that be through mandatory head-coverings, finger-wagging about “modesty,” shaming women for what they wear, or contending that women invite sexual assault by wearing certain types of clothes. It’s all part of the same spectrum, and it’s all essentially BS.

At the same time, though, we have to recognize that we are operating within a highly patriarchal social context, and I think we need to do what we have to in order to make sure that women from all backgrounds and walks of life can be heard. In my personal opinion, this does not mean making the hijab, or any sort of clothing, mandatory — but it also doesn’t mean banning the headscarf or other religious symbols in certain contexts, like France did a while back. It simply means recognizing women as people, not as coat-hangers or symbols. And it demands looking at things like the hijab as fully as possible, and seeing the many paradoxes that crop up when modesty is mandatory.

Before some right-winger comes on and starts bleating about the evils of Islam, and accuses me of being an apologist for a sexist religion, consider first that headcoverings were not common and certainly weren’t required in the time of the Prophet. Men and women prayed together, and occupied the public space together. Read the Quran, and see if you can find the word “hijab” anywhere in there. See if you can find any requirement for women to cover themselves in public.

Then blindly criticize Islam,* instead of the contexts through which religious rules about headcoverings** and women’s rights evolved.

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Potluck for Choice!

If you haven’t planned your Potluck for South Dakota, get goin’.

If you’re in the Bay area, stop by Mary’s potluck this Saturday:

1337 E. 27th St.
Oakland, CA 94606

Saturday, Sept. 30 from 4:00pm until whenever… Bring a dish to share based on the first letter of your last name:

A-D: Drinks
E-K: Appetizers
L-P: Main Dish
Q-T: Side Dish / Salad
U-Z: Dessert

And people can donate using checks, cash, or credit cards.

Plan your own potluck as well. And if you want the word spread via Feministe, shoot me an email and I’ll be sure to let everyone know!

Help a Feminist African Village

A few days ago I wrote about the African village that banned domestic violence and serves as a refuge for women and girls. There’s an NYU event coming up featuring the matriarch of the village, and some people who aren’t able to make it were wondering how they can help out. MADRE, a fantastic organization in and of itself, sends the info:

There are a few ways people can contribute to Rebecca’s work in Umoja. To make a tax-deductible contribution, you can donate online at www.madre.org/umoja, or send a check made payable to MADRE—with “Umoja” in the memo line—to:

MADRE
121 W. 27th St. # 301
New York, NY 10001

MADRE also collects and sends school supplies to Umoja’s primary school through out Helping Hands program (http://www.madre.org/programs/ha/helphands.html). We are currently collecting supplies to send with our next delegation in January.

And, finally, MADRE leads delegations to Kenya once or twice a year. The delegations are a great opportunity to meet MADRE’s partners in Umoja, and learn about their work. Please visit our Voyages with a Vision page, http://www.madre.org/travel/voyages.html.

Bad Idea:

Shooting an episode of “Kidnapped” in Washington Square Park, complete with FBI agents toting very large guns and roping off the fountain, without posting any information about what they’re doing. It makes your blogger go into a minor panic on the way to school.

Where Can I Find Me a Warrior-Poet?

Oh Abstinence Clearinghouse, where would I go to for laughs if not for you?

Today, we have the fine pieces of literature sold at the Abstinence Store, and I think they do a pretty good job of demonstrating how abstinence-only advocates feel about men and women:

abstinence
In case you can’t see the image very well, that’s “Every Young Man’s Battle,” with a picture of an upstanding young man checking out the hot ass on a clearly not-so-upstanding young woman. And if that weren’t enough, it’s worth noting the subtitle of the book: “Strategies for Victory in the Real World of Sexual Temptation.” The description:

In this world you’re surrounded by sexual images that open the door to temptation. They’re everywhere-on TV, billboards, magazines, music, the Internet-and so easy to access that it sometimes feels impossible to escape their clutches. Yet God expects His children to be sexually pure. So how can you survive the relentless battle against temptation? Here’s powerful ammunition. Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker, the authors of the hard-hitting best-seller Every Man’s Battle, now focus on the temptations young single Christian men like you face every day-and they offer workable, biblical strategies for achieving sexual purity.

Compare to “Every Young Woman’s Battle”:

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Never mind the retrograde “women need to be loved to orgasm” story, just when the hell did Jenny McCarthy become a sex expert?

From Amanda comes this lovely little “wimmins are such complicated, needy and inscrutable creatures and men are grunting primitives” item from our friends at ABC News.

No animal has to commit to a relationship to lure the female of the species into the nest.

We humans are much more complicated. Women need to be in the mood, which many men don’t seem to understand.

God, it’s such a trial, this having be social animals and form relationships and shit. And then to have to deal with waiting until the woman’s in the mood, on top of it! Why can’t we just rape the bitches if they’re not in the mood?

Ahem. I can just tell this thing is getting off to a extra-special start, with the assumption that women a) need to bribed with relationships to agree to have sex; b) need to be in a relationship to be in the mood for sex; and c) that pesky consent thing is just one more roadblock those fickle wimmins put in the path of men who want sex, want it all the time, and want it NOW!

Ugh. Actually, what I’m not in the mood for is rebutting yet another piece uncritically presenting lazy sexist assumptions as fact. And offering someone whose sole qualification is posing for Playboy as a sex expert:

“I think that most men, and I have to underline the word ‘most,’ just don’t get it,” said Jenny McCarthy, an actress, former Playmate of the Year, and best-selling author of “Life Laughs: The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On.”

She laments that our differences — the ones that can make sex so much fun — can also get in the way.

“It’s amazing to me how much brain work it takes for a girl to have an orgasm,” McCarthy said. “Guys just need to look at a nipple, and they lose it. God, I wish it was that easy for us!”

I thought they only lost it at the sight of a nipple when they were about 13. Most adult men require a little more in the way of friction.

Adding insult to injury, the article, entitled “When It Comes to Orgasm, Women Work Harder” (original title, according to Jessica: “Do Women Really Need Orgasm?” Answer: Duh), has a little sidebar, “Do Women Think Too Much To Enjoy Sex?” which offers the following survey:

The Impact of Gender on Your Sex Life

Can a Woman Have Sex Like a Man?

No, a woman thinks too much to ever enjoy sex like a man. (1,725)

Yes, a woman can detach emotionally and be purely physical. (1,583)

Total Vote: 3,308
Not a scientific survey.

And just like they had an article on discrimination against people with identifiably-black names that didn’t mention racism, they have an article on how gender affects sex in which they never question the basic assumption that women can or should have sex “like a man.”

Kill it! KILL IT!

I have been fortunate enough never to have cohabited with large numbers of roaches. When I was growing up, ants would flood in with the rain. When I was in college, every house I lived in had mice, which had no fear of us whatsoever. I thought they were kind of cute, although it would have been nice if they could have pretended to be a little timid. I was terrified of living with roaches, and really scared of what would happen when I went to stay with a friend in New York who has a slight roach problem:

Me: Hey, there are baby roaches and mommy and daddy roaches!

Him: I think those are two different species.

Me: I know. It helps, though.

But they didn’t bother me anywhere near as much as I thought. They were bugs. Insects. Like…ladybugs and grasshoppers and the aforementioned ants. They didn’t look like the roaches in the insecticide ads, the ones with bulging muscles who got coconut-oil rubdowns before each photo shoot.

(While in New York, I met an entomology student who had accidentally (not accidentally-on-purpose, mind) infested his (soon-to-be-former, although possibly not for this reason) girlfriend’s appartment with Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Which are hefty and hiss when “disturbed.”)

The week I came home, I found a silverfish in a baking pan under the sink. I had to flush it down the drain and run the garbage disposal for like two minutes before I could stop hyperventilating.

I’m not sure what the problem is, although I feel for belledame here:

A spider which was thought to be the biggest in captivity in the UK has died at the age of 20.

Lucretia, a goliath birdeater tarantula, had been the star attraction at Stratford Butterfly Farm in Warwickshire until her recent demise.

She was 10in in diameter, about the size of a dinner plate…

Strangely enough, the response to this has not in fact been hoarse cries of relief and pitchforks and torches finally dropped from exhausted, trembling hands; but rather, mourning, andbut, luckily we still have this other GIANT SPIDER THAT EATS MAMMALS AND FROGS that will eventually reach this size, to wit, the size of a DINNER PLATE.

Eeeeurgh.