Size six: The Western women’s harem

Ode

This article appeared in Ode issue: 6

Fatema Mernissi was born in a harem, but her female counterparts in the West suffer an even harsher fate. An eye-opening new perspective on gender roles and the male-domination of the multi-billion dollar fashion industry.

I want to encourage all of you to follow that link and read the whole article. This woman was virtually born in slavery, but she feels empathy for women in the West who are psychologically terrorized by the fashion industry. I used to love fashion magazines, but I stopped all of my subscriptions a few years ago because the damage they cause is becoming too apparent and I won't support an industry that has based its success on making women feel bad about themselves.

"Fashion" used to mean elegance, things that were finer or more beautiful than every day stuff. Now, it's a buzz word for conformist consumerism and self-loathing. The population is growing larger but fashion models are growing thinner. That's a deadly trend to expose a teenaged girl to, and it's driving them to starve, binge, purge, drug, poison and cut themselves.

The really salient point of the article is that this is a form of dominance exerted by Western patriarchy, and they have women eagerly participating in our own oppression. While the article focuses on weight/size, there are more and more yardsticks used to measure women in this culture.

We are measured by :

1. how white we are
2. how tall we are
3. how thin we are
4. how pretty we are
and
5. how agreeable we are.

Notice that intelligence is nowhere on that list. That's why I spent my life wishing I could be thin instead of smart. Thin in America is a foot in the door - smart doesn't matter much if you aren't in a pretty package. As a matter of fact, that intelligence will make you a target. The women who got where they are based on their looks rather than skill are afraid you are going to expose their incompetence, and the men who promoted them will be threatened by your "refusal" to fit the prescribed definition of an "acceptable" female. The media is fond of reinforcing the "no fat chicks" attitudes of men, but they rarely mention that a part of their contempt is that they are intimidated by large or uncontrollable women.

It has little to do with looks - it's about control. I knew this girl once named Holly, who was one of the prettiest people I have ever seen. She looked like a living Barbie doll - I mean the old bombshell ones modeled after Marilyn Monroe, not these sad, ugly things we foist on children now- but with a prettier face. She was, if anything, too thin, in spite of being very amply endowed otherwise. She was talking to me one day about a remark by a boyfriend that had really damaged her self-esteem. She had said something he didn't like and he patted one of her (perfect) thighs and warned her she had the potential to get fat.

That beautiful 19 year old girl, who could have done anything with her life, was obsessing about the fact that there was actual visible flesh on her. She obsessed about it to the point that she was probably clinically depressed, and she had a breast reduction surgery shortly thereafter. I'm pretty sure she was following her anorexic mother's lead and starving herself as well. Some will say that it's her choice, blah blah - but that's bullshit. That beautiful young girl paid someone to mutilate her so she'd fit some cultural norm that had nothing to do with reality, nothing to do with her welfare, her spirit or her intelligence or the contribution she could make to the world. That's tragic, as far as I'm concerned, whether she was happy with the results (she was) or not.

I'm not completely against cosmetic surgery, but that operation had NOTHING to do with making that little girl look better. It had everything to do with reinforcing her insecurities and the idea that she wasn't good enough. That surgeon carved up a healthy, perfect young body when the mind controlling it wasn't healthy enough to make those decisions for herself. That's fucked up.

We really need to look at what this mass-produced, mechanized culture is doing to us. We aren't creating beauty, or even restoring it. We're expending time, energy, and resources chasing an impossible "ideal" that isn't that attractive in the first place, and gaining nothing for the investment.

I've asked this question before - what's the difference in the practice of footbinding that was once popular in China or a Manhattanite having bones removed from her feet so she can wear a pair of Jimmy Choos? The only difference I see is that the Manhattanite has better drugs to deal with the pain. They're both hobbling themselves in a way that restricts their movement, interferes with the normal conduct of their lives, and makes them more vulnerable to attack or exploitation. They're both participating in a system that is keeping them subordinate and under male control. The only benefit is derived from pleasing their patriarchal masters - does it matter if that "master" is a husband, a slave owner, or a boss that will fire you if you gain 5 pounds?

Is the veil any less restrictive if you pay for it yourself, or if it is made in a design house run by a man?

Technorati tags: women, fashion, eating disorder, oppression, feminism