I almost forgot...

[melcreada]

Meant to repost this from ellenore's journal:

Moving essay about how the Western image of beauty is just as debilitating to women as other forms of control throughout the world. The author is eloquent and I can definitely relate.

It was during my unsuccessful attempt to buy a cotton skirt in an American department store that I was told my hips were too large to fit into a size 6. That distressing experience made me realize how the image of beauty in the West can hurt and humiliate a woman as much as the veil does when enforced by the state police in extremist nations such as Iran, Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia.

Comments

[joseishijin.livejournal.com]

Definitely not the same thing!

I just read it as being a slave to the scale is not much better than being forced to wear a veil. I never read it as starving to be thing is the same thin as being raped.

Still bad, but not fat ugly unwed minority mom in deep Georgia bad.

I completely agree, but must admit this line made me chuckle. *grin*

[(Anonymous)]

Well even if you look at the just being forced to wear the veil part, you have to think 'and what are the results of NOT wearing a veil/being a size 6' in each society there's vast differences there as well. Stoning by extremist vigilante mobs and imprisonment by police vs people not being as nice. Hm.

When I was in college I knew a girl who went on exchange to Turkey for language studies and even there she said it was pretty bad. Guys can pretty much treat you any way you want (and they did, up to actual physical abuse because they could tell she was western just by the way she walked even in the full outfit).