cathy

I just finished this book by Fatima Mernissi: Scheherazade Goes West. It's about the Eastern vs. Western conceptions of femininity. She writes very engagingly and personally, but is an academic. There aren't footnotes, instead superscript numbers and then references at the end of the chapters.

Basic premise is that Westerners want women to be youthful, naked and silent, and that is why Orientalist paintings (Ingres, Matisse) portray harems with naked or half-naked silent and inactive women, posed either lounging decadently, or bathing and rubbing oils on each other and so forth. She goes into the 'male gaze" a bit.

Another basic premise to this aesthetic: Men act. Women appear.
And another: women who are smart, make themselves ugly or unfeminine. Kant said that a woman who can discourse on history or geometry might as well have a beard!

Apparently the Greeks conceived of intelligence as a male quality, and beauty as a female quality (this is my husband's comment--was not in Mernissi)

Whereas argues that in the tradition of Eastern miniature paintings, women are portrayed as much more active, and that the ideal woman from an Eastern point of view was/is much more cultured and intelligent. She says that despite the seclusion of women found in many Muslim cultures and the veiling, hejab, etc,. separation of space might be less radical than the Western separation.

What she does not say but I am speculating, is that maybe in fantasy everyone wants what they don't have in The Other.

Has anyone else read this?

Thanks, Cathy

Caroline_afifi

No, but it does sound very interesting and will put it on my list of reading.
Persian dancer Venus Saleh is actually doing a seminar at the Liverpool Arab Arts festival about these differences and is working on a performance based on Persian minatures. This is a real coincidence!

Her idea of the feminism is to be glamorous and celebrate all things feminine rather than emulate men to be recognised by them. For her it is about recognising differences and utilising them to the full. Of course her thoughts go much deeper than this.

In the context of dance, it is far more liberating for a belly dancer in the East to challenge the status quo by behaving in a way most women do not. It is subversive and challengeing. The belly dancer is often regarded as 'adara' a women with a strong personality, not to be messed with.
The impact is not as recognisable in the West as we have a stereotype of being scantily clad and lewd already. Women who are undressed for a living are percieved as victims and women in need. A belly dancer is viewed as being more girly and coy (stereotype)
Belly dancers in the East maybe viewed as prostitutes but not as victims.
Men also seem to have a love hate relationship with these women, they love their company and want to be around them, but definately not at home.
I suppose it is a bit like this in the West too. there is a fear of strong women in most places I guess.

cathy

I think Venus Saleh would like Fatima Mernissi then. She is a sociologist and human rights advocate from Rabat, Morocco. She travels a lot and does not seem at all the kind of feminist one associates with blotting out everything feminine. She studies Oriental dance too, just for fun. She ends the book by saying that the West imprisons women through time--as in women must be young, thin, and beautiful, and brainless. Mature women with hips and ideas of their own are edited right out of the picture in the West. I know what she means!

As far as men's relationship with female entertainers of whatever stripe, East vs. West. I happened to watch Fellini's movie 8-1/2 the other night. He depicts his mother as making him feel guilty, his wife as making him feel inadequate, and most other women as either pandering for roles in his movie, or cheap floozies of various kinds (including some overage showgirl type). He clearly finds being in the presence of all the latter very relaxing because while he can judge them--he feels above being judged by them.

In the Westerner world I had always assumed there was the virgin or Madonna/whore complex behind a lot of this (there certainly is with Fellini--he mentions the Catholic stuff straight out in the movie), but perhaps the secluded, veiled, proper wife/mother/daughter vs. the bold and scantily clad 'haram' female entertainer is a similar dichotomy.

Mernissi goes more into men's mental and emotional fantasies as depicted in art.

Cathy

Caroline_afifi

I am not sure about this one. I can see how the west does does this by placing women under pressure to remain young and beautiful. The West tends to throw women onto the scrap heap when they have outlived their youthful beauty.
However, my experience of the East is different but I am not sure it is better. Older women are very respected but women do get 'older' in the East much faster in the way that society views them.
It is exactly like in the UK when I was a child actually. My grandmothers always looked old, the way they dressed, haircuts and just generally. My mum is the same age now but wears combats and fashionable clothes, dyes her hair and is young in her outlook (without trying to be).
The West in some ways has a lot more opportunities for older women, the East still put them out to grass like we do in the West but in a different way.
A friend of mine asked an Iraqi lady in her early 40's if a young child with her was her son. The lady was embarrassed and horrified at the thought.
At 40 I am considered old in Egypt and there are certain behavious that go with age too. Life expectancy is shorter but I think the outlook on age generally is too.

The family focus is so much more alive in the East and the older members of the family are so important and never a burden but this is different from thinking that older people in the East are liberated and equal, as I really dont believe they are at all. They are treated a whole lot better and not under pressure to stay young but they grow older faster.

The whole thing about image is disapearing too. It is no longer acceptable to be over weight. Their are slimming clinics all over Egypt and Cosmetic surgery
is becoming like The West (for the middle classes and up).
My friends in Egypt are permanently on a diet and my 7 year old niece keeps calling her mum fat and is ashamed of her taking her to school.
To end this I would say.. life in a village in Yemen is different from living in a city like Beirut etc. the 'East' is a very broad term and the cultures within it are very very different from each other.

Aisha Azar

Dear Cathy,
I did read her work and feel that she had rather an axe to grind in some cases and was way off base a time or two. Her examples about the women who where shown hunting in Perisan miniatures, for example, really got to me because so what if ONE woman hunted and did mens' work? This was not the norm and should not have been presented as such. I will try to dig out the book and see what notes I took in it if you would care to discuss it more. She also basically was loathe to admit that men in the East also seem to want women to be youthful, naked and silent. And that they are basically more successful at having set up a system for just that . Hence, we have the old guy who can afford it having several wives, each younger than the other. This is not a western male fantasy only. It is the wealthy Muslim, not the western Christian that has found a way to make this male fantasy a reality in the current world.
I found her work to be rather accusatory in some ways, not looking at the concepts presented as a whole picture.
Regards,
A'isha

cathy

Dear A'isha,

I see your point. I myself know very little about painting or other visual arts.

What do you think of Mernissi's assertion that women in harems, including slaves, were valued for their ability to carry on sophisticated conversation, play chess, compose witty verses, and so forth, compared to her claims that in the West Kant found women with any significant degree of intellectual accomplishment a big turn-off?

I can't help but think of Hillary Clinton here and how she has always walked the edge between confidence, ambition, and a willingness to state her views, all of which we might call traditional male qualities--ones which I would hope would be considered essential for a President, and the implication or direct labeling of her as a b*tch for having the same qualities. Just yesterday in the New York Times Michelle Obama was praised as more feminine than Hillary because she wears sheath dresses rather than business suits....but this is a tangent.

Cathy

da Sage

I also read this book, but I don't remember much. What I remember is that the idea that women in the East have more freedom, in that they don't have to prove their womanliness all the time, society already defines that pretty strictly...so whatever speech or action they engage in is "neutral"...whereas women in the West must constantly fit a stricter ideal, their womanliness is required, yet not a "given", and so their speech and actions are alway gender-weighted.

I must say, I didn't entirely buy the Eastern-women-are-freer part - that argument runs well, but IMO it only runs so far. But I do buy most of the Western-women-are-invisibly-confined-and-restricted part. I agreed with many of her criticisms of Western society.

Gotta read that book again when I have time, so I can discuss it intelligently.

Caroline_afifi

I can see how this fits. The Ouled nail of Algeria were also taught the 'art of conversation' in order to keep men longer and evoke them enough to return. The Giesha work in a similar way.
The East (rich East) love education for girls and intelligence is regarded as very important.
I get the impression though that in alot of cases it is just to ensure a good husband from a good family.Women are not encouraged to work by all families and even the highest of university qualifications maybe put out to grass when the first baby bump appears. There are of course many who do return to careers but women are paid less and last in line to men because they get the keep all their earned money and men have to provide for all the family.
In some ways this system benefits womens but in other ways it doesnt.
I think we have said it here before but there does not seem to be any perfect situation in the world for any woman.

Suheir

Yet still we continue to read in UK teachers' blurb that it doesn't matter what size you are as it's an advantage to be fat, Egyptians prefer fat women, and, from Tina Hobin: ""In Egypt size is a sign of prosperity". Maybe, but the opposite of what she means - it's now you can't be too thin or too rich, the same as the west!

Aisha Azar

Dear Cathy,