I am not my hair - pseudo-review

As I was running around the Internet and youtube, I stumbled upon a song for a certain India.Arie, the song is "I am not my hair" I had never heard of either the song or the singer.

The message is clear, she is not her hair, she is the person behind the appearances.
In theory we all agree that we are not our hair, we are not our appearances we are the humans within. A human being is a human being regardless of the color of the sink, the fair, the shape of the head, the waste and anything else related to appearances.
But what is interesting about this song (and the message behind it) is not the simple statement, it should be common knowledge. I agree that it's sadly not true when it comes to the actual life, but in theory everyone agrees we should be seen according to who we are not to the way we look.
But anyway, put that aside, what is interesting about this song, is the way the message is formulated. The singer is not arguing with the gossipy-gossip girls gossiping about the way she looks and the way her hair is done... No she is saying who she is!
So thumbs-up for Arie, you are not your hair, you are the person behind those appearances and judging from this first encounter, it's an awesome person behind.
Interesting fact #2: in the third paragraph, India mentions women struggling with cancer. And not surprisingly, this song became a symbol for women's struggle against cancer. With this paragraph Adrie certainly hits the right cord. A woman is so used to putting so much importance into appearances that when she loses a fundamental component to that beauty (such as a woman's crown aka her hair) she loses a lot, though she is fighting for her life she finds herself attacked with either disgust or pity, because she "lost her hair" when did hair become more important than life?

If you google the song you might find dedication made by women to women fighting cancer and those who have lost their hair if not their lives in this battle. India wrote this passage as a dedication to Melissa Etheridge (Female rock star, Lesbian activist, Environmentalist, survivor of cancer in 2007, mother of 4, blond... you pick the identity you want to label her with) inspired by the latter's triumphant performance during the Grammy awards where she appeared bald and alive.

Her performance brought tears to my eyes," Arie says. "At that moment in time, her performance was a juxtaposition of pain and beauty. It symbolized the beauty of strength

Interesting fact #3: check out the lyrics of "I am not my hair"... there's an adsense bar at the bottom of the page, I would bet you anything that it is an ad for cosmetics, non? You see, even if the singer is literally attacking shallowness and attachment to appearances, a robot like google ads would assume that the people reading this article would also be interesting in reading about products that help them cheat to improve the appearances.

Just thought like sharing :)

Disabling people out of habit - Marvelous world of Sexual Harassment

Again, I need to vent! A couple of days ago I finished reading one of the very few studies in the Middle East about sexual harassment. Not surprisingly, the study comes from the Egypt, one of the very few countries that have finally broken the wall of silence around street harassment. I expected it to be bad. I expected to find an outrageously high percentage of women that have been subject to street harassment (83% for Egyptian female citizens), I expected them to blame the woman’s outfit (62.5% assumed that a woman is more likely to get harassed if she is wearing a provocative outfit) only to contradict themselves a few seconds later (31% of the women who had confirmed being the victims of street harassment also confirmed that they are usually veiled and decently dressed when harassment takes place).
In my mind, I expected all that, but what I did not expect is how men willingly admitted that they had often harassed women on the street (62.4%), shamelessly as if they were doing nothing wrong going as far as pointing/hinting at or exposing bodyparts (4.3%) and a decent percentage even admitted they don’t even feel anything when they do these crimes, they just do them out of habit (19.3%).
Now that shocked me! What does this mean? What does it say about our society? I just think we live in a very sick society where degrading and humiliating women just because they are women have become the norm. When you know that 83% of women are fully aware of the fact that they are harassed, their humanity is aggressed. They are aware of how damaging this is but no one does anything about it. We don’t even want to talk about it.
This has reached a point where men don’t even see anything wrong with what they do, they admit that they harass women as if they are just stating that they like football. Women are afraid to go down to the street and avoid doing so, they have nightmares and depressions, their academic and professional productivity are reduced. Why? What for? Whereas some men enjoy it, others feel nothing at all, they just do it as a habit… Just a habit… For a retarded, stupid habit, women are deprived of the street that should be theirs just as it is anyone else’s.
Men often brag about how they are better drivers, how they are more productive at work, more successful in everything, more confident. And I have a question that anyone is kindly asked to answer: if you had to go through a debilitating experience, such as walking on the street when you are a woman; If your space is either limited to the safety of your home; if every excursion is a terrifying experience… would you be able to compete, excel and perform?
Most men adopting this oppressive patriarchal system are more vulnerable and weak than any other creature, but they are protected by patriarchy, by the fact that they can let out any anger or feeling of weakness on women, yes women, Women on the street, family members at home, or female colleagues. That is the sad truth of this great value that we defend so fiercely, our values in this beautiful Middle East have been degraded to humiliating women just because they are women who breathe.

The study is written in Arabic and I would recommend you read it: غيوم في سماء مصر

Attending Lade’s workshop:

So I was attending this workshop today, it was organized by LADE or the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections. But I will not go through the details of the workshop, there is only one detail that made me smile (but not in a so positive way). You see at a certain point, there was some chaos which is understandable it was the after lunch session and everyone was a bit tired.

But what I found typical and unacceptable, was that one of the opinions was expressed by a young, intelligent woman. She was repeatedly interrupted by an older man who just happens to be a professor in some university. I wouldn’t have given it that much importance if it would have happened like twice or three times and if it wasn’t so evident. Nermine (the young woman) would start her sentence, after so much effort to get the attention that should not be so difficult to get in this ultra-civilized and ultra-cultivated environment, only to be interrupted before she would finish. Not by someone (who is the great male professor) who is making a point opposing hers, no she would get interrupted because the guy just had a point that he was making minutes ago and didn’t deem he should wait for Nermine to finish hers. No why would he.

And if that wasn’t so compelling, then another professor named Toni, started interrupting little Nermine just the same way.

Ok so maybe it was a Nermine thing. You may say that maybe Nermine just didn’t know how to impose her own authority. But then again something slightly similar happened with another young girl. Who was expressing a very simple concept which says that regardless of whether or not media coverage for one electoral candidate was positive it is a positive thing for the candidate because it is media attention none the less. But some guy that was sitting next to her did not agree, and he insisted on his point of view without giving any substantial evidence or even thinking about what that young lady was saying.

But if you still don’t believe me then you should have been there and you would have noticed that for example women were present but did not have much to say, as participants. The most persistent commentators were men. Nermine and her friend were almost the only females that talked.

I am not saying that the organizers or facilitators were sexism or misogynists. No, they were not. And I am not saying that the professors were consciously interrupting or silencing the women. No they were not aware of it. But in our minds (all of us) respect is always more due to older, men with degrees than it is to younger women. And again if you do not believe all you have to do, is google professor, and tell me at which page will you find the first woman?

On Women Responding to Sex

It is amazing how Mainstream media never ceases to amaze me! Alot has been said about women, men and how different their reaction to sexual stimulus is. Please take a look at this piece: أي الاعلانات "الجنسية" ترضي النساء؟
Now for one minute forget the fact that this article lacks the very least requirements of professional journalism (or at least passable journalism):

1. I cannot easily find the author of this masterpiece


2. it is impossible or at least, very difficult to trace back the original article in UBE that the author quotes and bases his whole article upon. Because needless to say that when you enter the query "women+sex" then regardless of what you are looking for and regardless of what you add to it, you will most probably find porn sites and porn links. A woman does not have a sex life outside the context of porn.


3. the author did not have a coherent idea of what he is talking about. I mean first of all, he is saying that a woman is more receptive to sex oriented ads or material if it is formulated in a "committed relationship" context (aka women use sex for love). They use sex to lur men into their traps of marriage, children, social burden, forced care... no really, just read this passage:
   

   يبدو الآن أنهن يشعرن باستياء أقل عند رؤيتهن صورا جنسية ضمن سياق عاطفي وطبيعي

   
   Now of course the author formulated it in a slightly different manor where he says that a woman is less disturbed by sexual images if they are formulated in a natural, emotional context. As if women are either disturbed or less disturbed about sex... Women can never be confortable about sexual images.
   But wait don't start arguing or thinking just now, the worst is yet to come. To prove his point, the author gives an example:
   

   وذكر موقع لايف ساينس أن الباحثين عرضوا على مشاركات في الدراسة صورة لساعة يد مثيرة للاهتمام وأخرى للساعة ذاتها يلتف حولها شريط ملون ألصقت عليها عبارة «هذه الساعة هدية من رجل إلى امرأة لها مكانة خاصة في حياته» حيث تبين أن النساء فضلن الصورة الثانية. وبينت الدراسة أن النساء يستجبن بشكل أفضل لصور الإعلانات التي تصور الرجل على أنه شريك يحترم التزاماته حيالهن، في حين أن الرجال يهمهم في المقام الاول أن يكون العنصر الجنسي متوافراً في الاعلان دون أي شيء آخر.
   

   
   The first thing that struck me was the fact that now the author is quoting the another magazine: Life Science. How he jumped from one article to another, and why, is still a mystery for me. But anyway, the idea is that women prefer the image of an interesting watch with a ribbon that says: "this watch is a present from a man to a woman that means a lot to him"...
   
   I am left baffled by this lack of coherence, what was the author trying to say? Why is this watch example relevant? How does it prove that women prefer sex in an emotional context?

Now let us, for a moment forget all these formalities and think about the following question: What does this article say about women and sexual fantasies?

First of all, this article was filed under miscellaneous (whatever that is supposed to say about how the authors, editors and readers of this online magazine view women and their sexuality).

Second observation, all these weirdly connected absurd conclusions emanate from total misconception about and ignorance to women's sexuality, presumptions and prejudice about women that try very hard to prove that women and men live in two different worlds and can only connect through the translation of the female language to the male language through MONEY.

And I insist that the translation is to the male language, the author of this article is a man,
expressing a man's incomprehension of the woman's body and desires, a man's media expressing a male dominated society in which women are odd beings, informations about women are first falsified then filed under miscellaneous news, news that don't belong anywhere else and cannot be classified in any serious section.

Yes I am outraged, I am outraged because I know men, the ones I call real men. Men that are willing to think and reflect, interact and communicate with other beings (some of which happen to be women). And the author of this article is just not one of those communicating men. He is just someone who has assimilated the mainstream culture and regurgitated it blindly.

In the end, I would just like to say that this article, not as an individual publication but as a school of thought, is an insult and a blatant promotion of a dangerous ideology that ignores a woman's pure sexual desire, banning them from exploring what they want or wish for. At the same time it keeps men under pressure to keep on getting more MONEY because, as these great studies show, this is what will get the woman feel less disgusted of sex.

You think not? prove me wrong

من... فعلاً من؟

من اختار اسمها؟

من أخبرها أنها فتاة وأنّ عليها الالتزام بدفتر تعليمات يولد مع الفتيات في العالم العربي؟

من رسم لها طريق مستقبلها منذ كانت في عامها الأوّل... قل في يومها الأوّل؟

من منعها من ممارسة مهنةٍ صنّفت بقاموس المجتمع مهنةً للرجال؟

من أقنعها بأنها لا تستطيع مقاومة الاحتلال في الميدان وفي ساحة المعركة وأن تحمل السلاح دون منّةٍ من أحد؟

من وضعها في إطار خشبي ولمّعه وزيّنه وعلّقه على الحائط أو في المطبخ؟

من حصر اهتماماتها بالفنّ والجمال والموضة والأولاد؟

من قمع رغباتها وألبسها قميص العفّة غصباً عنها فنمت العُقد والأمراض في جسدها وعقلها؟

من علّمها الخوف من جسدها والخجل به؟

من حلّل قتلها حفاظاً على «الشرف»؟

من ربط تحرّرها وحريتها بالابتذال والملابس الفاضحة والـ«بوتوكس»؟

من علّمها أنّ الرجل هو من يحميها وأنّ رضاه مقدّس؟

من سمح للدين بأن يتدخّل في شؤونها ليحلّل ويحرّم تبعاً لمزاج «رجل» دين؟

من أرعبها من الحبّ ومن السعادة؟

من قسّم مجتمعها إلى «بنت منيحة» و«بنت عاطلة»؟

من قال لها إن اللون الأبيض هو الأنسب لفستان الزفاف... ما المشكلة بالأزرق أو الأحمر أو الأخضر؟

من عمّم عبارة «عريس بالبيت ولا شهادة عالحيط» (أنا لا أمزح العبارة فعلاً متداولة وبكثرة)؟

من جعل اللون الزهري القبيح لوناً بنّاتياً؟

من كوّن وعيها الثقافي انطلاقاً من روايات دانيال ستيل وبربرا كارتلند؟

من عوّدها الابتسام أو حتى الضحك في كل مرة تسمع فيها نكتة أو تقرأ رسالة إلكترونية تختصر المرأة بصدرها وأردافها ومؤخرتها؟

من خاف من تمرّدها فحجب عنها تاريخ ليلى خالد وجميلة بو حيرد وروايات نوال السعداوي وأحلام مستغانمي؟

ليال حداد - جريدة الأخبار - مصدر