I haven’t run into Bad Jens before, which is a shame for me. It’s an English-language, Iranian feminist online journal. “Jens” means, roughly, “gender.” Bad means “bad,” and said as one word “badjens” means sly or disreputable.
The two pieces I just read – one an interview with performance artist Rbshapour, one an essay – both focus on the experience of Iranian-American woman living in Iran after spending nearly their whole lives in the United States. From the essay “The Practice of Control” by Nina Farnia (by the way, I suspect these links will go bad as soon as the seventh issue comes out; if the links don’t work for you, just go to the Bad Jens homepage and look in the archive in the sixth edition for these articles):
Once they had me to themselves, I discovered how worried my extended family was that I’m not married, not very interested in marriage at the moment, and not making the husband search a first priority. Most of their concern came from a sense of my vulnerability. A woman with a man by her side is always perceived to be safer, whether walking on the street or sitting home at night. And a man could provide the protection my life was seemingly lacking. Smoking in public, being on the streets at night, laughing unself-consciously- if done alone, these are things that might lead people to think a woman is a prostitute or a slut, and which lessen her safety. Of course, I don’t want to make Tehran seem like some sort of madhouse of sex and violence. It’s no different than any other big city around the world. […]
It is true that to be a woman out alone at night is dangerous. What else is new? I wonder if the world weren’t so dangerous for women, would these limits be placed upon our lives? Or is the world dangerous for women so these limits can be placed upon our lives? Regardless of the answer, in both cases my body is being controlled in ways that my male counterpart’s is not. And so I have to ask: Should I change my life so as not to accommodate the rapists and misogynists out there? Should I change my habits, my ways of life, because people “think things” Is culture and heritage so important to our lives that it should govern our decisions, even when we disagree? Is violence so prevalent?
In the United States, it’s all different. Just as in Iran, a girl is either easy, a slut, a whore, a prostitute, a nice girl, a tease, a virgin, a prude, etc. But different from Iran, these images and words are produced by television, the internet, movies, pornography. In Iran, the prominent image of the girl/woman is that of a nice, demure lady, protected either by her father or her husband. In the United States, the prominent image of the girl/woman is highly sexual: bouncing breasts in MTV videos, long-lasting makeup in Revlon commercials, plastic surgery ads in our newspapers, and let’s not forget, porn. These images often give the impression that this is how women want to be. I often had discussions with my male peers at college who seemed to think that women in porn videos enjoy what they do. But it is hard to believe that a woman would want to be partnered with an animal, or have a dick in every orifice in her body.
I came across this article while readnig a Ms. Magazine discussion board thread, provocatively entitled “we might mutilate our breasts and faces, but at least we don’t wear headscarves.” I particularly like Echidne’s comment on that thread:
It’s not good that women feel they have to lop off parts of their feet or have silicone breasts to be acceptable, but it’s not the same as a society where it would be a crime not to have your feet cut or your breasts enlarged.
The basis for all this stuff and the headscarves is ultimately the same, I believe, and it is women’s sexuality, as seen from the outside. The headscarf says that this sexuality is one man’s private property, whereas the body fixing says that this sexuality is all men’s property. I think that this sexuality should be the woman’s own property, to display or not as she chooses. Some women might still have surgery and others wear veils, but it would be their own choice.
The interview with Rbshapour was also interesting. Here’s a passage, from near the beginning, in which Rbshapour explains why she decided to move to Iran after spending her entire life since early childhood in the United States.
RS: I needed to explore the dimensions of my identity or culture. I needed to find certain ingredients of my makeup that were still ambiguous to me. When I was coming back, I would tell my friends that I wanted to go someplace where I looked like everybody else. That’s important to every person of color who has lived in the US. It doesn’t matter what culture you’re from – it’s something that speaks to you. And I wanted to experience what it was like to live someplace where people wouldn’t react to the color of my hair. (They can’t see it here. [laughs])
I wanted to know what it was like to go to a store, and not have the clerk follow me because I didn’t have blond hair and blue eyes.
TZ: And did you find that here?
RS: Of course not. Because the female experience here is very much like the experience of being a person of color in the America. And while store clerks no longer follow me around, there are other things at play here. They have to do with your mobility.
.
I don’t think it’s good for feminism that ending sexism is seen as something without direct benefits for men, when…