Making sense of it all: Grandmother Interview/ Reflection

My grandmother was born in Nablus, West Bank, in 1934.  She came from a family of 8, and she herself nurtured five children into this world.  Her childhood home was filled with delicious food aromas, and the family always united around the kitchen and food time.  Her mother never asked her for help and her job was never ending.  It was like she almost worked 24 hours a day.  No wonder that " 61 to 85 percent of women, a 1944 survey found, certainly did not want to go back to housework after the war". (63)  Housework never ended, whereas a job outside the house was regulated by fixed hours.  However, having a job outside the home, did not stop women from continuing to take care of their household.  They ended up working in the office during the day and at home in the evening.  "Housework totals forty billion hours of France's labour power.  Women volunteer work in the United States amount to 18 billion dollars a year....the economics of industrialised countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free....". (23)

 Going back to my grandmother's childhood, it was spent doing simple things, like going to the cinema in secret, or singing and dancing with friends.  She had a uniform at her all girl's school, ( blue skirt and white shirt), so not much time was given on what to wear.  She never got into trouble although sometimes her own grandfather would tell her to wear a headscarf.  She never did, and her clothes outside school was casual, but trousers were never worn, despite the fact that she toured the farms with her family.  Often she used to help her seamstress aunt and create her own clothes.  There was not much exposure around, so she and her friends did not have a foreign figure to look up to.  My grandmother used to admire her Arabic teacher for her confidence and originality.   Women's magazines in Arabic were almost non existent.  "Women's magazines are the only products of popular culture that (unlike romances) change with women's reality and take women's concern seriously". (71) So current women concerns in the 1930's and 40's were not discussed.  Also there was no television, just BBC radio channel, that stimulated their visual imagination and increased my grandmother's interest in Politics.  To this day, she is an avid reader of newspapers and political magazines and have never seen her buy a Fashion magazine although she is up to date for fashion at her age.  

Times have really changed.  Emphasis has moved from the home to the outside world now.  In the old days (according to my grandmother), all women looked pretty and natural.  They didn't have to rush anywhere or aspire to look like anybody else.  Instead, to bring out their beauty, they highlighted their best assets and always had a relaxed aura about them.  Nowadays, women are stressed, overworked, pressured into things, and therefore their moral on tired days is down.  "The closer women come to power, the more physical self-consciousness and sacrifice are asked of them. "Beauty" becomes the condition for a women to take the next step". (28)  As a result of their exhaustion, women are continuously looking at products and ways to make them look less tired, younger, and eventually happier.  They are constantly reminded by shop windows, magazine covers, even pharmaceutical products of the importance of taking care of your looks.   Advertisements are geared toward making women feel that they are inadequate if they don't follow certain steps.  "In providing a dream language of meritocracy(get the body you deserve", "a gorgeous figure doesn't come without effort", entrepreneurial spirit "make the most of your natural assets",)....keep women consuming their advertisers' products in pursuit of the total personal transformation in status that the consumer society offers men in the form of money." (29)  It seems that one has to defy nature, and that if you are "worth it", as the L'Oreal add always suggest, then you should aim for the perfect body and the perfect hair and make up.  These adds work on women's low self esteem, that surfaces after seeing such ads over and over again.  Without these ads, women would probably still purchase certain products but not with such intensity.   

The Gilded Society Vs. The Beauty Myth

After reading 6 headings (chapters) of Naomi Wolf’s “Beauty Myth”, I have come to understand the purpose behind writing Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”. In the society of Gilead, a totalitarian regime is established in which the aim seems to prosecute women specifically. In the Beauty Myth or I could say the society we live in, men “use women’s “beauty” as a form of currency in circulation among men, ideas about “beauty” have evolved since the Industrial evolution side by side with ideas about money, so that the two are virtually parallels in our consumer economy” (20). The way women are looked upon in today’s society is an exaggeration in the way women are looked upon in the society of Gilead. In Gilead, Women are reduced to different roles some of which like the Handmaids-to a mere procreational function. This is like many cultures of our society such as the music industry and huge beauty corporations that make it look like the only way to make it in the world is through your appearance, which demotes women to no better than sex objects.

In the ‘Handmaids tale’ the women are forced to suffer the limitations placed upon them, which try to isolate the women by hindering communication between them. They are isolated in the same way “middle class women have been sequestered from the world, isolated from one another, and their heritage submerged with each generation, they are more dependent than men are on cultural models on offer bad they are more likely to be imprinted by them”(58). ‘The goal of all this is too highlights the way in which the mores of contemporary society suggest ultimately repressive views when taken to their logical extremes’. I think Atwood wrote “The Handmaid’s Tale”, in order to show how ridiculous and sexist society is towards women. In my opinion, Atwood is saying that under all the camouflaged reasons for why the beauty myth originated, women are being treated today in a totalitarian manner. The extremes that are presented in “The Handmaids Tale” are present today but are disguised in such a way that women do not notice. Wolf even goes on to say, “many [women] are ashamed to admit that such trivial concerns- to do with physical appearance, bodies, faces, hair clothes- matter so much” (9). Unfortunately in reality they do. Women in our society put themselves through pain in order to increase their beauty, very much like the “the high-heeled shoes…with their straps attached to the feet like delicate instruments of torture”(Atwood 38). In the “Handmaid’s Tale”, the women are being watched all the time. What does this constant surveillance do to women? Wolf say’s “an enforced lack of privacy strips dignity and breaks resistance”(99). The two investigations into the struggle of Women’s equality hint at the same obstacles that restrain women’s freedom and techniques used by external forces to subjugate women in all facets of their existence. 

Both authors are trying to illustrate the current situation of women through different diverse subjects and functions (no matter what the input is the output will be the same),  and in making the world aware of what they are not aware of, trying to make a difference. For me "to live in fear of one's body and one's life is not to live at all". 

Who's 'Killing Me Softly'?

"“In providing a dream language of meritocracy (“get the body you deserve”, “a gorgeous figure doesn’t come without effort”, entrepreneurial spirit (“make the most of your natural assets”)…keep women consuming their advertisers’ products in pursuit of the total personal transformation in status that the consumer society offers men in the form of money” (29).

 After watching ‘Killing me Softly”, narrated by 
Jean Kilbourne, I was shocked that their were was no higher authority that could do something about how women are being degraded in pop culture today. Moreover, the advertisements that she explores reinforce ‘unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality’. Contemporary pop culture has augmented and strengthened the beauty myth and installed it into the minds of children at a dangerously young age. “Women’s magazines for over a century have been one of the most powerful agents for changing the women’s roles, and throughout that time-today more than ever- they have consistently glamorized whatever the economy, their advertisers, and, during the wartime, the government, needed at that moment from women”(64). It makes me feel frightened that people who we are supposed to trust control women for economic reasons. There’s a lot to say about advertisers and pop culture these days, and looking into the future it doesn’t look like the beauty myth will last a very long time. Since 1991 clubs have been using a certain method to employ waitresses. “The club’s employment standards ranked waitresses on the following scale”:

1.     A flawless beauty (face, figure, and grooming)

2.     An exceptional beautiful girl

3.     Marginal (is aging or has developed a correctable appearance problem)

4.     Has lost Bunny Image (either through aging or an uncorrectale appearance problem)

Sadly, not much has changed today. Whether you are looking through magazines, dining at fancy restaurants, or even strolling through an office building, you will see that the women who are usually standing on the front desk, or waitressing tables all try to reach this flawless beauty’ that is sold to women through cosmetics, which in the end are unattainable. Scarily, some women “…will buy more things if they are kept in the self- hating, ever-failing, and sexually insecure state of being aspiring beauties” (66). The figures speak for themselves: “in 1988 skin care grossed 3 billion in the United States alone, 337 million pounds in the United Kingdom, 8.9 trillion lire in Italy, and 69.2 million guilders in the Netherlands, up from 18.3 million in 1978”(109). The amount of products sold to women is increasing annually, as well as the amount of women going out to get facial, body and breast surgery. “…95% of enrolees in weight loss programs are women” (94).

 

This system and the existence of the beauty currently remain intact because these magazines “offer women power” and in return “promote masochism” (77).

Therefore when “our eyes are trained to see time as a flaw on a women’s faces where it is a mark of character on a men’s” the myth lives on (94). In a world where “beauty is heaven or a state of grace; the skin or fat cell count is the soul; ugliness is hell” and “the beauty product is her mediator: healer, angel or spiritual guide”, women are forced into buying and doing what the advertisers want them to do. In killing me softly women are go through extreme diets that make them loose weight at the expense of their health. If you …”tell a women she is ugly [that] can make her feel ugly, act ugly, and, as far as her experience is concerned, be ugly, in the place where feeling beautiful keeps her whole” (36). Advertisers, fashion designers and the whole beauty industry rely on women’s submissiveness and credulousness to survive. 

Hip- Hop Culture

Originating in the Bronx and spreading around the world as a multi- billion-dollar business, “hip-hop has created a culture and spawned a lifestyle that incorporates politics, style, art and technology”. However even though Hip Hop has affected many, influenced and inspired generations of people to create better circumstances for themselves it has also been charged with praising violence, misogyny and homophobia. In the Hip Hop world women are seen merely as objects, put into music videos where they are the majority and made to look sexy in order to increase the masculinity of the male performer. A common music video these days would have a female to male ratio of around 10 to 1, and these completely naked women would be huddled around the performer, as if they were servants or “whores” ready to heed to his very command. However looking at it in a different perspective these men only show that they are incredibly insecure, and need to where flashy objects and have women around them all the time in order to feel confident of themselves. In the Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf argues“... Women must make their beauty glitter as a bid for attention that is otherwise grudgingly given” (106). “Men who glitter, on the other hand, are either low –status or not real men: gold teeth, flashy jewellery, ice skaters, Liberace. Real men are matte”(106). With this said, men in hip-hop videos have been sucked into this culture that is fake and superficial. By wearing chains and expensive clothes, these men like women are trying to breach a higher status. However in the Hip Hop culture these women are referring to as bitches’, ‘hoes’, adding to their image of being nothing but eye candy. This culture however is not different from the rest of American culture where female bodies are objectified in magazines, movies, advertisements, and TV shows. As a result the only way men can make a connection to women in popular culture is through sexuality. This why “a girl learns that stories happen to ‘beautiful’ women, whether they are interesting or not, stories do not happen to women who are not beautiful” (61).

With Hip Hop culture objectifying women’s bodies, creating them to be sex objects it is even more horrifying to find out that it is that kind of talk that will get you signed as an artist. I cannot think of a case where an artist has made it in the industry without referring to a woman as a “bitch”. In this culture “Beauty is a currency system like the gold standard.” (12). The beauty ‘myth’ may appear to audiences out their to be about ‘intimacy and sex and life, a celebration of women” when it is actually “composed of emotional distance, politics, finance, and sexual repression”(13). Therefore even in the Hip Hop world “it is about men’s institutions and institutional power”(13).  

Cultural Mutation Part II

Upon visiting the Dominican Republic on my ‘service’ alternative, I was shocked at the varying roles women and men play in contrast to other cultures around the world. On the second day of the trip, we took a three-hour bus ride to one of the main agricultural villages in the DR. After arriving, we were split into groups of three, each with a Spanish speaker in at least on of the groups and sent to work at an ordinary village family’s house. At first it all seemed very bizarre that families that live in poverty and suffer the harsh practises of cultivating land in the tropics made us guests. They were all really happy to see us, a different culture altogether. The first thing I noticed was that when the travelling company asked for the families to take care of us, it was almost every time a female that took care of us and made the food for us.

On our second day we took a hike through the forests with our caretakers, who held a huge machete in one hand and guided the way. She seemed to know where everything was, not only where we were on a map, but were different kinds of plants grew and were the herds of killer ants hung out. It was amazing to see such awareness. With her machete she knocked down banana trees, dug out vegetables from beneath the earths soil and cut down coconuts for us whenever we were thirsty. When we got back, she made the food for us, set it out on the table and watched us eat. I kept trying to tell her to sit down with us, but she kept on refusing. However after we got to know each other well, at the expense of her mocking my poor Spanish accent, I managed through translation to ask her questions about her family, her husband and children. She told me that she had 5 children and a husband. The next day while we were in the forest she introduced me to her husband who was drenched in sweat, picking cocoa beans off the towering trees. I noticed that these men stayed out in the forest all day, and only came back to their homes for lunch and dinner in which our guides, who all had husbands working in the fields, made food for them. The Women’s role was sort of similar to that of housewives, but their conditions were indeed a lot harder.

On our last day, after being in the forest for three days, I snuck out of my group to spend some time with the men. These men were just clipping off cacao beans from the trees all day, and it occurred to me that the women’s job was much more strenuous and she executed all her duties with all her effort. On the other hand the men would cut a couple cocoa beans off then rest on the porch cutting them up. The women had a much harder job then the men, and what struck me was that Wolfs statement that “Women work hard- twice as hard as men” (22). Compared to the women around the world, it is still the same situation where “housework totals forty billion hours of France’s labour power. Women volunteer work in the United States amounts to $18 billion a year…the economics of industrialised countries would collapse if women didn’t do the work they do for free…” (23). After some more research I tried to find a correlation in the responsibilities and lifestyle of the women in the Dominican Republican compared to other third world countries like “ Kenya [in that] given unequal agriculture resources, women’s harvests equalled men’s; given equal resources, they produced bigger harvests more efficiently” (24). This seems to support many claims that were made in “it is the end of men”, where Rosin argues that “women are programmed to find good providers and to care for their offspring, and that is manifested in more- nurturing and more- flexible behaviour, ordaining them to domesticity” (4). 

Beauty and the Beast

There are many expressions relating to beauty, such as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and "beauty is only skin deep".  How true these statements are is to be questioned.  There is a universal par for physical beauty; foundations that people seem to agree on.  So when beauty pageants are held, either for Miss World or Miss Universe, there are basic elements that the world, (including the different judges) agree on.  Beauty is not a myth, but rather it should be regarded as an admirable quality like courage, honesty, intelligence and dignity.  Some women and also men decide to use their beauty as a "means to an end", and this is when it becomes a bad quality to have.  For these shallow people, "Beauty is a currency system like the gold standard. (12)"  And once they grow old or loose their beauty, they realize they don't have much to be proud of. 

These days there is an acute pressure not just on women but also on men, to be fit, thin, and fashionable.  The percentage of men doing cosmetic surgery has risen, perhaps as a direct result of women wanting to stay young.  The Media, fashion and fashion magazines, TV programmers such as celebrity news, and music clips, all highlight the importance of looking good.  It's as if they're saying "this is what you have to look like" to have fun and be successful."  Our generation has grown up with different values than our parents, who learned to admire the good qualities in people, and if these people were also good looking, it was a bonus.  Our generation looks good at the "feel good factor", the healthy trim body with the perfect hairstyle.  There is a lot of emphasis on looks that have become easy to perfect with airbrush and Photoshop.  So now, when flicking through the magazine, the reader sees perfect bodies, and flawless faces, whereas before, faults were allowed to show.  These perfect images work on the subconscious, and the psyche becomes geared towards achieving better looks.  Without even given it much consideration, people head out to the plastic surgeons, to the shops, and to the dentist for that perfect white smile they see on models.  And they do this because they can.  Nowadays, if you don't like your nose, you change it.  If your face is too thin, then you use fillers.  If you don’t have cheekbones, then you take out your bad teeth.  "The newly made up or coiffed or thin women, the women with surgically new face, celebrates her identity and returns to take up what she does hope will be an improved status... (101)” ere is something to be done for the tiniest imperfections.  We are lost for choice, and all the choices are geared towards beautifying one's self.  We are surrounded by the choice, that at the end one succumbs to it.