My apologies to any of you still reading this blog.

Admittedly, I am preoccupied with some personal issues that I am dealing with at the moment, and as a result, I find my creative thought stalling.

I hope to be back soon.

Eastern Feminism and Western Feminism

Today I was listening to a podcast of PRI’s “To the Best of our Knowledge”, and the subject of the episode was “Women and Islam”. The first interview was with Lila Azam Zanganeh, the editor of “My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes”, a collection of essays on aspects of life in Iran. The interview itself focused on the rights of Iranian women, how they’ve changed since the Revolution, and how they compare to the rights of Western women. The second was with Liz Merman, who directed a documentary called “the Beauty Academy of Kabul”, about women who work as underground hairdressers out of their homes in order to make money, a feat difficult under the Taliban regime, which also requires that women cover their hair.

What was especially intriguing to me was the complete contrast to how I approach feminism. In addition to Merman’s covert hairdressers, Zanganeh spoke of women who defiantly wear lipstick under their veils to still be able to express their femininity. I immediately thought back to when I felt I really began to outwardly express my feminist self. When I got to college, I abandoned the practice of wearing makeup every day (I still use it occasionally and for special occasions, but now I consciously try to avoid wearing it as prosthetic beauty). To me, having to alter my appearance to increase my sex appeal is oppressive. It seems dwarfed however, with the knowledge that the women from these interviews are barred from expressing their sexuality at ALL.

This is not to say that western feminism is any less significant. There are simply different issues at hand. And it’s certainly not all about hair and makeup, for either group. That is only one small aspect of the complex issue of women’s rights. But the fact that one mode of defiance is the complete inverse of the other, is fascinating to me. Especially since, when you think about it, the message is the same: A woman should have the right to express herself without fear of persecution. Yes?

Cloth

To pass the time, here is an assignment from my Art and Clothing class in which we had to write creatively about our sensual experiences with cloth/clothing for a day.

“My Encounters With Cloth and Clothing”

I wake up, feeling the inside of my sheets, a little envelope of soft jersey cotton topped with a feather comforter. I smooth out the ribbed tank top that has become crumpled around my torso, which I hate, but it happens to me every night. I nuzzle my face into my pillow and squirm around, feeling the softness around me (a trick I learned from my boyfriend, Master Nuzzler and lover of All Things Soft). The problem is, it is SO comfortable, I don’t want to get out. But I do… eventually.

I grab my towel and bathrobe from the hook behind the door, where they usually dry into stiffness, or sit, damp from the last shower. Since I put off my usual night shower until this morning, they are bone dry. I sniff them, something I do every time I take a shower. They still smell fresh. Yay!

After my shower, I take the towel off of the back of the door. I dry myself off the same every day: dry my face, dry my arms, then legs, then fold my hair into a turban. Then I put my robe around me.

I go back to my bedroom, and take off the robe. I hate putting on clothes while my skin is still damp, so I put it off, all the while resisting the urge to climb naked and clean back into my sheets. They are just so soft….

When I do put clothes on, it takes me a ridiculous amount of time. My awkward stance between self-expression and comfort as my Ultimate Goal leads to a long dance in which I put on a piece of clothing, walk around, take it off, and try something new. Occasionally I play an “eeny-meeny-miney-moe” game to determine my outfit, which I usually abandon due to practical reasons. Today it’s cooler than it has been in weeks, so I go for my favorites, long sleeves, sweaters, and SCARVES, my favorite thing to wear. Only it becomes apparent after I clothe myself that the weather may be cooler, but it isn’t COLD. So, I abandon these garments once more and put on something with short sleeves. I stubbornly hold on to the scarf though, telling myself it is linen and won’t be too hot. It’s just that scarves are my favorite things to wear, and I’ve been counting down the days until the cooler seasons, when I often feel naked without one. Then I throw on a cozy 3/4-sleeve sweater, just for good measure.

I put on my book bag, and before I go, I pin the hem of my shirt onto my jeans, something I’ve started doing after realizing that the friction of my book bag on the top of my hips causes my shirts to ride up, and my pants to ride down. As I pin in a button that I got from a band that has since split up, I think about how I ought to find more decorative pins for this purpose, since I keep fearing that someone else will ask me about the button, which features a picture of Zelda, and I’ll have to explain that it is from a non-existent band, and no, I don’t play video games.

I climb on my bike and ride to campus. When I ride to school, I wear jeans of the skinnier variety, and today it is a pair that I’ve had since eleventh grade, and last winter I attacked them with a sewing machine, closing up the flares to rest close around my calves and ankles. I like the way it feels. I like that these jeans are so old and just so darn comfortable! However, if I had walked to school, I would have worn flares, because until it gets cooler still, I’m going to have to suffer the claustrophobic feeling of shin sweat rubbing against the skinny jeans as I walk. I try to avoid that. Today I am wearing socks for the first time in months. It feels pretty good.

I am going to the metals studio to finish a project that is due the next day. When I get there, I immediately take off my sweater and put on my apron. I love that apron. When I put it on, I feel like I BELONG in the studio. It is like a when a dog gets a leash put on him, he gets excited because he knows it means a walk. I get excited when I put on my apron because I know it means creative time. It is a plain canvas apron, dark green, peppered with wax shavings and copper and silver dust. I like the way it hangs around my neck, I like it’s weight against my front, and I like that it hides when my fly is down, a faux pas I commit far too often for my own comfort.

By the evening, I have put my sweater back on. It is cozy and thick, but has the weird feature of having sleeves that end at my elbow. I recognize in the studio that it is practical, but later I go outside to smoke with some of my classmates, and I realize that my forearms are cold and lonely, and it somehow makes me more aware of my guilt at backsliding into a habit I abandoned long ago.

Once I am done with my project, I put my apron away, and walk to my bike. I pedal home, enjoying the cool night air, now thankful that I wore that scarf. When I get home, I immediately peel off my socks. They were nice at first, but now they are just sweaty and itchy. Actually, I’m pretty sweaty all over from the ride. I decide to take another shower before I go to bed, since I’m covered in sweat, chemicals, and metal shavings. As I take off the sweater, I smell it. It smells like cigarette smoke, which I hate. I feel ashamed, thinking how I hadn’t smoked for over a year, and now I’ve done it again. The smell on my clothes is an embarrassing reminder of what I see as a sign of weakness.

I pull my towel and bathrobe off my door, noticing that this time, they are still a teeny bit damp from my morning shower. But they still smell fresh, so I’m happy about that. I go into the bathroom and get undressed. Before I get in the shower, I walk about for a bit, enjoying the feeling of the cool tiles beneath my feet.

After the shower, I return to my room, and wait to dry, once again, before I put anything on. When I do, I have to step over all the piles of clothes on my floor, left over from my morning clothing dance. Some of my boyfriend’s clothes are lying on the floor too. He brought them down months ago so that I could teach him how to sew. Only he’s left them here, and I don’t have anywhere to put them. And now I’ve washed them, they don’t even smell like him anymore, so they’re useless to me as far as I’m concerned. Robert’s clothing is one of my favorite smells in the world, so the fact that they now smell like my detergent is a nuisance to me. I pick my tank top off the floor and put it on. It still smells clean, but just barely. I’ll have to switch it out tomorrow.

I climb into my bed, and tuck the bedding around my self. I have a ritual where I lay flat, pull the sheet, then the blankets, way over my head. Then I fold them back evenly to rest around my shoulders. Then I wiggle around, trying to close up any air pockets. It’s as though I’m trying to vacuum-pack myself into this softness. I’m convinced that my bed is the most comfortable place in the world, and it irks me that I get far less sleep than I should, and therefore less bed time. But for now, the jersey cotton envelops me, weighed down by the gentlest puffiness of my blanket. It is both comfortably warm and satisfyingly cool at the same time.