Comments | ginger_root: soapbox

ginger_root

soapbox

Jul 12, 2006 21:39

I've been wanting to post about it because it's been, like, nearly consuming my thoughts for the past couple of days... a documentary I saw a couple of weeks ago in Vermont called The Beauty Academy of Kabul. I didn't want to write about it because it was amazing... because it wasn't. And I didn't want to write about it because it was naive and ( Read more... )

soapbox, films

Comments 11

lastandleast July 13 2006, 01:52:54 UTC

If the things you had to say were about .5% more interesting, there would probably be a rip in the space time cotinuum. Our fragile universe couldn't hold up to them ;)

ginger_root July 13 2006, 20:24:54 UTC

awww thanks amanda! i'm glad you enjoyed my frenzy.

laurahorror July 13 2006, 02:10:43 UTC

I totally agree with you. I think there's something sort of disingenuous about North American women marching into other parts of the world and expecting other cultures to embrace their standards of "freedom" and "liberation" when white, Anglo-American women embrace and thrive on just as many backwards, repressive cultural standards as any other community on earth. Did you see The Devil Wears Prada ( ... )

ginger_root July 13 2006, 03:31:39 UTC

Ok, I hear you. I think I need to explain a bit more. I never meant this to sound like we should "sit back" and allow anything like genital mutilation (or any other kind of state-sanctioned atrocities) to just "happen" when we're able to do something about it in a socially and culturally responsible way. For instance, many western aid workers approached genital mutilation in Senegal by, like, just telling women that they should refuse the circumcision without even considering how that might cause them to be cast out of their village, and then make them unable to feed their children. You know? I was really more criticizing the ways in which we, as westerners with a hell of a lot of privilege and the tendency to take a LOT for granted, go about our attempts at "helping." And when I talk about change from within, I don't mean sitting back and leaving everyone to their own devices. I meant that we should be entirely proactive about seeking out aid agencies, NGOs, or other groups that DO exist within the countries and communities where ( ... )

laurahorror July 13 2006, 23:13:15 UTC

I only wish the US government would step in and help the kind of grass roots organizations you're talking about. The problem, though, is that the Bush administraton LOVES to politicize these kinds of issues and use them as propaganda. (Burquas always come up as a kind of shorthand when he discusses our great success in Afghanistan.)

Our government will not hesitate to cut funding to any group these days, domestic or otherwise, that doesn't abide by a conservative agenda. How many years has it been, after all, since the US stopped funding abortions in some of the most impoverished, overpopulated nations on earth? We're telling Africa that the best way to stop AIDS is... abstinence. Talk about trying to
sell western values to another culture in a completely misguided way.

I have more to say but I have a dinner date. We'll chat.

L

ginger_root July 14 2006, 02:08:08 UTC

heehee, I see I wasn't really clear again. I didn't mean our government, which couldn't give a rotten fig about the rest of the world, lately. I actually meant the feminist majority organizations that want to go to other countries and do work there... they should look at supporting home country organizations first, before tramping in on their own. Does that make more sense?

Re: AIDS and Africa.... I agree wholeheartedly.

Thread 5

gingerhaole July 13 2006, 02:18:34 UTC

Reading entries like this one and Kit's recent politirant really give me a workout... I'm not quite bright enough to express the opinions I'd have if I wanted to have them. But I wholeheartedly agree with you, and have always agreed. I just don't know how to back that up.

Laura did a good job, but I don't know that I agree with everything she said. But she did a really good job explaining.

Anyway. I'm about to call you, so. :) Heads up.

ginger_root July 13 2006, 20:27:14 UTC

Not quite bright enough? I never ever want to hear you say that crap again.

Not quite bright enough, my foot.

storm_goddess11 July 13 2006, 12:38:51 UTC

As you know, because I saw this movie with you, I agree with you. And so I'm just dropping this little comment to say that I liked your entry.
And it's not always western education that affects those changes within those people residing in those cultures to try and and break down dangerous and (to us) terrifying rituals, like genital mutilation. I once read a memoir where a women's parents did not want her to have genital mutilation because they had seen a close family member die from it and did not want the same for their daughters.

notsittingdown July 13 2006, 22:08:13 UTC

hey... well done.

i think that this is where feminism gets off with a bad name. i had the same veiling conversation with conservative christian baptists on the fourth of july. they challenged my (anthropological) opinion that religion is cultural and practices should be understand and evaluated within the context. i took them through the short history of the veil and showed how the so called tools of oppression can really be tools of empowerment.

i really liked your dicotomy of high heels and bombs. i thought visually, that was quite strong. for anyone, transexual to male to female to gay to disabled to homeless to park ave princess, revolution is personal and contextual.