soapbox

[ginger_root]

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

Comments

[laurahorror]

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?

But. What do you say when another culture's norms seem excessively cruel? I think of genital mutilation, or laws that allow the death penalty for rape victims, or government- and church-sanctioned domestic violence. It is so hard for me to sit back and say that change, in those cases, should come from within. Because it probably never will. Unless, as you mention, there are women who leave the community and return to change it. Again, though, these are usually women who have been educated in the west. They, too, are applying a western perspective to a nonwestern issue. That can be seen as its own kind of cultural betrayal.

I need to see this movie, clearly. Have you ever seen the documentary called Beneath the Veil? They played it a million times on CNN after 9/11. It's a good example of some of the things you're talking about here.

L

[ginger_root]

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 these things are happening and seek to support those agencies in figuring out the most responsible ways to help. Because there are almost always organizations in home countries that are working for social change, they are just often struggling with lack of funds and/or lack of staffing, etc. The international social justice community can do a lot with building those organizations' internal capacity through microfunding, organizational mentoring, and such, and then those organizations would be better equipped to do their work, AND better able to express what they need (perhaps in terms of staff from the groups that want to come into these countries and work). Does that make more sense? I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about that one.

I think this idea about "cultural betrayal" is interesting, because you're absolutely right. How could they be educated in the west and not somehow become socialized themselves? It's true.

I haven't seen Beneath the Veil, I definitely should. And I haven't seen The Devil Wears Prada either. It's true, our culture is certainly not the epitome of egalitarianism, for sure. We certainly are a bit ahead of plenty of developing nations in terms of dollar to dollar comparisons in gendered income, but is that really enough? I dunno...

How come we haven't talked on the phone yet? I think we could probably sketch out a damn fine manifesto! ;)

[laurahorror]

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]

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.

[laurahorror]

No, I'm sorry. I knew what you meant. I just sort of got off on a crazy tangent. The private sector will surely lead the way on this stuff, but I wish my tax dollars did more to help people than to blow up villages in Iraq.

L