The One who Revolts

The readings this week raised more questions than answers for me. Why do totalitarian regimes seem to so often find women and particularly the collective and organized power of women to be so offensive and so threatening? Are women who have organized together actually a threat to totalitarianism? Why does the torture of women so often seem sexualized, as when Mehrangiz Kar reports of "officials" who would "tear apart the unveiled mannequins and force women to lie down on torture beds to be whipped with dozens of lashes for not wearing the proper Islamic garb" (33)?

And how do we understand ourselves as part of a global sisterhood? For that matter, should we? Is that a legitimate goal, or is wanting that only indicative of how badly I would prefer to escape my own complacency, my own responsibility to negate the harm done by my community?
 Part of my reaction to this reading involved centering my own community, I'll admit that. I grew up in a very closed-off and insular Jewish community, one which clung to patriarchal values as an attempt to hold the community together. Because of this tendency and the fear of parental, rabbinical, divine reprisal that it evoked, much of the harm within my community was swept under the rug.

 I think this is important because it helps me at least break out of the profoundly Islamophobic mindset that the U.S., not to mention my own Jewish community, have wrapped my mind up in. For a time during my adolescence, "Muslim" was all but synonymous with "sexist" in the language of the U.S. media and of many of my peers.
I remember arguing with one specific person, Kailyn, about whether the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a good thing. She suggested that the U.S. presence would "free" Iraqi women; I disagreed, but could not find the words to identify why. Naturally, she considered herself a budding feminist; as I did too, it was difficult to name the discrepancy between collective struggle for an end to sexism, and Western imperialist intrusion into the lives of women who had not invited us. To be honest, I don't have all the language now, either.

I do know, however, that Reading Lolita in Tehran energized me in a way I did not expect. That recounting helped me identify myself as part of a global consciousness, if not movement, whereby women educated ourselves in any way we could in order to fight patriarchy as it showed up on our front doors. I think that is powerful, because it is not the kind of movement that any one person can lead or that any one person gets to name; it is the kind of movement that happens naturally, but also through a thousand small and large  brave steps of those who choose to join it.

Death of a Mannequin actually challenged some of my deeply-held [likely white feminist] beliefs about the wishes of Iranian women. Andrea Gibson, one of my favorite poets but also someone I conflict with often, has a line in The Pursuit of Happiness about Afghani women [but really about Muslim women, they don't make much distinction], about how the U.S. military wishes to "wrap them in lace/until they are all as conveniently rapeable/as women in the states". The line is chilling, as is the sentiment of the poem. Yet refusing to name oppression as oppression seems problematic and damaging as well, and equally self-serving as a white person in the U.S. because it is over-simplifying.
The other piece of this story I'm chewing over is the idea of sexuality as a form of power for women, within the context of a patriarchal society but also outside of it. Specifically, I have a hard time contemplating the link between femininity, sexuality, and empowerment because the religious context I was raised in did not permit such a thing.

No conclusions. I'm eager for class discussion and to hear what others have come up with.