While this is aimed at american women, there's a subtle truth in there
for today's american men as well.

Size 6: The Western Women's Harem.
from Scheherazade Goes West by Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan feminist and
professor at Mohammed V University, who grew up in an enclosed harem,
unable to leave except once a week when she could walk, escorted and
veiled, to the Hammam, or Turkish baths.

It was during my unsuccessful attempt to buy a cotton skirt in an
American department store that I was told my hips were too large to fit
into a size 6. That distressing experience made me realize how the image
of beauty in the West can hurt and humiliate a woman as much as the veil
does when enforced by the state police in extremist nations such as
Iran, Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia. Yes, that day I stumbled onto one of
the keys to the enigma of passive beauty in Western harem fantasies. The
elegant saleslady in the American store looked at me without moving from
her desk and said that she had no skirt my size. "In this whole big
store, there is no skirt for me?" I said. "You are joking." I felt very
suspicious and thought that she just might be too tired to help me. I
could understand that. But then the saleswoman added a condescending
judgment, which sounded to me like Imam fatwa. It left no room for
discussion:

"You are too big!" she said.

"I am too big compared to what?" I asked, looking at her intently,
because I realized that I was facing a critical cultural gap here.

"Compared to a size 6," came the saleslady's reply.

Her voice had a clear-cut edge to it that is typical of those who
enforce religious laws. "Size 4 and 6 are the norm," she went on,
encouraged by my bewildered look. "Deviant sizes such as the one you
need can be bought in special stores."


That was the first time I had ever heard such nonsense about my size. In
the Moroccan streets, men's flattering comments regarding my
particularly generous hips have for decades led me to believe that the
entire planet shared their convictions. It is true that with advancing
age, I have been hearing fewer and fewer flattering comments when
walking around in the medina, and sometimes the silence around me in the
bazaars is deafening. But since my face has never met with the local
beauty standards, and I have often had to defend myself against remarks
such as zirafa (giraffe), because of my long neck, I learned long ago
not to rely too much on the outside world for my sense of self-worth. In
fact, paradoxically, as I discovered when I went to Rabat as a student,
it was the self-reliance that I had developed to protect myself against
"beauty blackmail" that made me attractive to others. My male fellow
students could not believe that I did not give a damn about what they
thought!
about my body. "You know, my dear," I would say in response to one of
them, "all I need to survive is bread, olives, and sardines. That you
think my neck is too long is your problem, not mine."

In any case, when it comes to beauty and compliments, nothing is too
serious or definite in the medina, where everything can be negotiated.
But things seemed to be different in that American department store. In
fact, I have to confess that I lost my usual self-confidence in the New
York environment. Not that I am always sure of myself, but I don't walk
around the Moroccan streets or down the university corridors wondering
what people are thinking about me. Of course, when I hear a compliment,
my ego expands like a cheese soufflé, but on the whole, I don't expect
to hear much from others. Some mornings, I feel ugly because I am sick
or tired; others, I feel wonderful because it is sunny out or I have
written a good paragraph. But suddenly, in that peaceful American store
that I entered triumphantly, as a sovereign costumer ready to spend
money, I felt savagely attacked. My hips, until then the sign of a
relaxed and uninhibited maturity, were suddenly being condemned as a def!
ormity.

"And who decides the norm?" I asked the saleslady, in an attempt to
regain some self-confidence by challenging the established rules. I
never let others evaluate me, if only because I remember my childhood
too well. In ancient Fez, which valued round-faced plump adolescents, I
was repeatedly told that I was too tall, too skinny, my cheekbones were
too high, my eyes were too slanted. My mother often complained that I
would never find a husband and urged me to study and learn all that I
could, from storytelling to embroidery, in order to survive. But I often
retorted that since "Allah had created me the way I am, how could he be
so wrong, Mother?" That would silence the poor woman for a while,
because if she contradicted me, she would be attacking God himself. And
this tactic of glorifying my strange looks as a divine gift not only
helped me to survive in my stuffy city, but also caused me to start
believing the story myself. I became almost self-confident. I say
almost, becau!
se I realized early on that self-confidence is not a tangible and
stable thing like a silver bracelet that never changes over the years.
Self-confidence is like a tiny fragile light, which goes on and off. You
have to replenish it constantly.

"And who says that everyone must be a size 6?" I joked to the saleslady
that day, deliberately neglecting to mention size 4, which is the size
of my 12-year-old niece.

At that point, the saleslady suddenly gave me and anxious look. "The
norm is everywhere, my dear," she said. "It's all over, in the
magazines, on television, in the ads. You can't escape it. There is
Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Gianna Versace, Giorgio Armani, Mario
Valentino, Salvatore Ferragamo, Christian Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent,
Christian Lacroix, and Jean-Paul Gaultier. Big department stores go by
the norm." She paused and then concluded, "If they sold size 14 or 16,
which is probably what you need, they would go bankrupt."

She stopped for a minute and then stared at me, intrigued. "Where on
earth do you come from? I am sorry I can't help you. Really, I am." And
she looked it too. She seemed, all of a sudden, interested, and brushed
off another woman who was seeking her attention with a cutting, "Get
someone else to help you, I'm busy." Only then did I notice that she was
probably my age, in her late fifties. But unlike me, she had the thin
body of an adolescent girl. Her knee-length, navy-blue, Chanel dress had
a white silk collar reminiscent of the subdued elegance of aristocratic
French Catholic schoolgirls at the turn of the century. A pearl-studded
belt emphasized the slimness of her waist. With her meticulously styled
short hair and sophisticated makeup, she looked half my age at first
glance.

"I come from a country where there is no size for women's clothes," I
told her. "I buy my own material and the neighborhood seamstress or
craftsman makes me the silk or leather skirt I want. They just take my
measurements each time I see them. Neither the seamstress nor I know
exactly what size my new skirt is. No one cares about my size in Morocco
as long as I pay taxes on time. Actually, I don't know what my size is,
to tell you the truth."

The saleswoman laughed merrily and said that I should advertise my
country as a paradise for stressed working women. "You mean you don't
watch your weight?" she inquired, with a tinge of disbelief in her
voice. And then, after a brief moment of silence, she added in a lower
register, as if talking to herself: "Many women working in highly paid
fashion-related jobs could lose their positions if they didn't keep to a
strict diet."

Her words sounded so simple, but the threat they implied was so cruel
that I realized for the first time that maybe "size 6" is a more violent
restriction imposed on women than is the Muslim veil. Quickly I said
goodbye so as not to make any more demands on the saleslady's time or
involve her in any more unwelcome, confidential exchanges about
age-discriminatory salary cuts. A surveillance camera was probably
watching us both.

Yes, I thought as I wandered off, I have finally found the answer to my
harem enigma. Unlike the Muslim man, who uses space to establish male
domination by excluding women from the public arena, the Western man
manipulates time and light. He declares that in order to be beautiful, a
woman must look fourteen years old. If she dares to look fifty, or
worse, sixty, she is beyond the pale. By putting the spotlight on the
female child and framing her as the ideal of beauty, he condemns the
mature woman to invisibility. In fact, the modern Western man enforces
Immanuel Kant's nineteenth-century theories: To be beautiful, women have
to appear childish and brainless. When a woman looks mature and
self-assertive, or allows her hips to expand, she is condemned as ugly.
Thus, the walls of the European harem separate youthful beauty from ugly
maturity.

These Western attitudes, I thought, are even more dangerous and cunning
than the Muslim ones because the weapon used against women is time. Time
is less visible, more fluid than space. The Western man uses images and
spotlights to freeze female beauty within an idealized childhood, and
forces women to perceive aging?that normal unfolding of years?as a
shameful devaluation. "Here I am, transformed into a dinosaur," I caught
myself saying aloud as I went up and down the rows of skirt in the
store, hoping to prove the saleslady wrong?to no avail. This Western
time-defined veil is even crazier than the space-defined one enforced by
the Ayatollahs.

The violence embodied in the Western harem is less visible than in the
Eastern harem because aging is not attacked directly, but rather masked
as an aesthetic choice. Yes, I suddenly felt nor only very ugly but also
quite useless in that store, where, if you had big hips, you were simply
out of the picture. You drifted into the fringes of nothingness. By
putting the spotlight on the prepubescent female, the Western man veils
the older, more mature woman, wrapping her in shrouds of ugliness. This
idea gives me the chills because it tattoos the invisible harem directly
onto a woman's skin. Chinese footbinding worked the same way: Men
declared beautiful only those women who had small, childlike feet.
Chinese men did not force women to bandage their feet to keep them from
developing normally?all they did was to define the beauty ideal. In
feudal China, a beautiful woman was the one who voluntarily sacrificed
her right to unhindered physical movement by mutilating her own feet, a!
nd thereby proving that her main goal in life was to please men.
Similarly, in the Western world, I was expected to shrink my hips into a
size 6 if I wanted to find a decent skirt tailored for a beautiful
woman. We Muslim women have only one month of fasting, Ramadan, but the
poor Western woman who diets has to fast twelve months out of the year.
"Quelle horreur," I kept repeating to myself, while looking around at
the American women shopping. Al those my age looked like youthful
teenagers.

According to the writer Naomi Wolf, the ideal size for American models
decreased sharply in the 1990s. "A generation ago, the average model
weighed 8 percent less than the average American woman, whereas today
she weighs 23 percent less. . . . The weight of Miss America plummeted,
and the average weight of Playboy Playmates dropped from 11 percent
below the national average in 1970 to 17 percent below it in 8 years."
The shrinking of the ideal size, according to Wolf, is one of the
primary reasons for anorexia and other health-related problems: "Eating
disorders rose exponentially, and a mass of neurosis was promoted that
used food and weight to strip women of . . . a sense of control."

Now, at last, the mystery of the Western harem made sense. Framing youth
as beauty and condemning maturity is the weapon used against women in
the West just as limited access to public space is the weapon used in
the East. The objective remains identical in both cultures: to make
women feel unwelcome, inadequate, and ugly.

The power of Western man resides in dictating what women should wear and
how they should look. He controls the whole fashion industry, from
cosmetics to underwear. The West, I realized, was the only part of the
world where women's fashion is a man's business. In places like Morocco,
where you design your own clothes and discuss them with craftsmen and
?women, fashion is your own business. Not so in the West. As Naomi Wolf
explains in The Beauty Myth, men have engineered a prodigious amount of
fetish-like, fashion-related paraphernalia: "Powerful industries?the
$33-billion-a-year diet industry, the $20-billion-a-year cosmetic
industry, and the $7-billion pornography industry?have arisen from the
capital made out of unconscious anxieties, and are in turn able, through
their influence on mass culture, to use, stimulate, and reinforce the
hallucination in a rising economical spiral."

But how does the system function? I wondered. Why do women accept it?

Of all the possible explanations, I like that of the French sociologist,
Pierre Bourdieu, the best. In his latest book, La Domination Masculine,
he proposes something he calls, la violence symbolique": "Symbolic
violence is a form of power which is hammered directly on the body, and
as if by magic, without any apparent physical constraint. But this magic
operates only because it activates the codes pounded in the deepest
layers of body." Reading Bourdieu, I had the impression that I finally
understood Western man's psyche better. The cosmetic and fashion
industries are only the tip of the iceberg, he states, which is why
women are so ready to adhere to their dictates. Something else is going
on on a far deeper level. Otherwise, why would women belittle themselves
so spontaneously? Why, argues Bordieu, would women make their lives more
difficult, for example, by preferring men who are taller or older than
they are? "The majority of French women wish to have a husband who is o!
lder and also, which seems consistent, bigger as far as size is
concerned," writes Bordieu. Caught in the enchanted submission
characteristic of the symbolic violence inscribed in the mysterious
layers of the flesh, women relinquish what he calls "les signes
ordinaries de la hiérarchie sexuelle," the ordinary signs of sexual
hierarchy, such as old age and a larger body. By so doing, explains
Bordieu, women spontaneously accept the subservient position. It is this
spontaneity Bourdieu describes as magic enchantment.

Once I understood how this magic submission worked, I became very happy
the conservative Ayatollahs do not know about it yet. If they did, they
would readily switch to its sophisticated methods, because they are so
much more effective. To deprive me of food is definitely to deprive me
of my thinking capabilities.

Both Naomi Wolf and Pierre Bordieu come the conclusion that insidious
"body codes" paralyze Western women's abilities to compete for power,
even though access to education and professional opportunities seem wide
open, because the rules of the game are so different according to
gender. Women enter power games with so much of their energy deflected
to their physical appearance that one hesitates to say that the playing
field is level. "A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an
obsession about female beauty," explains Wolf. It is "an obsession about
female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in
women's history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one." Research,
she contends, "confirmed what most women know too well?that concern with
weight leads to a 'virtual collapse of self-esteem and sense of
effectiveness' and that . . . 'prolonged and periodic caloric
restriction' resulted in a distinctive personality whose traits are
passivity, anxiety, a!
nd emotionality." Similarly, Bourdieu, who focuses more on how this
myth hammers its inscriptions onto the flesh itself, recognizes that
constantly reminding women of their physical appearances destabilizes
them emotionally because it reduces them to exhibited objects. "By
confining women to the status of symbolical objects to be seen and
perceives by the other, masculine domination . . . puts women in a state
of constant physical insecurity. . . . They have to strive ceaselessly
to be engaging, attractive, and available." Being frozen into the
passive position of an object whose very existence depends on the eyes
of its beholder turns the educated modern Western women into a harem
slave.

"I thank you, Allah, for sparing me the tyranny of the 'size 6 harem.'"
I repeatedly said to myself while seated on the Paris-Casablanca flight,
on my way back home at last. "I am so happy that the conservative male
elite does not know about it. Imagine the fundamentalists switching from
the veil to forcing women to fit size 6."

How can you stage a credible political demonstration and shout in the
streets that your human rights have been violated when you cannot find
the right skirt?
--
K.

Sprout the MungBean to reply

"I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell‹you
see, I have friends in both places." --Mark Twain

Katra posted:
While this is aimed at american women, there's a subtle
truth in there for today's american men as well.

Size 6: The Western Women's Harem.
from Scheherazade Goes West by Fatima Mernissi,
=== excellent essay snipped =====

I'm forwarding this to a number of female friends & relatives, none of whom
are size 6.
--
Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet.
promfh at hal dash pc dot org

Katra wrote in message
...

Drivel snipped

You do realize many posters here are from America and will know from
experience this fanciful story of oppression is plainly false. Many of my
male friends are enamored of J. Lo or the SI swimsuit models. Just try to
get them into a size 6 anything.

Matthew Venhaus wrote:
Katra wrote in message
...

Drivel snipped

You do realize many posters here are from America and will know from
experience this fanciful story of oppression is plainly false. Many
of my male friends are enamored of J. Lo or the SI swimsuit models.
Just try to get them into a size 6 anything.

J.Lo or your male friends [into the size 6]?

Nothing wrong with being a female size 6, however, try finding them. When I
go shopping, which is normally online (I hate shopping), it's practically
impossible to find a size 6 (short, at that) in anything I want. It was
even worse when I was a 4. In my experience clothiers, for the most part,
don't stock more than one or two of these sizes in any given item. It's not
my experience as "the norm", particularly if you are looking for a good
deal. Ditto size 5 shoes.

Beauty is not a clothing size. Beauty encompasses a neat appearance.
Beauty encompasses good carriage as opposed to slump-shouldered slouching as
if you're trying to hide your body in shame. Beauty requires
self-confidence. It's that "I feel good so I look good" quality which
conveys itself across a room. Doesn't even require makeup.

Jill

Matthew Venhaus wrote:
Katra wrote in message
...

Drivel snipped

You do realize many posters here are from America and will know from
experience this fanciful story of oppression is plainly false. Many
of my male friends are enamored of J. Lo or the SI swimsuit models.
Just try to get them into a size 6 anything.

J.Lo or your male friends [into the size 6]?

Nothing wrong with being a female size 6, however, try finding them. When I
go shopping, which is normally online (I hate shopping), it's practically
impossible to find a size 6 (short, at that) in anything I want. It was
even worse when I was a 4. In my experience clothiers, for the most part,
don't stock more than one or two of these sizes in any given item. It's not
my experience as "the norm", particularly if you are looking for a good
deal. Ditto size 5 shoes.

Beauty is not a clothing size. Beauty encompasses a neat appearance.
Beauty encompasses good carriage as opposed to slump-shouldered slouching as
if you're trying to hide your body in shame. Beauty requires
self-confidence. It's that "I feel good so I look good" quality which
conveys itself across a room. Doesn't even require makeup.

Jill

Matthew Venhaus wrote:

Katra wrote in message
...

Drivel snipped

You do realize many posters here are from America and will know from
experience this fanciful story of oppression is plainly false. Many of my
male friends are enamored of J. Lo or the SI swimsuit models. Just try to
get them into a size 6 anything.

Yeah, it came across to me that way also. Or
perhaps the author walked into a 2-4-6 store
(specializing in those petite sizes exclusively)
Goomba

Matthew Venhaus wrote:

Katra wrote in message
...

Drivel snipped

You do realize many posters here are from America and will know from
experience this fanciful story of oppression is plainly false. Many of my
male friends are enamored of J. Lo or the SI swimsuit models. Just try to
get them into a size 6 anything.

Yeah, it came across to me that way also. Or
perhaps the author walked into a 2-4-6 store
(specializing in those petite sizes exclusively)
Goomba

Goomba38D writes:

Matthew Venhaus wrote:
Katra wrote:

You do realize many posters here are from America and will know from
experience this fanciful story of oppression is plainly false. Many of my
male friends are enamored of J. Lo or the SI swimsuit models. Just try to
get them into a size 6 anything.

Yeah, it came across to me that way also. Or
perhaps the author walked into a 2-4-6 store
(specializing in those petite sizes exclusively)
Goomba38D

You don't need to worry.


---= BOYCOTT FRANCE (belgium) GERMANY--SPAIN =---
---= Move UNITED NATIONS To Paris =---
*********
"Life would be devoid of all meaning were it without tribulation."
Sheldon
````````````

Goomba38D writes:

Matthew Venhaus wrote:
Katra wrote:

You do realize many posters here are from America and will know from
experience this fanciful story of oppression is plainly false. Many of my
male friends are enamored of J. Lo or the SI swimsuit models. Just try to
get them into a size 6 anything.

Yeah, it came across to me that way also. Or
perhaps the author walked into a 2-4-6 store
(specializing in those petite sizes exclusively)
Goomba38D

You don't need to worry.


---= BOYCOTT FRANCE (belgium) GERMANY--SPAIN =---
---= Move UNITED NATIONS To Paris =---
*********
"Life would be devoid of all meaning were it without tribulation."
Sheldon
````````````

Katra wrote:
While this is aimed at american women, there's a subtle truth in
there
for today's american men as well.

Size 6: The Western Women's Harem.
from Scheherazade Goes West by Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan feminist
and

"You are too big!" she said.

"I am too big compared to what?" I asked, looking at her intently,
because I realized that I was facing a critical cultural gap here.

"Compared to a size 6," came the saleslady's reply.

Her voice had a clear-cut edge to it that is typical of those who
enforce religious laws. "Size 4 and 6 are the norm," she went on,
encouraged by my bewildered look. "Deviant sizes such as the one you
need can be bought in special stores."

This is pure B.S. - where was she shopping, on Rodeo Drive? Department
stores sell increasingly large numbers of 14s and 16s, and there is no
forecast that they will go broke doing it. As a matter of fact, sadly,
more and more department stores are carrying special departments of
plus-sized clothing.

N.

Katra wrote:
While this is aimed at american women, there's a subtle truth in
there
for today's american men as well.

Size 6: The Western Women's Harem.
from Scheherazade Goes West by Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan feminist
and

"You are too big!" she said.

"I am too big compared to what?" I asked, looking at her intently,
because I realized that I was facing a critical cultural gap here.

"Compared to a size 6," came the saleslady's reply.

Her voice had a clear-cut edge to it that is typical of those who
enforce religious laws. "Size 4 and 6 are the norm," she went on,
encouraged by my bewildered look. "Deviant sizes such as the one you
need can be bought in special stores."

This is pure B.S. - where was she shopping, on Rodeo Drive? Department
stores sell increasingly large numbers of 14s and 16s, and there is no
forecast that they will go broke doing it. As a matter of fact, sadly,
more and more department stores are carrying special departments of
plus-sized clothing.

N.

On 9 Dec 2004 09:25:10 -0800, wrote:

As a matter of fact, sadly, more and more department stores are carrying
special departments of plus-sized clothing.

I'm grateful. A person can't live in nothing but sweat pants and t-shirts.
From the pictures I've seen online, I'd speculate that a high percentage of
us RFC folk are grateful for the plus-size clothing departments.

Carol
"Step AWAY from the raisins."
"But ... but ... they're loaded with iron!"
--
"Years ago my mother used to say to me... She'd say,
'In this world Elwood, you must be oh-so smart or oh-so pleasant.'
Well, for years I was smart.... I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."

*James Stewart* in the 1950 movie, _Harvey_

Damsel in dis Dress wrote:


I'm grateful. A person can't live in nothing but sweat pants and t-shirts.
From the pictures I've seen online, I'd speculate that a high percentage of
us RFC folk are grateful for the plus-size clothing departments.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.. that's low.
I so resemble that remark
Goomba

In article ,
"Pete Romfh" wrote:

Katra posted:
While this is aimed at american women, there's a subtle
truth in there for today's american men as well.

Size 6: The Western Women's Harem.
from Scheherazade Goes West by Fatima Mernissi,
=== excellent essay snipped =====

I'm forwarding this to a number of female friends & relatives, none of whom
are size 6.

My sister sent it to me....... ;-)

--
K.

Sprout the Mung Bean to reply...

,,Cat's Haven Hobby Farm,,Katraatcenturyteldotnet,,

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...user id=katra

In article ,
"Pete Romfh" wrote:

Katra posted:
While this is aimed at american women, there's a subtle
truth in there for today's american men as well.

Size 6: The Western Women's Harem.
from Scheherazade Goes West by Fatima Mernissi,
=== excellent essay snipped =====

I'm forwarding this to a number of female friends & relatives, none of whom
are size 6.

My sister sent it to me....... ;-)

--
K.

Sprout the Mung Bean to reply...

,,Cat's Haven Hobby Farm,,Katraatcenturyteldotnet,,

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...user id=katra