Women's Crossroads

Odd, isn't it, that Western women's fashion errs on the side of semi-nudity and outright promiscuity, while in the Muslim world shapeless drapery that even covers the face is de rigueur? There's seemingly little that emphasizes the difference between East and West more than the fashions our women don.

And yet, how different are these extremes really? In both cases, women wear what men want to see.

Here in the U.S., young girls announce their sexuality boldly, wearing halter tops or spaghetti strap tank tops with their brightly colored bra straps peeking out. Their tight jeans are so low-cut you can see their hip bones and the smooth dip of their backs rising to meet their buttocks. There's very little left to mere suggestion!

In the Muslim world, I don't know how women dress when they're in the confines of their own homes, but out in the world the most pious and admired among them wear the full hijab with the niqab, a head-to-toe black body bag with a black veil hiding all but their eyes and the center line of their nose. In Afghanistan under the Taliban it was those blue one-piece burqas, with a lace grille covering even the eyes.

So in the West we get women dressing as tramps in order to flaunt their sex appeal to the male gaze, and in the Muslim world women dress as walking drapery in order to conceal their sex appeal from all but the particular male gaze of their husband. The story goes that these respective dress codes oppress Muslim women and liberate Western women, who are free to let it all hang out.

Poppycock. In both cases, women are being objectified and used to satisfy male desire in a way that does not give equal weight to their own desires and that does not treat them as equal to males.

There's such a thing as "internal colonization," a term invented by Tunisian psychologist and sociologist Albert Memmi to describe the way colonized people tend to internalize the mind-set of the colonizers, even those aspects that elevate the colonizer as superior to the colonized. A sense of inferiority is in this way implanted into the colonized, generally in childhood, which can be almost impossible to overcome in later life. It's an incredibly effective strategy of indoctrinating a subject people.

I would argue that this process of internal colonization is on display in women's "choice" of fashion. Western men want women on display as sex objects; Muslim men want women concealed. But in both cases, it's what the men want that counts. Women's comfort and sense of dignity is irrelevant. And in both cases, women are trained from earliest childhood, by the media and by watching their elders, to accept these fashion dictates as inevitable and desirable, worth fighting for.

Yes, men too have their fashion dictated by social mores--men don't get to wear high heels, I admit it. But why is it that men's fashion is all about comfort and dignity, while women's fashion either turns them into sex kittens or walking body bags?

Freedom? Liberation? Equality? Muslim women don't have it, to be sure, but Western women have no business thinking we do either. Fashion does provide a window into a society, and for both Western and Muslim women, the view through that window is very depressing indeed.

"She was the first woman of whom it truthfully could be said that she shopped until she dropped," writes Liesl Schillinger of the doomed French Queen Marie Antoinette.

Although she's purportedly reviewing the new Marie Antoinette novel Abundance, by Sena Jeter Naslund, Schillinger seems much more interested in non-fiction book Queen of Fashion, by Barnard professor Caroline Weber, which argues that the queen, a 14-year-old Austrian cast adrift in a hostile environment at Versailles, used her adroit fashion sense to craft an "image of influence and splendor...using fashion as her buttress."

Americans have always been entranced by the splendor and excess of Versailles--which of course at the time our Puritan-led nation deplored. Sofia Coppola's new movie, in which the beautiful young Kirsten Dunst plays the daring and doomed Queen, is getting all kinds of fawning publicity--we love to see the beautiful queen prance in her finery, and we love to see her punished for it too, apparently. Versailles meets the White House.

Marie Antoinette used her fashion sense and purchasing power to "project power," Schillinger writes. "“Through carefully selected, unconventional outfits and accessories, she cultivated what she later called an ‘appearance of [political] credit,’ ” Weber argues."

Using fashion politically is nothing new. But what is new, and seems to be gaining steam, is the practice of using fashion to appeal to consumers' moral sensibilities. Shop til you drop, by all means! But buy MY brand, which is hip and cool not just on the basis of quality and visual appeal, but on the basis of the politics it represents.

Thus we have the amazingly lavish and undoubtedly ferociously expensive new GAP campaign launched this week, in which the likes of Stephen Spielberg, Don Cheadle, Penelope Cruz, and many other cool dudes and dudettes pose winningly in Gap outfits, all bearing the signature color RED.

"GAP is collaborating with (Product) Red and the world's most iconic brands to help eliminate AIDS in Africa," the advertising copy reads. "Every time you purchase a GAP (Product) RED item, half of the profits will go directly to the fight against this disease. Do the (RED) thing."

Okay, yeah, let's all go out and "do the red thing," why not? Shop til we drop to fight AIDS in Africa--thanks, Bono and Bobby Shriver, for coming up with such a brilliant campaign!

There's just one problem. What if, like the tragic Marie Antoinette, we get so caught up in our own image (as well-dressed, well-heeled, well-intentioned shoppers) that we lose sight of the fact that there is a difference between "doing the RED thing" and "doing the RIGHT thing"?

I'm glad, I really am, that GAP and the other corporate sponsors of the (Product) Red campaign (what, pray tell, is the function of those oh-so-Derridean parentheses?) are going to donate as much as half their profits on certain products to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Channeling Americans' fashion sense into social responsibility is certainly better than the mindless consumerism we're known for. But does anyone else agree that sometimes, in order to do the right thing, we have to forget about our own image for a while, and think deeply, with real compassion, about someone else for a while?

Just a quick post to note my irritation with the continued media-driven marginalization of women in American politics. If it's obvious in the enlightened pages of The New York Times, just think how blatant it is in the mass-media, places like CNN and Fox News!

What I'm talking about is today's political commentary on the opinion pages of the Times. Out of 18 pundits whose views are presented, only THREE are women. Of those three, two were invisible speechwriters for male politicians; the other is Ellen Malcolm, the president of the women's political action group Emily's List.

In her commentary, "What Women Want," Macolm informs us that women might be persuaded to pay attention to the elections if politicians start "talking about issues that directly affect their families and showing them how voting for Democrats — especially women candidates — can make a difference. They’ll be receptive to Democratic policies like protecting Social Security, making college affordable and finding an end to the morass in Iraq."

Okay, these are worthy issues. But I find it insulting to suggest that women are only interested in politics if the issues are directly related to our families. There's a whole lot that women want out of politics, and the scope of our interest goes way beyond education, health care and social security, though of course these issues are important to all Americans, regardless of our gender.

If the Times wants to know what women want, they should ask more of us what we think. Ask some non-elite women for a change! Ask some Latinas or African American women! Ask some ordinary teachers, nurses, and bank tellers, for pete's sake!

If, like me, you're impatient with the mainstream media's nelgect of women, a good place to look for more vibrant coverage would be the blog Feministing. The blog itself is always interesting, but what's really useful is the amazing blogroll and resource list running down the right side of your screen. Want to know what women want? Spend a little time exploring that blogroll, and you'll find out!

In a week when deaths in Baghdad from roadside bombings and sectarian violence reached an all-time high, what are Americans focusing on? Something much more sexy: the scandal over Congressman Foley's sexually explicit email come-ons to a 16-year-old Congressional page from Louisiana.

The Times is right to worry that Republicans and conservatives may use this scandal as the basis for more ugly gay-bashing. As spectators, would we be any less horrified by Foley's behavior if he'd been suggestively emailing girl pages? I have a feeling the answer there is yes--heterosexual male Congressmen flirting with the young women who bring them coffee can be brushed off far more easily than gay male Congressmen hitting on teenage boys.

But haven't we learned by now (thanks, Monica Lewinsky) that young people in the halls of power are at risk of sexual predators--some of them very illustrious men indeed?

Power corrupts, and what more gratifying way to display and enjoy personal power than by sexually manipulating a beautiful young thing, male or female?

David Brooks, bless his soul, has seized the occasion to compare this real-life story of sexual predation with a fictional one--Eve Ensler's monologue in The Vagina Monologues, told in the voice of a young girl who was seduced by an older woman, and loved every minute of it. The Ensler monologue celebrates the awakening of a young girl's sexuality, and passes over the fact that it was an older woman who called the shots in their sexual encounter.

Both scenarios are wrong, Brooks says, "because when an adult seduces a child, it tears the social fabric that joins all adults and all children. "

Family values, here we come again!

Brooks drives his point home in no uncertain terms:

"In a country filled with parents looking for a way to raise their children in a morally disordered environment, Foley’s act is just one more symptom of a contagious disease.

"In the long run, the party that benefits from events like the Foley scandal will be the party that defines the core threats to the social fabric, and emerges as the most ardent champion of moral authority."

Of course I don't believe it's a good idea for adults to engage in sex with minors, however consenting they may be. But trust David Brooks to take every opportunity to castigate the very idea of joyful sexuality, linking Ensler's "vagina-friendly" fictions to the sordid account of Foley's transgressions.

The problem is that the "moral authority" Brooks is invoking here is synonymous with abstinence-only sex ed, parental consent for teenage abortions, and the sanctity of exclusively heterosexual marriage. Foley himself fades in importance behind this much larger, much more dangerous agenda: it's no longer about the rights of young people on Capitol Hill to mingle with their elected representatives unharmed, it's about tightening the screws of "moral authority" in an increasingly decadent society.

Where is that decadence coming from? Not from Eve Ensler. Not from sex ed. Not from upholding a woman's right to control her own body and reproductive health.

It's coming from sleazebags like Congressman Foley and the whole stinkingly corrupt Republican leadership now falling all over each other in their efforts to point fingers at others and get out of the mud-wrestling match unsmeared.

It's coming from an increasingly sexualized media, from internet to TV to film, that gets off on portraying women and children as sexual objects to be hit on and abused.

It's coming from our heartless capitalist system, which forces parents to work ever longer hours, leaving children alone and exposed to predation--whether through media or in vivo--and without enough guidance and support.

Our age of innocence has most definitely come to an end, in more ways than just the sexual. Americans must finally turn and confront what we have become. And we must summon the vision and the backbone to set ourselves on a new path. More "moral authority" is not what is needed here. It's more kindness, more compassion, more of the true joy that comes from giving joy to others.