Question of the Day
So, I'm doing an independent study here with some badass women, and we've been reading lots of anthologies by Arabs (most of which appear to be by or about or for women). We spend probably half an hour each session bitching about our families'/community's/culture's preoccupation with size and weight and body image...and I wondered out loud, "Why isn't there an anthology that compiles bitchfests from Arab women - and men, I know y'all deal with this bullshit too- about the body?"
posted by rockslinga at 8:37 AM
4 Comments:
You got yourself an anthology proposal. Pitch it to Seal Press and Interlink Books.
Good luck! I'll submit if you open a call. There's some choice stuff I have to say about that whole white skin vs. "samra" insanity.
Arab women complain about their height.
Great idea,Leila! Thanks for the encouragement. I think if I ever pitch it, it will be an "inclusive" thing, maybe because after my friend C visited me this weekend I freaked out at how similarly her Korean family's views on weight and body size mirrored mine.
it's part of the larger regime of gender violence that Empire has disseminated "world wide". ever read Nervous Conditions?
Arab men, "back home", love(d) women w/ meat. Men of color love big women. WHITE MEN are into the skeleton/death drive.
some arab men (in the diasporia/"american born") have internalized that regime change. this conversation, however, can be dangerously essentializing and might implicate Arab men in the already very typical racist paradigms which U.S imperialism continues to conscribe and transcribe, ya randa.
that said, i am not an advocate of feminist guerilla warfare/policing discourese/identities/politics.
the state, and its cultural productions, disciple bodies--creating docile subjects & obedient citizens. Getting your ass to fit a certain shape, for example, is part of police work. punish folks who don't embody those idealized corporealities is business as usual. kind of working on that issue.
totally random,
recommending two books:
Cvetkovitch's An Archive of Feelings
&
Puar's Terrorist Assemblages
Puar is a must read!
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