Posted by Trent on November 3, 2009, 9:26 am
Below is an article from the supposed Catholic Jesuit publication, "Eureka Street" The writer does not see anything wrong with immodesty or drunkeness and she blames men for the way women dress.
Purity does not exist in her case. Drunkeness is not a mortal sin the way she writes about it.
How can a Catholic publication print this mixed -up young woman who is sending the wrong message?
Boobs, booze and Muslim feminists
by Ellena Savage
We all know this image: A young, orange-tinted woman, dressed in a pale satin ribbon, teeters drunkenly in soaring heels. She is eating chips, smearing the sauce on her knuckles, and is occasionally yelling obscenities at her boyfriend. We laugh at her, but forgive her, because, well, it's been a long day of drinking at the races. Her boyfriend is just as drunk, and is urinating at a tram stop. But for some reason we don't really notice him.
Although her behaviour indicates she'd rather be wearing thongs and jeans, she feels compelled to dress like a sexual Christmas tree for the Spring Carnival. This compulsion probably has a number of roots, one being an earnest desire to be desired. Another more cynical reason is that her desire to be desired on the terms of the depth of her cleavage is nominated by the designs of the men in her society, and upheld by the women.
Weeks ago, some friends were coming to pick me up to take me to the Muslim festival of Eid in Broadmeadows. One called to remind me to wear something loose and modest. I rifled through my wardrobe, and realised how difficult it is for me to dress modestly, actually modestly, without looking like a loaf of bread. I settled on a long floral dress from the late '60s, which once belonged to my Aunty, and waited in my living room.
To its credit, the Spring Carnival is an excuse for everyone to dress and behave like a celebrity (regardless of what indiscretions this might entail). Everyone gets dressed up, then they get drunk and fall over. This in itself isn't wrong. There are always a few amazing outfits, and a good many awful ones. And some that inspire disgust.
For me, the disgust is not that of a woman's body dressed in a tasteless outfit. What's disgusting is that even in this day, a woman's success, and in many cases her only public interest, is determined by the vulgarity of her outfit, and the social position of her male partner.
Even other women who are not dressed quite so tastelessly are essentially present to facilitate their men; to consolidate their success not only in business and wealth, but also in acquiring attractive female possessions.
In this context, women are not celebrated, but objectified. Australian sporting events are celebrations of boobs and booze. They overlook the important aspects of sport like family, community, and honest achievements.
Being publicly visible is very important for Western women. The liberty for women to bare all has developed alongside a firm set of principles of equity, political and social freedoms.
But if you take the public visibility out of its context, and simply line up scantily clad women and (literally) quantify their worth out of 10 (those ranking a 10/10 are inevitably long, angular and golden), then the women possess very little real worth. Or, their worth is limited to a world where masculine men drink, brag and play footy, and feminine women do nothing much except hold their men's hands and forgive their indiscretions.
While fashionable women strut in the arms of wealthy men at sporting events, Muslim Australian women and their families celebrate their festivals in a very different manner. Even the women who are otherwise secular Muslims dress appropriately for the celebrations: long gowns and layered scarves of hues dependent on their cultural origin (rich and floral from West Africa, dark and sombre from Saudi). Those who resist covering their heads nonetheless observe an austere fashion for a religious festival.
To some other Australian women, the fashion might seem outdated. There is a compelling argument that the hijab, or headscarf, is a symbol of female oppression. Arguments levelled against covered women are that, whether or not they are aware of it, they are submitting to the unreasonable demands of male family members and stronger patriarchal social structures. It is also argued that covering the body is denying its existence, that it privatises women's experiences, or that it is for keeping the body virtuous for her sexist husband.
Sadly, this might be true for many women. However, these arguments can only be levelled from a Western liberal feminism that embraced the body and that must now face a grim reality of a cult of self-loathing and deception built around the body as commerce.
Feminist or not, enforced or chosen, traditional and modest fashion gives a sense of coherence to the Muslim-Australian community. The loose and elegant traditional and modern outfits worn by Muslim women assert that their worth not be determined by the depth of their cleavage, but by other measures.
These two opposing modes of dressing, one exhibitionist, one prohibitionist, both inevitably result from men's expectations of women. On one side of the world, it seems, men want to undress their women, and on the other, they want to cover them up.
In the Western undressing of women, there is an element of sexual design. The most desirable kind of woman in the Western popular media is sexual and available. The alternative, to hide the body altogether, is based upon avoiding design, or leaving it in the hands of the community.
At the Muslim festival, modestly dressed young women and men eat and chat, dance and spend money, as they would at any other festival. Young smokers hide from their relatives who could be anywhere, and flirting is kept subtle. While it might be a religious festival, it's obvious that it's more about community and the Arab tradition of hospitality and celebration than dogma or compulsion.
There's no booze, and no visible boobs, but everywhere, there is pastry. Modestly dressed, loudmouthed women eating pastry.
Are they feminists? Many are not. But that does not preclude the hijab, or alternative fashions from subverting patriarchy in some contexts.
It might do us well to consider what celebrations are really about. There's nothing wrong with booze or boobs, but are they meaningful enough to warrant celebration?
Ellena Savage is a Melbourne writer. She is studying Arts at the University of Melbourne.
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