I’m having some trouble thinking through this article, and would love to hear your thoughts.
The basics of what I’m thinking:
I hate the recycled stories of female competition for men. I hate the descriptions of women’s bodies as goods that are being “offered up.” I hate the tantalizing/raised-eyebrow descriptions of how women dress. I hate how, of all the issues this article brings up (consumer culture, clashes between traditionalism and modernism, the social and economic difficulties and benefits of a global economy, etc), the only one it focuses on is women dressing up and fighting each other to catch a guy. I hate the underlying theme that these women dress up and compete for the purpose of finding a husband.
But I like how this article really sticks it to the usual representations of the Middle East in American publications. Yes, Beruit has always been a relatively liberal center of commerce and has been known for its thriving nightlife, but I don’t imagine that most Americans picture Lebanon and see bar scenes similar to what they’d see in any American city. And I like the last paragraphs:
“The guys that remain in Lebanon are the stupid ones!” exclaimed Nayiri Kalayjian, 19, who was hitting the bars on Monot Street, in central Beirut, with three girlfriends.
“We’re too good for them,” she said. “The ones who remain in Lebanon are the ones with closed mentalities, the ones who just want a virgin girl. You start to feel that the men who stay in Lebanon are the ones with no ambition in their work, and so you wonder, why are they still here?”
Not because I think it’s a healthy mentality to think that you’re “too good” for someone, or that being a virgin is a bad thing. But I do like to hear women speaking out against deeply-held social convictions that privilege virginity, and I like to hear those convictions spoken of as “closed mentalities.” I don’t think that wearing high heels and miniskirts and dancing on bars for the express purpose of finding a husband is all that much more empowering than remaining a virgin and donning the most modest clothes you can find. I don’t think that this is the beginning of a feminist revolution in Beruit or anywhere else. But I do think that this article is challenging, both to our stereotypes and to the social roles that women are presumed to play in various religious traditions.
What do you all think?
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present: “Girls Gone Wild: Lebanon!”
thank god women in lebanon are now as liberated as american women to act out chick lit stereotypes. ever forward, sweet progress.
but it’s still better than being trapped in the house-they might get exposed to something out in the big bad belly-shirted world. like your sorority gal cousin who had to read “the yellow wallpaper” in college and radicalized thanksgiving.
Well, first of all, I think you pointed out the flaws with the article pretty well (this is another really strong post). And I think it’s mostly flaws. Although a few of the quotes from Lebanese intellectuals began to probe some more serious questions, I think the article itself was mostly about cheap titillation. To the extent that it did challenge or explode stereotypes about Middle Eastern women, I don’t think the article really said anything more interesting than “Lebanese women can be sluts, too” (it’s already the stereotype in the rest of the Arab world that Lebanese women are sluts [and that Lebanese men are effeminate--not that that's really relevant here, but just to be fair]). I think the photo made this message especially clear; the article was indeed “Girls Gone Wild: Lebanon.”
It does seem as if most of these women still see themselves as needing a husband, and even as defining themselves through their husband (the woman at the end wants an ambitious husband, not to live out her own ambitions in her own life). So if the usual stereotype is that Arab or Muslim countries are very patriarchal, the information in the article seems to bear that out. Again, you’ve already made all these points. But isn’t hymen reconstruction surgery still very popular in Lebanon? I’m not sure that the cult of the virgin has really been cast aside.
Leaving aside the particular problems with this article, I don’t see the information presented in it as giving the reader much reason to hope that women are gaining more autonomy in Lebanese society or that patriarchy is reeling in that country. Again, all this is for reasons that you’ve already articulated better than I can. I agree with you when you say “I don’t think that wearing high heels and miniskirts and dancing on bars for the express purpose of finding a husband is all that much more empowering than remaining a virgin and donning the most modest clothes you can find.” I see women as being constrained by all the same social forces either way, and if anything, I think the more religious women may have a greater range of autonomy and social and familial power than the mini-skirt wearing ones. A virtuous religious woman at least is defined by her own choices and personality (however imperfectly, and I understand the problems with this set-up), while a sex-bot dancing on a bar to land a wealthy husband has pretty much been stripped of her humanity.
Although the article may have done a bit to challenge Western stereotypes of Arab or Muslim women (although it was unclear how many Muslim women in Lebanon were participating in all this), I think the portrait of Lebanese women as bleary-eyed, status-seeking, materialistic floozies was just as condescending and probably much worse. An article on Lebanese feminism, or on Beirut as a center of publishing (with some discussion of women writers), or on the lives of Shia women living in the south, or on views of sexuality in Lebanese society, or in Arabic poetry, all of would have been serious attempts to educate Westerns about the complexity and depth of Lebanese society. Instead, the author presents Beirut “night life” as a sort of third-rate version of Sex and the City.
By the way, can I ask about the reasons for your sustained interest in the Middle East? Is it just this class you’re taking, or are there other reasons (not that it’s my business, I’m just curious).
Bingo.
When I read the paragraph in question, all I could think was, “Why are you so ambitious in this way, but don’t have the drive to go to America (or the UK, or wherever) yourself?”
wow, Heraclitus, way to hate on women who want to get married and nice dismissal of the only tools they have, what with being in a patriarchy and all. The sex-bot on the bar made her choices as freely as the virtuous religious woman did, which is to say, not in the slightest bit freely. Why are the lives and concerns of young, bar-hopping women less valid as a subject for a Western writer than the lives and concerns of Southern, Shia women?
How on earth is Heraclitus hating on women who want to get married? “I see women as being constrained by all the same social forces either way, and if anything, I think the more religious women may have a greater range of autonomy and social and familial power than the mini-skirt wearing ones.”? That?
I didn’t get that the women were out looking for a husband, I think the word marry is mentioned once and husband not at all.
People compete with each other for the attentions of the opposite sex. Men compete with other men and women likewise, especially those with some degree of means and affluence. Women alter themselves and men acquire trappings. No news there.
The news though, is that there is a ‘spring break’ kinda thing that happens in Beirut after Ramadan. Suprising to me. I like to think that Beirut thrives because without some prosperity and stability, reform of any kind is, I suspect, impossible.
It seems like a moderately good thing to me.
One can still, presumeably, opt out of this “competition” for the traditional religious lifestlye. And having two choices is better than only one, right?
Nor do I belive, as Heraclitus seems to, that these women are necessarily giving up all autonomy and personality. Their range of expression is constrained, of course, but so is any woman’s. despite the picture painted of desperation, they quote a women who says her friends ar elooking for a husband-NOT that she herself is seeking one.
What I took from this article is that a shortage of males leads to less sexual repression. I already knew that parts of Lebanon have the same sexual mores as New York and Los Angeles, though I’d probably not be able to describe a Beirut bar accurately without the article.
What is interesting to me is that I’ve seen it claimed that a surplus of males leads to more equality, because women become more valuable. But here it appears that the shortage of males has caused conformistic women to sexualize themselves more in order to attract men. This itself isn’t about equality, but this liberated sexual standard tends to be a lot more open to nonconformists than the more repressed standards, which openly use violence to keep people in line.
Hi, Frumious, I’m sorry if something I wrote somehow struck you as “hateful.” I just don’t see much value in an article about how women in Beirut are conforming to a few crude and stale stereotypes about how the sex class ought to comport itself. I don’t think the “lives and concerns” of the women in the article are somehow not worth hearing about, but I also don’t think the article gives us a very insightful account of those lives and concerns. And I’m sure we’ll see many dozens of more or less identical articles about how women in some part of the world you thought was too backwards for miniskirts are embracing the sex-bot role. But I doubt we’ll ever see The New York Times try to show us something about the lives of Shia women in southern Lebanon (and not just because they would then have to say something about Israel’s use of cluster bombs as collective punishment in the last round of hostilities).
But then I’ve spent the past two hours or so reading through Twisty’s archives, so that maybe tells you something about where I’m coming from.
Maybe we will, and maybe we won’t. Once it’s no longer news to Americans that not all of the Middle East is like Qatar, the media will move on to something else.
And whatever you say about the sexbot role, it’s objectively better than the submissive wife role. Women’s rights in the US really did improve between 1958 and 1968. Women’s rights in Lebanon really are better than in Saudi Arabia. Although most people will always conform to stereotype, the raunch culture is generally a lot better at accepting or at least not murdering nonconformists than the puritan culture.
Alon Levy at 9 and 11:
There are other choices for women besides being a made-up sexbot or a boring housewife. Some women might appear extremely sexy and sexually attractive but may not engage in a promiscuous lifestyle, other women might not meet conventional standards of beauty and sexual attractiveness, but have active sexual lives.
Oh, I know that. I’m just saying that a culture that encourages women to be sexbots is less sexist than a culture that encourages women to submit to purdah.
Although I have no illusions about the oppression of women in conservative, religious communities, “sexual liberation” and raunch culture aren’t all light and happiness:
Joe Francis, the founder of the “Girls Gone Wild” empire, is humiliating me. He has my face pressed against the hood of a car, my arms twisted hard behind my back. He’s pushing himself against me, shouting: “This is what they did to me in Panama City!”
I catch myself hoping that the crowd will not start throwing rocks at the girls if they decide to keep their clothes on.
(I know a lot of people don’t like Ariel Levy, but this isn’t about the commentary in her book, this is about an event that she documented)
The un-radical “revolution”
Women have more choices than being subjected to that kind of crap or being beaten if our shoes click.
Link for the GGW article
Oops, didn’t work again (URL=http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-gonewild32aug06,0,1675556,full.story?coll=la-home-magazine)
Oh, they’re definitely not. I said “raunch culture” for a reason. But even that is far better than puritanism. Women get raped in raunch cultures; but they also get raped in puritan cultures. And my main argument – that puritanism tends to resort to institutional violence to enforce its mores while libertinism doesn’t – still stands. In addition, libertine cultures tend to be more tolerant of puritan subcultures than vice versa, though it’s less clear-cut.
Yes, women deserve more choices. They also deserve equal pay; and still, a 15% wage gap is better than a 40% one.
As one whose mother was the daughter of an Armenian immigrant, I suspect this young woman is a Christian, an ethnic Armenian living in Lebanon.
Sounds like any 19 yo Christian woman that hangs at bars, anywhere in the world.
In love with the sound of her own voice, not to be taken too seriously.
[...] n Lebanon. Too many men in Egypt. A simple remedy presents itself. Jill at Feministe has an excellent post on the recent NY Times article about the dea [...]
I’ll remember to be grateful for the liberation and tolerance of raunch culture if I’m ever minding my own business at the beach, and a bunch of men corner me and start screaming at me to take my clothes off. Or if I’m ever clubbing and drinking (which equals clubbing and drinking, not willing to have sex with every man who crosses my path) and end up raped by some entitled man like Mr. Francis.
Oh, and as for puritanism, in Peggy Sanday’s “A Woman Scorned”, she offers compelling evidence that while rape happened in the Puritan era, they were much less tolerant of it than in later years.
I get that it’s less overtly (and legally) restrictive, but in a way, this is like the insistence that “at least we’re better than the Nazis/Stalin/terrorists” is some sort of victory. Yes, maybe we are better, but being better than the worst people on the planet (or, in this case, people who stone women to death for adultery or beat them if their shoes click) is hardly something to celebrate.
better for whom?
you know, i’ve never once been tempted to post on a black power website arguing that segregation was better than slavery. . . and yet i see this kind of thing on feminist websites all the time.
I hate the recycled stories of female competition for men. I hate the descriptions of women’s bodies as goods that are being “offered up.” I hate the tantalizing/raised-eyebrow descriptions of how women dress. I hate how, of all the issues this article brings up (consumer culture, clashes between traditionalism and modernism, the social and economic difficulties and benefits of a global economy, etc), the only one it focuses on is women dressing up and fighting each other to catch a guy. I hate the underlying theme that these women dress up and compete for the purpose of finding a husband.
Maybe it’s just my Eco 101 level of understanding such things, but the odd thing about the mindset which you hate (as do I) is that it doesn’t quite make sense in terms of how animals (including presumably, humans) actually behave.
In most animal species, the flashy sex who offers up his (typically it’s the male, but not always) as goods and even competes to attain the attention of members of the opposite sex, also is competing for the greatest number of partners. Thus if women really do compete/offer-up their bodies in this way, either humans are bizarrely different than other animals or the women are not competing for a guy (and people who make this kinda point always act as if women compete for a small number of guys and each women is trying to find a single husband, and would be lucky to find just one man) but rather to mate with as many men as possible, which obvious Eco 101 conclusion doesn’t seem to enter into the minds of the sorts of people who write the sort of hackneyed prose summarized in this post.
Actually, taking into account the presumably high maternal mortality rate in pre-historic times, the sex ratio of humans seems to suggest that indeed humans were polyandrous so, pace some straw-feminist, it may be the “wimins competing for a man by dressin’ up all nice and purdy” attitude of only certain cultures is “natural” (and, e.g., the “menfolk should dress all nice and purdy for other men” attitudes of e.g., the ancient Greeks, were “artificial” — indeed the whole point of such attitudes was, from the point of view of that culture, their artiface, which was often, in the pre-industrial days when artiface was expensive, celebrated over being “natural” — “natural is good” is a relatively recent phenomenon about which whole dissertations could be written, and it’s way OT here, nu?) … except that “a man” is wrong … it’s really “women compete for as many men as they can get by dressin’ up all nice and purdy”.
Indeed, one can argue that what seems to be a concerted effort by too many men to fight and oppress women might really be a “war of the sexes” waged by generations of men intent on not being part of a harem. Perhaps many of the more sexist aspects of myth, legend and religion are memories of the initial role of polyandrous societies in creating human civilization?
Seems important to remember how “different” (distorted?) this society is after decades of civil strife. Lebanon has a highly educated middle class and an economy in tatters so the men leave to work elsewhere. Equality might dictate that the women leave too, but we don’t have to look to hard to see why that doesn’t happen. Reason might dictate that everyone there put aside their sectarian differences and re-create the (relatively) vibrant society and economy they had 30 years ago — again, not hard to see that as being a tad difficult.
What’s left? A sorry stituation in which young women outnumber men five to one for all but this one time of year. It’s certainly not unnatural that many women want a male partner and in these circumstances compete in what seems to be extreme ways.
The salient point from the article:
So if you are a young women who desires to form a more than temporary relationship with a young man, the men who have the qualifications and gumption to go off to work at higher paying jobs in other countries are more desirable. You might not agree with the values implicit in that proposition, but it’s not hard to understand.
I wonder what it would take for Lebannese society to level the playing field by educating young women to the same level as the men so they too could would have the chance to find high paying work elsewhere. More rationally, though, I wonder what it will take for Lebanon to re-establish itself as a fully functioning nation with a healthy economy so its young people don’t have to leave to find good work.
I think that your analysis was a good one; the article does challenge shallow stereotypes, but it remains a shallow analysis.
My husband is Lebanese, and he got out of Beirut in 1993. He came to Los Angeles to go to graduate school at USC.
The way he’s explained it to me is that Lebanon just has a different social structure than what we’re used to here in the United States. Girls are expected to go to college and meet a husband there. As soon as the girls graduate, they’re expected to get pregnant, never hold a job, and become a SAHM for the rest of their lives. Because of the civil war and the destruction of downtown Beirut (1983-1986), now the boys have to leave Lebanon if they hope to make any money. Because Lebanon was a french colony until 1948, and most of the middle and upper class is educated in french, lots of them go to France. Lots of them come to the U.S., and still others go to more progressive middle eastern cities like Dubai.
Lebanon doesn’t have a system of credit and mortgages like we have in the U.S., either. This is key for understanding why women are not expected to participate in the paid labor force, and why it is so important for boys to go abroad to earn money that they can use to purchase homes and set up small businesses in Lebanon. As long as there is no pressure for women to get out and compete in the market, they won’t. As long as women are encouraged to discard their college degrees in favor of SAHMotherhood the instant they become pregnant, they will.
That a whole population of young women is prowling through the Beirut nightlife, trying to find a suitable match for a long-term relationship isn’t really so surprising. Once girls get to be a certain age in Lebanon, they really don’t have any other choice (unless they would prefer their parents to arrange a marriage for them). Also, the idea that these women are “made-up, high-heel and miniskirt wearers” is disingenuous. These girls have no choice but to get made up like starlets and prance through the nighttime streets in their short skirts if they ever hope to catch a man (unless they want that aforementioned arranged marriage). In the end, the ones who don’t leave to get educated in the U.K., U.S., or U.A.E. (despite a few years of prowling the nightclubs) all end up exactly the same: Boring SAHMs, completely dependent on their husbands, tied down to a life of interminable unpaid housework and childcare tasks.
For some women, like my mother-in-law, nothing in the world could be more fulfilling. For other women, like me, the prospect represents the absolute abyss of mind-numbing drudgery.
Has anyone on these websites ever argued that the abolition of slavery was a trivial matter because it led to segregation?
Hi Alon,
In Middle Eastern urban society those two roles have both been around for a long while. Lebanese sexbot behavior is not exactly new. In the Middle East, the two things don’t cancel each other out. They feed on and reinforce each other. The current fad of the scarf which has become much more popular in Egypt than say two generations ago was in part a backlash against the movie and singing stereotype of the sexy girl. And now the sexy girl is a backlash against the pious hijab wearing staying at home girl. And the two sides are always duking it out (go onto an Arabic music site sometime and look at the Arabic language conversation abotu some female singer who just decided to take the scarf for e.g.).
So I don’t think Arab society is necessarily evolving from one negative objectivication of women to another. I think they have both always been there.
my point was not to hash out which form of institutionalized oppression was greater-it was to point out the folly of those outside the struggle seeking to define greater or lesser oppressions based around their own privilege (eg-of course it’s better for fill-in-the-blank if women are sexbots).
i would never deign to even enter the dialog vis-a-vis race oppression as i am in the group that is privileged by it. that was my point.
War sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks. That’s all there is to it.
ah, the age-old (or at least movement-old) question: who is allowed to have an opinion?
I’f you’re white, or male, or straight, or non-poor, or Christian (in America), can you ever be anything other than an oppressor, no matter how hard you try? Are you being offensive merely by having an opinion? Should you just pony up and kill yourself, thereby eliminating one oppressor from the planet, since there’s no way you can not be one while living?
Or is this bullshit?
You tell me.
you are not offensive just by having an opinion, but let’s consider the opinions put forward.
I think feminism is about superiority and it has destroyed the west.You girls are gonna see the hook up culture leaves you high and dry in your late thirties. If i was outside the west i would focus on equlity not superiority but the western feminist disease has spread.
Anyone been paying attention to canada? Obviously not. Perhaps you will notice when now falls. Someday you will see why its a good thing, infact look at your logo mascot to know why feminism is wrong.
You destroy feminists with power by using thier own hate literature, and now has plenty, you cant see it because of feminisms brainwashing but from the out side looking in its superiour hate, like in this article its what feminism has become and the only people that like it are feminists.
Huh? The post was about how random women were being assaulted by male teenage gangs in Cairo, Egypt. How is this related to feminism destroying the West?
Sorry, it was about women trying to attract men in Lebanon (too many middle eastern posts you guys have here) but my question still stands, what the hell has this to do with Western feminism and how it has destroyed civilization?
Sorry, it was about women trying to attract men in Lebanon (too many middle eastern posts you guys have here) but my question still stands, what the hell has this to do with Western feminism and how it has destroyed civilization?
…hmm never expected my post to make it on, I am doing an article about censorship from western feminist publications and how this censorship exposes an invalid movement, guess I cant use this site as example huh! :)
“The guys that remain in Lebanon are the stupid ones!”
“We’re too good for them,” she said
Sounds like western feminism to me. Jill’s article says to me “I hate every thing about this…. except the man hating because hate equals empowerment or something. Speaking of….
Every open minded feminist owes it to herself to read George Orwell’s 1984 and think very very hard about how “double think” and the “ministry of truth” relates to your movement.
An example of violence as empowerment or tolerance thru intolerance.. this logo of a little girl brandishing a shot gun? Do I miss the irony what is up with that?
You do know that thanks to feminisms influence young girls in the west are now as violent toward the oppisite sex as men, really sucks that this site would encourage this. Second wave Feminists have incorrectly defined all men as violent and crass and told their young followers to act like there demonized version of masculinity to gain empowerment.
And you eat it up.
The politically correct left is a joke; you have become hate mongers masquerading as victims. I feel this is the very reason conservatives are in power in your country and mine, the left is blind and people have lost faith in it. Modern third wave feminism plays a major role in that.
Most recent example of blind leftist wankery that I have come across…
http://hottopictalk.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=345
This is sort of thing causes a lack of faith in the left but is nowhere close to Now’s mistakes of stagnating and demonizing men.
One of the things SOW (Canada’s now) did was dismiss the boy crises in education, now is doing the exact same thing. It really pisses off parents when they become aware of it, they can get even next election by voting out all the soon-to-be embarrassed government supporters of now, of which we have a giant list for the publics viewing. Other things you will start to see is feminist lies about rape and dv being exposed in the mainstream press, this will expose feminisms demonizing of men further branding now a hate org. These tactics will also accomplish a downslide in feminisms validity in the west.
Ask your self why every single popular feminist blog except this one…for now… censors every single comment? This is done to prevent people like me from bringing the truth to feminist supporters.
Western feminism has become a damaging hate org, like I said, you don’t have to believe me, the people will judge and you will see.
Be part of something positive do not support now.
Cheers!
“The guys that remain in Lebanon are the stupid ones!” exclaimed Nayiri Kalayjian, 19, who was hitting the bars on Monot Street, in central Beirut, with three girlfriends.
“We’re too good for them,” she said. “The ones who remain in Lebanon are the ones with closed mentalities, the ones who just want a virgin girl. You start to feel that the men who stay in Lebanon are the ones with no ambition in their work, and so you wonder, why are they still here?”
Sorry in my blogverse I wouldn’t need to point out the glaring bigotry in case there is confusion.
Branding all men guilty and responsible for the crimes of the few is western feminism.
Judging a group of people with traditional beliefs as lazy and stupid is in itself is intolerant. Western feminism has a different intolerance that of male culture, specifically straight white male culture. Western feminism is also intolerant. Even with nice shiny happy words like “hetronormativity” Yes I understand, it I think it is hate masquerading as victim.