It's More Than Just a Pound of Flesh

I remember when I was seventeen; I tried on some new ideas. One of my ideas was that notions of "right" and "wrong" were false creations of society, and did not actually exist. Yeah, it didn't make much sense back then, either.

Now, that's not to say that I still don't think a fair bit of cultural imperialism does occur, and that The Western World does tend to think the rest of the world should be Like We Are, but that's not this article. That is another article.

Anyhow, one day I was testing out my "no such thing as wrong" theory by saying it out loud over lunch with an older and wiser friend of mine, who shot me down in an instant with "What about female genital mutilation? To me, that is inarguably wrong, because its only function is to remove natural human pleasure."
Well. He had me there.

Female Genital Mutilation is one of those concepts that hits you hard with the realization that universal female equality is a long way from being a done deal. For those who have heard the term FGM, but aren't sure on the exact details of it, I offer you this information:

The term FGM covers three main varieties of genital mutilation:

1) "Sunna" circumcision: Consists of the removal of the tip of the clitoris.

2) Clitoridectomy: Consists of the removal of the entire clitoris, and the removal of the adjacent labia.

3) Infibulation: This most extreme form, consists of the removal of the clitoris, the adjacent labia (majora and minora), and the joining of the scraped sides of the vulva across the vagina, where they are secured with thorns or sewn with catgut or thread. A small opening is kept to allow passage of urine and menstrual blood in most cases, though not always. In some cases, the opening is not present, which causes even more incredible health risks and can be fatal. An infibulated woman must be cut open to allow intercourse on the wedding night and is closed again afterwards to secure fidelity to the husband.

FGM is usually performed on girls from age’s four to eight, but is also performed on teens and women. Anesthetic is very rarely used. The girls are forcibly held down by a group during the procedure, which may be done using broken glass, tin can lids, scissors or razor blades.

Now, if that doesn't just turn your stomach and cross your legs, you're made of stronger stuff than I am.
Some people like to call it "female circumcision", so perhaps we'll just think "Oh, circumcision. They do that to boys every day. No big deal." Well, if male circumcision was performed by the town barber with a rusty piece of metal, carried with it the risk of hemorrhage and HIV infection, involved cutting off the entire penis and testicles, closing up the whole shebang with some fishing wire, and was done so a man would never cheat on his wife, then maybe it would be the same.

What I'm saying is: It's not the same.

FGM isn't just about fidelity. An intact woman is seen as unmarriageable, because she is considered unclean. There are those who believe a man will die if he has any contact with a woman's clitoris. (I have met some people who think that, actually.) Little concern seems to be given by its perpetrators for the long term psychological, physical, sexual and emotional damage that has happened to the over 130 million Muslim and Christian women in Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia, Niger, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, India, Maldives, Malaysia, Indonesia and several other countries around the planet. Even the US and Canada have instances of FGM, and have only passed laws against it within the last decade.

So. You've got dozens of countries, Major powerful religions, Centuries of institutionalized sexism. Millions of women!! Thorns and catgut and HIV transmission! It's enough to make you want to catch the next shuttle bus to Neptune, isn't it? It just seems like Too Much, you know?

Well, it is a lot. But there are people who are working to stop it, in a few different ways. Some through education of local mothers, in attempt to convince them not to have their daughters cut the way they were. Some through legislation against the procedure (although there is always the danger this will just push the practice underground). Some through awareness building in places where FGM doesn't occur, in order to let the rest of the world in on how serious this practice is, and the ramifications towards upwards of 90% of the women in some countries, in hopes it will mobilize them to join the fight for change.

One woman who is working a few of these angles is SiaAmma. SiaAmma is an adult woman who underwent FGM as a child in Liberia. She now divides her time between Africa and the US, and performs a one woman show called In Search Of My Clitoris, during which she re-enacts her own cutting onstage. She has also started an organization called Global Women Intact, which works in North American to teach teenage girls to love and respect their bodies, and in Africa offers communities the knowledge with which they can hopefully transform rather than eliminate initiation ceremonies for their daughters that would leave their bodies and spirits unharmed.

What can you do? Well, you can talk about it, that's important. You can make sure that people know exactly how catastrophic the procedure is. You can also check out groups like Amnesty International, who have a very detailed article about FGM and what is being done to stop it.

You can give your time and voices to those trying to make this practice stop.

Most importantly, you can honor and appreciate your own intact body and sexuality, and never take it for granted.

An FGM Fact Sheet

 According to the United Nations Population Fund, “it is estimated that over 130 million girls and women have undergone some form of genital cutting and at least two million girls are at risk of undergoing the practice every year.” FGM is reportedly practiced in 28 of Africa 's 43 countries, most pervasive in Egypt, Eritrea, Mali, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.[5] In the Middle East, FGM is found in Oman, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates . Some immigrant populations in the United States, Latin America, and Asia (Maldives, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia) practice FGM as well.

According to the World Health Organization, “an estimated 100-140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM…and two million girls a year are at risk—approximately 6,000 per day.  FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. The practice also violates a person’s rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.”

These sobering statistics should make you pause—at least I hope so—and reflect on the status of women in the 21^st century.  It is easy to assume that the progress of women’s rights in the world somehow resonated around the world but the facts belie the dream.  Too many women suffer the indignation of having no control whatsoever over their body, future, or even the well-being of their children.

FGM has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls’ and women’s bodies.

FGM offers very grave risks and consequences to a woman's lifelong physical and emotional health, and is by no means a necessary medical practice in any instance whatsoever.

The physical consequences alone can include:

Hemorrhage, short or long-term bleeding, Shock.
Infection -- may include tetanus, which is usually fatal Gangrene.
Urine retention for hours or days
Chronic urinary tract infections
Anemia due to long-term bleeding
Chronic pelvic infections or PID
Permanent Infertility
Vulval abscesses
Keloid formations
Dermoid cysts
Neurinoma -- in which the whole genital area becomes permanently painful.
Continuous leakage of urine and faces the whole of a woman's life.

Sexual dysfunction, which includes no sensitivity or sensation in the clitoris, as well as highly painful sexual intercourse.

Difficulties in menstruation or dysmenorrheal.

Gross swelling of the abdomen because of menstrual blood that cannot be released, and that swelling and the absence of menses may lead family or others to suspect a pregnancy, which would socially ostracize the woman.

Serious problems in pregnancy and childbirth, including obstructed labor, which can be fatal for both mother and baby. The baby may also suffer neonatal brain damage or death.

A high risk of HIV transmission, especially in countries where HIV is epidemic (which is the case in most of Africa).

The truth is religion does not allow you to do anything harmful to yourself. 

Based on my research on the internet I found this story about female genital cutting. 

A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina [Madîna]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: 'Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.'–Sunan Abu Dawûd, Book 41, #5251. 

http://www.minaret.org/fgm-pamphlet.htm

Don't tell us how to Dress, Tell men not to Rape

Thousand came out on Toronto streets to protest a police officer's remarks that dressing like a slut is an Invitation to rape. with many dressed provocatively and dancing to the beat of drums, the crowed marched to the police headquarters to demand punishment for the cop. A protest organizer said the protest aims to condemn the belief that woman's way of dressing 'makes you a target.' 'Just because I am a slut doesn't mean I want to be raped' Said a protester.

The Twilight Series – A Review

I have read very little literature that I found offensive. There’re a lot of books that I just didn’t enjoy, and i don't like to read till the end - adult, young adult and children’s fiction (I have eclectic taste as you can tell) – but very little that I found ‘offensive’.

 In fact I’ve only read one other book that I found unbelievably offensive.  Mitchell Bard’s Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Middle East, purporting to be an extensive overview of the middle-east conflict, was in reality such a fucking anti-Semitic piece of shite I couldn’t even finish it!

Coming back to my rant for today – Twilight. Before I continue with the rant though, I must confess (ashamedly) that I have read all four books in the Twilight series written by Stephanie Meyer. Friends of mine, the girls only, told me how fantastic it was and that I had to read it. So I started.  Easy reading it was, just not necessarily good. Halfway into the book I was horrified. Still, I persisted. If I was going to say anything to these girls I had to know what I was up against. I kept hoping, naively, for Meyer to redeem herself and her inane characters at some point in the successive books. But, it never came.

There’s no doubt that the Twilight series has made a huge impact on the teenage literary population. The series has sold more than 100 million copies, and Twilight fan fiction, fan sites, and fan blogs crowd the Internet. Scores of fans have made the trek to real-life Forks, Washington, where the series is set. A trilogy of film adaptations of the books, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson is already out and said to have grossed more than $1.7 billion.

To put it bluntly, though, I’ve never understood the Twilight series. I refuse to call them a saga – Lord of the Rings was a saga. Twilight is not. To me, the vampire genre died after Buffy* the Vampire Slayer and nothing will ever be able to live up to her legacy.

*For those of you who are going “Buffy, really?” know this – Buffy spawned a new generation of what I like to call The Power Puff Girls. She put the Girl in Girl Power. In the writer’s words – “The very first mission statement of the show was the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.” The supernatural elements in the series stood as metaphors for personal anxieties associated with adolescence and young adulthood. The debut of Buffy (1997–2003) eventually led to the publication of a number of books and hundreds of articles examining the themes of the show from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including sociology, psychology, philosophy, theology and women’s studies. Now be honest – you’ve never really watched Buffy have you?

Coming back to my original rant, to summarise: my main reasons for disliking the Twilight series are that it is badly written, embarrassingly cliché, and most of all, anti-feminist – the subject of this article.

Here’s a brief outline of the main plot (I use the word ‘plot’ very, very lightly here) of the Twilight books: Bella Swan, an ordinary seventeen-year-old girl, moves to a small town, and there she meets and falls in love with the dazzlingly beautiful Edward Cullen, who, surprise surprise, turns out to be a vampire, and then Bella decides that she wants to be turned into a vampire so she can spend the rest of her existence with him.

Bella is the ultimate drama queen. Not only that, she is also irksome, whiny, petulant and an embarrassment to women everywhere. True, she’s just seventeen so she can’t be fully blamed for her fucked-up, immature tendencies, but if she’s going to be making adult decisions like, let’s say, getting married or having sex or giving up her ‘humanity’ forever and ever for the man she loves, then I’m going to treat her like an adult.  And as an adult, she is an embarrassment to women everywhere.

First of all, all the men in Bella’s life essentially control her and she lets it happen. She just makes a show of being really annoyed anytime Edward ‘over’-protects her in his assumption that she is just a fragile little girl who can’t help but put herself in danger’s way. Classic damsel-in-distress syndrome (that I thought had gone out with the 1970s Mills ‘N’ Boons). But eventually she lets him get away with it because she “loves him” (read: she wants to please him).

Second – The very first time Edward and Bella share a “moment,” it’s in the act of him protecting her from a skidding car. I’m not saying he should have let Bella die, but it is rather symbolic of their entire relationship: Bella on the ground crouching in fear, and Edward poised over her, shading her from the elements. What are you trying to say, Ms. Meyer? Do all women innately need protecting? The problem with being constantly protected from danger is that you are also kept from truly living, because life is dangerous by definition. Bella has no life outside Edward, and she is okay with that fact. That’s not love; that’s self-denial.

There are a million tiny examples of how Edward controls and manipulates Bella emotionally, and how she lets him, even enjoying his doing so: he won’t let her drive her own car, he won’t let her do stuff by herself, he hovers outside (or inside) her bedroom at night, at some point even ‘forbids’ her from meeting a male friend of hers. I just want to shake her (and the sweet, otherwise intelligent young girls in my class) and say, “If he really loved you, he would let you be free to do what you want!”

What is Stephenie Meyer trying to convey to teenage girls? In my opinion, she’s saying that love is about the protection of women, all of whom must necessarily have low self-esteem, naturally. Find a man who can protect you from the big, scary, dangerous world out there, girls, and you’re all set. All you have to do to snag the man of your dreams is give up everything that makes you who you are.

Third – Bella’s personality really irks me. She is weak, clumsy (so she keeps on insisting), and seems to depend wholly on her boyfriend just to survive. In the first book, she nearly passes out at the sight of blood, and a boy has to rescue her and take her out of the classroom before she completely loses consciousness.

Later on, she is almost crushed by a truck and is yet again saved by someone in possession of a penis – in fact, this time it’s the borderline-abusive vampire Romeo himself. And finally, she is almost attacked one night, by a group of shady-looking men while out with her girlfriends (they were going shopping silly – only girlfriends love that shit), but does not attempt to scream, cry for help, or even try to fight back. She considers doing all those things, of course (!), but then remembers that she is a girl, so apparently trying to defend herself would be pointless – because having a vagina and two X chromosomes renders one incapable of attempting to struggle when you are attacked. I’m sure Wikipedia must have some article that’s proof of that, but for once, I’m disinclined to be bothered.

The second book in the series, New Moon, is by far one of the most disturbing ‘romance’ novels I have ever read. In this installment, Edward leaves Bella because apparently he has just decided that it is too dangerous for them to be together (he’s a vampire – she’s a human – the whole craving-human-blood thing, you know; at this point, they have been together for an estimated five months, and yet he has only figured this out now).

Bella consistently thinks that she is somehow not worthy of Edward . When he and his family leave, Bella becomes severely depressed, and goes into a catatonic (this is not an exaggeration) state for three months where she cannot remember anything she does. She gets suicidal more than once. Is this a healthy reaction for a teenage girl? And if it is not, why is no one in her life acknowledging the obvious self-esteem issue she has! Surely a healthy relationship should not involve risking one’s life just to see or hear the voice of one’s “soul-mate”.

It comes across, to me at least, in more than one instance, that Bella’s love for Edward seems to have its root in Edwards beauty and she is constantly in disbelief of  his interest in her (because she is  so plain). There are also countless other recurring references to Edward’s beauty (in all its manifestation) and Bella’s plainness (in all its manifestations). Thankfully someone else has already counted and catalogued them here.

Here’s a small excerpt:

References to Edward’s Beauty: 165
Broken Down into the following categories -
Face: 24 (Favorite adjectives: glorious, heavenly, seraphic)
Voice: 20 (The voice of an archangel et al)
Eyes: 17
Movement: 11
Smile: 10
Teeth: 8
Muscles: 7
Skin: 7 (Note: This only contains accounts of Edward’s skin being beautiful. I didn’t count references to it as “pale,” “cold,” or “white.” If I had, this number would be about ten times larger.)
Iron Strength or Limbs: 5
Breath: 4 (EVEN HIS BREATH IS AMAZING.)
Scent: 4
Laughter: 3
Handwriting: 2
Chest: 2
Driving Skills: 1

I’m usually very happy whenever my friends show enthusiasm for reading anything. But not this time. This is a terrible series. Not least because its characters are stereotypical. Unfortunately, it has given more ammunition to those fervent, but I believe misguided, believers of Abstinence. The more I read this kind of ‘literature’ the more I worry that we don’t tell our children enough. Part Two to follow soon.

Are we a wasted generation??

The United Nation’s definition of youth defines youth as those who are between the age of 15 to 24. By definition, then those who are below the age of 14 are considered children. However the Article I of the United Nations’ convention on the rights of the child defines children as persons up to the age of 18. Some countries define youth at the age at which a person is given equal rights under the law, which is often referred to as the “age of majority” and in many countries age of majority is 18. Once a person passes this age he or she is considered an adult. There is also a noticeable division between teen agers (13-19) and young adults (20-24). Approximately 1 billion youth live in the world today; 18% of the world population. This means that one person out of five is in the age of 15- 24. Interestingly this is the first time in the world history that the world witnesses such a high concentration of youth on its surface. The majority, 85%, of the youth live in the developing countries with 60% living in Asia alone and a remaining 23% in African countries. It is calculated that by 2025 this 85% would augment in to 89.5%. But what is most important to comprehend is that the notion of youth is subjected to different socio-cultural, political, economic and ideological variables and it is these factors that determines who is a youth despite of all the definitions provided by any institution.

Now let us take a look at the Maldives definition of youth. In general perspective the youth fall in to the age category of  18 to 35. However the intriguing aspect of defining the youth in Maldives is to touch on the ideological perception of them by the masses. To put this in to simple language, what comes in to your mind with the utterance of youth? For most, youth is the icon of trouble. Youth is defined as an unemployed, restless minority constantly struggling along with violence to achieve their rights. Youth is also defined in terms of school dropouts and this population is one of the overtly representative fractions of the youth in Maldives. With all the hullabaloos that have been continued by this lot in the history of Maldives, the general pessimistic perception of the Youth by the masses can be justified.

With all these in mind, I base this article on a discussion we had few weeks ago. Are we a wasted generation? The question was quite shocking; something which we have not contemplated ever before but gave away few fascinating point of views of different genres.  Half of the people stated that we are a wasted generation and a few justified that we are not but most interestingly some were neutral of which the reasons and threats will be discussed later on.

One of the major arguments dragged in to justify that we are a wasted generation is that we have nothing to gain by a struggle; political achievement, and struggle obviously does not mean a physical one. Most of the young people do believe that there is no prospect for a major political revolution in the world per se. No opportunity to revolutionize the whole system as Carl Marx or Lenin did. Thus this political opportunity absence has convinced them to believe that youth has no important role to play in the political arena. But what is tragic and ironical here is that they do not grasp the importance of rightful, adequate and substantial political involvement by youth which is indispensable right now to Maldives.

The free market economy is explicitly a dominant feature of our lives. It is not exaggerating to state that we do not decide for ourselves any more but it is the free market economy which decides for us. My argument at a first glance would appear intimidating. But the explanation to this phenomenon is as follows. The term “free market” designates the fact that it is “free” and the consumer has the power to control the market by “demand”. Yet what we do not perceive is that our demand is conditioned by the “supply” it self and therefore our scope of independence in the free market is limited. Thus the supply decides what we should consume. On the other and most sophisticatedly the free market uses advertising to condition our decisions. The conditional psychological techniques executed by the advertisers unconsciously decide for us in all most all aspects of our lives. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist once did a research using a dog to investigate how external factors contribute to the gastric function of a dog and results in salving. He rang a bell before giving the food to the dog and eventually the dog started salving to the sound of the bell even without the food which is now known as “ring a bell“theory. This simply means how external factors condition a beings internal urges. The free market economy advertisers use the same theory. For instance they show us a guy using a perfume and then get a hot a girl. The condition of this phenomenon is that “the perfume” is necessary to get the hot girl and therefore urges the viewers to purchase it in order to get the “hot girl”. Thus the desire of the Other becomes the desire of us. Therefore some of the youth believe that we are denied the right to free decision making by the unconscious conditioned deciding factors of the free market and thus we are, in fact all of us are, a wasted generation.

Another cliché tic argument of the youth to justify that we are a wasted generation is the unemployment experience by the youth and the less opportunity to “popular” or “higher” education especially in Maldives due to various reasons. It is on one hand a fair argument to produce because of the high rate of unemployment among the youth of the country. However this has been discussed enough and I do not wish to explain it further.

And now let us contemplate on whether we are actually a wasted generation. In my personal opinion why do we have to struggle to prove that we are not a wasted generation? Is “struggle” and indispensable part of youth? It is this ideology and discourse of youth being a noticeably a radical group that has lead us to this conclusion. Yet there are enough opportunities for us to struggle in this country. There are hundreds of political injustices and human rights violations taking place but how many of us do notice them. It is here that we again come across the irony of our youth. Most of us are blind to the ongoing political discourse or are not rational enough to analyze the political situation here, not just political but our society’s concerns. Most of us are neutral to socio-political happenings of the country and then complain that we need a revolution. Thus isn’t it our fault that we are wasted?

But now let me entertain you in the most crucial part of this article. It is the first and the only time in the world history that we witness such a vast concentration of youth on the surface of the planet earth. More than three fourths of that population lives in the developing countries and more than half of that population lives in Asia. This on one hand is a very unique and on the other hand extremely risky situation. The high concentration of youth in Asia can be translated in to so many controversial problems starting from augmenting the present unemployment rate.

However I would like to concentrate on socio-cultural perspective of this massive phenomenon. The high concentrate of youth, without doubt, predetermines a series of socio-cultural issues not necessarily pessimistic. One of the main points pointed out by the UN is that this new generation is highly sexually active. This means that there will be a high birth rate in the future which will lead to a massive apocalypse of human population and therefore the means of full filling the basic needs of this next generation should also be given a thought. Furthermore this high sexual activeness would invariably lead to unwanted pregnancies which will result in a high rate of abortions. This will also lead to the spreading of HIV/AIDS epidemic and other STIs among the youth which will lead to a desperate destruction of the youth generation. Thus as the youth, there is a struggle for us to initiate. It is time for us to contemplate on the possible solutions for the expected issues. Our youth do lack the basic sex education. Even though a diminutive syllabus is included in the education system the lessons are either not taught or loosely dealt and consequently the lack of sex education has lead to many unsafe sex practices which is even apparent right now. Thus we need to find methods to extend the sex education among the youth. Furthermore awareness of HIV/AIDS and other STIs should be given in order to decrease the high rate of epidemic infection. We would also be responsible to find solutions to feed a massive young population in the near future about all this and drugs. Following this issue there will appear other problems such as housing, health, infrastructure, education etc when accommodating a massive population.

Thus we have to question again and again, are we a wasted generation. It is as important as this to analyze the arguments of those who claim that we are a wasted generation. But above all the personal perception of this issue by the youth itself matters overtly in examining this phenomenon. The majority of this young population lives in developing countries and in Asia. Thus the responsibility that we as youth have to share is enormous. The solutions for upcoming problems must be predetermined in excess and strategies must be implemented in advance. Thus calling us a wasted generation for not having apparent struggles or simply because of the consequences of free market is highly problematic and illogical without contemplating on the future issues of the young generation. The old school theories should be dealt with proper integration so that they would not influence us pessimistically to look forward to the future. Finally, children will become young one day and young will become old and it is our duty right now to get prepared to accommodate all on the surface of planet earth despite our intensely self occupied prejudices.

Another Girl’s Paradise

Does it all come down to
the thing one girl fears
in the night
is another girl’s paradise
- Tori Amos

We’re so mad at men for treating us wrong, we’re being completely blind to how terribly WOMEN treat other WOMEN!!


Whatever happened to girl power!

Everyone is acting like women are these powerless and helpless creatures that need to be sheltered and ‘taken care of’. Balls to them all, I say. We can help ourselves. We can support each other. We don’t need to be sheltered.

Before you think this is some crazy-ass feministic rant, let me tell you where this is all coming from.

I was watching TV the other day and you know how nowadays the commercial breaks are just getting longer and longer, well it seems that day was my lucky day ‘cause I got to see two brilliantly ridiculous ads one after the other. 2!! Ridiculous. Like laugh-out-loud ridiculous. And they kept getting better. (Thank god, the remote control was out of reach and I was too lazy to get out of bed for it!)

The first was this ad for AXE Body Spray. The one where this girl is standing in front of a mirror, wearing a sleeveless, black dress. She isn’t satisfied with what she sees. Then she picks up a pair of scissors and cuts off the lower half of the dress, up to her thighs.

And then the voiceover – Because guys like less, AXE now costs less.

The other one was this ad in which this young girl just got a modeling contract, but she’s all upset about it. “Why!” Her friend asks, “You look lovely in these pictures!” And she replies that the face in those pictures was her ‘summer’ face, and it’s winter now and her ‘winter’ face is not that pretty. You guessed it. It was an ad for Fair and Lovely’s Winter Fairness Cream. Because regular cold creams, apparently, steal your skin’s natural glow.

And I got so mad after watching these. I thought – How misogynistic! How sexist! How superficial!!!! How dare they make ads like these! What a terrible effect this will have on young girls watching them! Making them feel all pressured into looking and dressing and acting a certain way in order to attract men or find jobs!

And I did what I always do before I write, I googled. You Tube is wonderful dhw? I found the videos for these ads. And this time when I watched them, I just could not stop laughing.

Seriously. Rather than these ads being offensive to women, what I find offensive is the suggestion that these ads will influence how young girls and women feel and think about themselves. No one is complaining how the AXE ad is offensive to men because it shows how one-track-minded men are. But there are loads of articles being written about how the ad is demeaning to women. Such a big deal is being made about all the fairness cream ads and how they make dark women feel bad about themselves.

I ask you, who the hell are these women that need beauty products and television commercials to tell them how to think, feel, dress or look!?? Why can’t you know your own worth without waiting for a guy or the idiot box to tell you how wonderful you are or aren’t.

Body image is only an issue if you turn it into one. We can’t all look like Angelina Jolie or Penelope Cruz. So what if you have braces, or too many freckles, or if you’re flat-chested or have super-thick glasses, or if you’re too short or too tall, if you’re really fat or so skinny your friends call you lolly pop, or if you are asian and so dark your friends call you a negro. Other than you, who cares.

Sure it’ll be heart breaking when some guy doesn’t want to take you out because you’re too fat or too dark. But really?? Is that going to define who you are forever? And do you really believe that THAT guy was your one and only, last chance?

If you don’t like how you look you only have two choices. A – Do something about it. Exercise if you’re fat, eat better if you’re too skinny. Some might suggest surgery of the plastic kind, but not me. B – If  there’s nothing you can do about the way you look, then find a way to make your peace with it. Guys are not going to dump you because of how ‘bad’ you look. (Some of the shallow guys will, but then you don’t really want those ones around do you?) They will, most likely, dump you because you don’t like yourself.
I was listening to Tori Amos’ Raspberry Swirl.  And it got me thinking.

Have you noticed how mean women are to other women? Really nasty. It’s simple things even. We’re out at some party and the guys look over at some chick that’s just walked in and comment on how hot she looks.
The women all huddle together and discuss how slutty she looks.

Men sleep around and get called studs. Women sleep around and they get called sluts. Not just by guys. But by other women!! I find that horrifying.

I recently met a young girl who said she was planning to go for a shopping, and I said great, my girlfriends and I will go with you too! And then she said, oh no thanks, women don’t like me. I get along better with guys. I was offended at first. And then I thought. It’s not her fault. What she said is just a reaction to how women treat other women. I have some of the most amazing girlfriends a girl could ever ask for. But since most of my friends got married and got busy with their lives, I have to say, I’ve found it easier to make friends with or at least have social conversations with guys. You know why? Because as women get older they tend to get more insecure and more suspicious of other women. And it happens to the best of us. I know I’ve been guilty of many unnecessarily catty comments about other women. I’m warier now.

Women need to love themselves so they can love each other.

This is something Tori Amos said about her girlfriends and it might sound a bit extreme but I think you’ll see why I think she’s so cool.
“I’m in love with my women friends, but I just don’t eat pussy. But I’m in love with them. If I had a different sensibility, then you know I think I could, you know, really fulfill someone down there, where a lot of men in their lives don’t. And eating pussy is a metaphor, too – it’s about crawling in there, being with their juices, really being with them.”

Virginity,,, Ssshhh... cheap ones here!!!!

Last night, My best friend is in town, so we all decided to meet up for a little chit chat. She started conversation asking why one of our (boy) friend broke-up with his girl friend after 3years. In the middle of the conversion one asked what was the best experience with her. Oh there it came, and started taking about their best sexual experience.  So I wanted to get some opinions from my friends about it. Most of them didn’t know anything about virginity or they just don't want to talk about it, specially when boys are around (girl) friends don't want to talk about it. No wonder; typical Maldivians!!


However I was able to create the discussion which I wanted. They started all the common tales about the whole virginity and hymen issue. I had to argue alone; no one wanted to believe the fact that there is no relationship between virginity and bleeding at the first intercourse.

I picked up 2 tales which I came across in this discussion.

1. A boy can feel whether a girl is still a virgin.
Many of my (boy) friends are expecting blood at the first intercourse with their girlfriends. They say that, even the blood didn’t come out the boy can feel her hymen. Don’t know what they are talking about. If even a doctor can hardly determine, if at all, if a girl is a virgin, then how can a boy? However the boy can feel if the girl is scared or tense. In such cases the girl may subconsciously contact her vagina, causing the entrance to the vagina to feel tighter.

Suddenly, a friend of mine peeped in to the talk and claimed that during sex he could feel if a girl was still a virgin. I doubled over in laughter. I tried to make it clear to him that he would better practice a lot to become a better lover. I think he is rather selfish and only focus on his own pleasure. That’s the crux about sex.

2. Being deflowered through exercising or the use of sanitary pads.
You can never break your hymen through exercising or using sanitary pads. You can only damage your hymen if you have intercourse with a boy or with sex toy. What can happen, however it that the hymen is slightly stretched for example through the use of tampons. But you already know that the hymen has nothing to do with your virginity. Even if the rim were to stretch slightly, nothing would be the matter. And all sports are well and truly harmless, so you can keep practicing which ever you enjoy.

We have talked about virginity more than needed. But it doesn’t seem that our society wants to think beyond bleeding at the first intercourse. It is important that you think what you want and what virginity means to you. You decide how you want to deal with your/ your girl friend’s virginity and whether you want to talk to others about your choices.

The most important thing is that you deal with sex in a way you feel comfortable with, Even if others disagree. First we should understand that virginity is a tool to control women’s sex life and a patriarchal system would never be able survive without rules over women.

To ensure this system there are many traditions such as the white for the bed sheet for the first night.

“The hymen story”

It’s just a tiny, superfluous bloody membrane! What is the big deal!!

Growing up, I never wondered about virginity. Never talked to people about it. I’m Maldivian you see. It’s not in our culture to talk about anything related to sex. It was ‘taboo’. But instinctively I knew that it was a very big deal. I had to ‘save’ it. If I wanted to be a good girl, I had to abstain from ‘taboo’. ‘Taboo’ was bad. I had to wait until I got married to have ‘taboo’. And if I was foolish enough to have ‘taboo’ before marriage, well then, I could just give up all hope of ever finding a good man who’d want me.
And then I grew up. And I learnt 3 very important things that changed my life, not necessarily in the order that they’re written down in.

I learnt that Taboo is the name of a game published by Hasbro and that it is wicked fun.
I found a man. (I don’t think any of them are ‘good’, but this one I like more than others obviously.)
I learnt that there is very very very very little that you cannot find on the Internet.

So I googled – What is the purpose of the hymen?

There seems to be a general agreement in medical and non-medical circles that the hymen serves no purpose. Much like the appendix. However given the fuss that’s being made about it I just had to find something bio-‘logical’ somewhere that would explain what the root of all this fuss-making was. And this here is the only believable explanation I found when I googled. Unfortunately it’s just a hypothesis, not a proven fact. But it sounds reasonable and logical to me:

Some of the last cells to mature in the female body are the cells of the cervix. Before these cells have matured the cell membranes are particularly vulnerable to being breached by pathogens, and the cervix remains very vulnerable to infection. It has been hypothesized that the hymen originally exists to protect the developing tissues of the vagina and cervix from dirt and pathogens during childhood, until the cells of the cervix and the cells of the vagina mature fully and start secreting the mucus which protects them in later life. In our modern day of bathing and wearing clothes, this is probably not nearly as important as it was to our un-bathed, pre-clothing primate ancestors.

 

So that’s the hymen explained, or is it? At what point did human beings start equating the presence of a hymen with virginity (being heretofore defined as ‘purity’)?

Once again, it’s Google to the rescue. According to anthropologists, human beings may have come up with the concept of virginity as it is mis-understood today, around the time they learned to domesticate animals, during the Neolithic era.

I wonder whether it was just animals they found ways of domesticating. And the fact that there were never any connotations of ‘purity’ associated with men’s virginities… Curiouser and curiouser? Or just downright suspicious.

We’ve all heard a whole bunch of people, with religious as well as non-religious agendas, wax not-so-lyrical about the significance of a woman’s hymen.

Well guess what – everything we’ve been told about virginity and purity and hymens – all bullshit. Here’s some stuff that I found that made me feel shocked, angry and then relieved, in that order exactly.

1. 0.03% of women are born without a hymen.

Unfortunately they are a minority and no one seems to believe they exist. Maybe in a decade or two they will be respected and accepted much like the homosexuals are after decades of campaigning for their rights. (I know, I know, you’re tempted to interrupt and ask, “Are they really??? Are gay people really respected and accepted????” – I was being sarcastic.)

Maybe that wasn’t very shocking to you. It shocked the hell out of me though. It wasn’t a i-can’t-believe-it kind of shock. It was more a oh-god-those-poor-girls-who’ve-been-having-anal-sex-thinking-they’re-saving-their-virginity kind of shock.

And there’s more.

2. Not only are so many women not born with hymens, hymens also come in different shapes and sizes.

Types of hymens

These are the four common types – A normal hymen, imperforate (a thin membrane that completely covers the opening), microperforate (thin membrane that almost completely covers the opening) or septate (thin hymenal membrane has a band of extra tissue in the middle that causes two small vaginal openings instead of one).

Who’d have thought right?

What really pisses me off is, has no one noticed how all the people who make a big fuss about the existence or lack of a hymen are the ones who don’t even fucking have it!

Over the ages, women who weren’t virgins when they married have been disowned, sold into slavery, scarred, beaten, mutilated, killed – all in the name of ‘honour crimes’. The sad thing is the morons who came up with that oxymoron were allowed to define what virginity was, only because they were in a position of power. Why is it a big deal? And how does every girl child know that it is a big deal? Because it was deemed so by her parents, older members of the family, elders of the community and let us not even bring into the discussion the power that religious authorities have – people in power, men and women alike, can be such shits sometimes.

Family, Education, Religion, Medicine, (and in some countries) Law – the same institutions that are the pillars of a ‘good’ and ‘moral’ society – seem to have completely taken control over women’s sexual and reproductive rights and needs. Um – anyone else hear echoes of ‘PATRIARCHY!’ and ‘MISOGYNISTIC!’ in the back of their heads?

According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, ONE of the many confusing definitions of ‘Virgin’ is ‘a person who has not had sexual intercourse.’ What does ‘sexual intercourse’ here include? To most young girls sex is penetrative, vaginal sex. Why only vaginal sex? Because that’s where the hymen is silly. Thank god, we don’t have a hymen somewhere up our arses because then these poor girls would have no (pardon the pun) outlet at all!

I find the whole thing very confusing. On the one hand, virginity is associated with purity, which means sex is obviously impurity. BUT, that doesn’t stop girls from kissing boys. It certainly doesn’t stop them from having oral and anal sex. And since the morons they marry can only check for the hymen, they can’t ever know whether they’ve had oral or anal sex. Does that mean that a girl who has anal or oral sex only is still pure?
I take it back. I don’t find it confusing. I find it distasteful. I find it offensive. No woman’s life or dignity should be at the mercy of any man – be it her husband, priest or even father. And it certainly should not be controlled by the existence or absence of a fucking membrane – least of all because it has no bloody biological purpose.

Check this out – Apparently, when female guinea pigs are ready to make babies, their hymens dissolve so that they can enjoy some good loving and then – wait for this – THEY GROW BACK AGAIN, when the guinea pig is no longer on heat. What a neat party trick! (Hanne Blank – she’s the ultimate authority on Virginity)
So does the hymen really have any other purpose than as a party trick? Ask the girl who sold it for 32,000 dollars. Ask the guys who told the 14 year old suicide bomber that he’d have 72 virgins pampering him in heaven. Ask the 13 year old who gave it up too soon. Ask the fucking guinea pig. I promise you they’ll all have the same answer.

And if you feel like having a good laugh at the aforementioned ‘morons’ this is a good site to check out: http://www.ironhymen.com/

I felt great when I heard this story though!!

“All those stories about deflowering made me pretty insecure. Penetration, pain, blood i heard so many things from my friends. First I thought: what the hell I’ll just push ahead and be done with it. But I couldn’t do it because I love my girlfriend too much. So I brought up the subject and it turned out that she felt frightened too. From then it was so easy. We made love!! It did not hurt she did not bleed. We both felt relieved." So; my advice:
DON’T LISTEN TO ALL THESE TOUGH STORIES. THEY ARE NOT JUST TRUE.

Are All Women Made To Have Babies?

I’m told it’s rude to ask a person why he or she has kids. Why then is it okay for a person to ask me why I DON’T have kids?

It is difficult for a woman to stand up and say that she doesn’t want to have children. (Trust me, I speak from experience.) It is even more difficult for a woman to stand up and say that she is married and doesn’t want to have children!

What is the big deal? Why is there this misconception that women are made to have children? Biologically yes, they’re anatomically built to carry a child, give birth to it, nourish it – and then what? Just because they can, they should?

Culturally I think we’re obsessed with babies. No, you don’t have to blame yourself. Once again, like you have every other time before this, let’s blame this on the media. Over the last three years, the clichéd ‘rom-com’ happy ending has moved from proposals and fancy weddings to a second blue line on a pregnancy test. The movie Bride Wars ends not with weddings, but with Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway both pregnant; in Waitress, Baby Mama, The Back-up Plan — the longed-for handsome prince arrives in a ‘family’ van. Even bloody Harry Potter – after seven fucking books – ends with all of them ‘grown up’ with kids. Babies are the new archetype for happy endings and not wanting one is like saying you don’t want to be happy!

It seems to be not just a social norm but a biological imperative! Not wanting kids is an admission that invites suspicion (!) and pity (!!). To be a close-to-thirty-years-old woman in 2010 and not want a child (so desperately that you think you might die) is simply not allowed.

Forget the general public that has shocked reactions – ever tried telling a woman with kids or a pregnant woman that you don’t want kids? They seem to take it as a personal insult that I don’t want kids. Like I’m saying that I don’t like their babies. I’m just expressing an opinion – my opinion – that I don’t want to have my (potential) babies!

I think I might just have heard every single response there is to my ‘shocking’ statement that I don’t want to have children. You know what I find shocking? I look around me and see so many people who I would never even entrust with a potted cactus plant, having kids! And they’re so excited about it. Naturally.

And instead of these people having to justify why on earth they have kids, I am asked to justify my decision not to have kids! Ridiculous!

“Oh no, don’t you LIKE kids?”

-          No, not that much. They’re adorable and all (some of them), but most of the time I’m very happy to know they’re going to go home at the end of the day with their parents.

“What happened to you in your childhood?”

-          Nothing! Can you believe this shit? Now I’m pathologised!

“Aren’t you afraid of being lonely when you grow old?” (my mom asked me)

-          No. And if you have children because you think that’s a guarantee for companionship in your old age, I suggest you have a back up plan and book yourself a bed in a retirement home.

“You’ll change your mind once your body-clock starts ticking.”

-          This one seems to be a particular favourite. Predictions are made for me. This is just a phase and I will come out of some ten-fifteen years down the line when it will be too late for me to do anything about it. (Somehow they all seem to forget at this point a little concept called ‘adoption’.)

“You’re just in denial.”

-          Isn’t this one brilliant? When all else fails, just call her deluded! I’m not truly happy and fulfilled in my childless state. (How can I be!) Yuck. Since when is having a ‘maternal instinct’ a sign of ‘sanity’? I’d imagine it was the other way around. It’s all sorts of damaged women that are having kids. There’s a reason there are so many screwed up people in the world!

I love my life. I’m not afraid of growing up. And my decision not to have kids doesn’t make me selfish or deluded or ‘fucked-up’. I might change my mind. Quite happily too. But just because I don’t want kids now, doesn’t mean I’m in denial. Also, I’m only 22 – not hearing any tick-tock!

When you’re on the outside of all this looking in, it seems like complete madness. I accept that most women don’t feel as I do. I accept that many are genuinely compelled to have kids – because they want it, because they forgot to use protection, because their friends are having babies, because their families expect it, because they want some other person who is all theirs to fuck up, because they’re bored, because it’s the ‘right time’, because – I’m happy for those who do, because it’s what they want; and I’m sorry for those who can’t, because that’s horribly sad.

Still, I think as cultural movements go, this one has veered wildly out of control. Also — shhh — it’s kind of boring. Childlessness is going to be a feature in many people’s lives; we need to start seeing it as a choice rather than a failing. We certainly need it not to be taboo. We need to stop making women who choose not to have a child feel like they have a guilty secret.

The Story of Menstruation

Dracula’s Tea-Bag

Would you stop menstruating if you could?

I always thought that any girl or woman, once she’s had her period, hates it and would love for it to be over. To stop getting your period. I really just took it for granted that, like me, ALL (presumptuous I know) women hate bleeding every goddamn month and if it were possible to end it they would!

I was wrong! So wrong! There are actually women out there who cannot conceive of Life Without Menstruation (hell of a movie title that would make). These women loooove that they bleed regularly. They ‘accept that menopause brings with it a whole different set of issues’ but they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it. Until then, they will daub on the bloody war-paint and wear it proudly – Menstrual Blood – What Women Have & Men Can Only Dream About (more movie titles).

Why do they love it? Beats me. But here’s some of the things they say –

“No, I don’t want to miss my period. It makes me feel healthy and powerfull.”

“I always enjoy my periods, and always look forward to it coming. I feel so girlish and feminin. My boyfriend loves me more during these times.”

“It doesn’t only remind me of the fact that I’m a femail (and that’s a fact that I DO like), but it’s also very natural. If God has created us like this, why should we try to stop it?”

“I am proud of my period. It’s been a part of my life for 13 years, and I wouldn’t want to part with it now. It’s helped to shape my self-estime, my identity, and who I am.”

“As a sexually active adult female, it’s always nice to have a cheque to let me know I’m not unexpectedly pregnant!”

If they fact that they love their periods doesn’t convince you that these women are crazy.. maybe their spellings will. You have to give them credit for all the pride though, I guess.

I still don’t get it. I don’t understand why any woman would NOT want to stop menstruating if she could! I hate the inconvenience, even with tampons. I hate the pain. I hate the discomfort. I hate the blood. I hate the emotional mind-fuck. More than anything else, I hate how little control I feel I have over my mind and body ‘that time of the month’.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ashamed. Although that’s what they’d have you feel. Ashamed and embarrassed. It is so frustrating how people WILL NOT talk about blood and pads and white out all things red in the name of culture and what have you. All those ‘Whispers’ and ‘Stayfree’ ads on TV – with their fancy all-white graphics except for the occasional, subliminal insertion of red, along with their clever, mind-bending puns with the mission of  disguising the notion of bleeding –

&^#%$*#&^ PADS – ‘filled with freshness’ – as opposed to what?

#@*&$(*@&#) PADS – ‘dry protection you can touch’ – because otherwise I cannot touch me down there?

–  do not help anyone feel good about themselves, plain and simple. Their goal is to keep women self-conscious, and not in a good way, so as to sell more pads, more tampons and more deodorants or douches or whatever. The goal is to keep female self-love, self-esteem and self-appreciation at an all-time low, so their sales will reach an all-time high. They act as if they are doing you a favor, whiting out your period with their lack of words and with all their technology, but really they are not. It’s ridiculous! They even use blue ink to show how absorbent one maxi pad is versus another!! You don’t actually have to collect a woman’s menstrual blood to demonstrate this, but red ink maybe???????

Did you know, Most countries in south Asia tampons  is not available, even in India only able to buy OB tampons at only select supermarkets in few countries. Then recently I heard they stopped selling OB! Anywhere! When my friends came down for a wedding in December they bought boxes and boxes of Ria tampons from Colombo to take back. And now I discover that even the OB tampons were actually from China! Insane!

The welfare of women has never been a national priority, making it much easier for everyone to pretend our monthly cycles simply don’t exist or should be kept under wraps. If you want to watch this attitude in action, just go to a shop and ask for a packet of Stayfree . Observe the shopkeeper treating your purchase like nuclear waste – wrapping it in thick layers of brown paper or knotting it into a black plastic bag. You can almost feel him shudder. Most boyfriends and husband even won’t go to the super market to buy tampons or pads for their girlfriends and wives! Why does it embarrass them???

Nothing in our society, except violence, has been more effective in keeping women in their place than the degradation of their menstrual cycle.

It’s hard for people to face that real women bleed at regular intervals. Our cyclic nature is still known as “the curse,” the time of the month women are ‘unclean’ and ‘impure’, and incapable of swimming, and even bathing! This stereotype is reinforced by our mothers, aunts, and the outdated messages conveyed by movies, magazines and adverts.

We’re not allowed to say ‘vagina’ in TV commercials – this is not shocking – this is Maldives/Asia.  We can’t show red ink. Eeks. Blood is filthy. And none of us are vampires right?

We can’t even advertise tampons! Why? Oh you really are such an amoral ignoramus! If you show tampons, you will promote sexual promiscuity – no don’t laugh, really – tampons (apparently) cause girls to lose their virginity and/or cause too much sexual stimulation, down there. And you know this is not in ‘our culture’!

Now if you are a woman who has ever used a tampon, you will know this piece of shite was written by a man, because you will know that there is nothing sexually stimulating about a wad of cotton you’ve stuffed up your vagina.

Now although tampons are my preferred choice of menstrual product, please know that I’m not biased when I go on about how cool tampons are. I just don’t think women should be scared to use one. Tampons are not some new-age invention either. The ancient Egyptians invented the first disposable tampons made from softened papyrus. Other materials used for the first tampons have included: wool, paper, vegetable fibers, sponges, grass, and later cotton. Tampons as we know them (with the removal cord) have been around since 1929!! And most of them are made of a blend of rayon and cotton. You also get organic tampons which are made of 100% cotton.

I have been using tampons for over years.  I’ve not once had a problem. The string has never ‘just broken off’. It hasn’t got ‘lost inside’ me. It didn’t ‘fall out’. I didn’t bleed for longer because the tampon was ‘blocking blood flow’.

The only potential problem with tampons (and even that’s only under certain conditions, like if you haven’t changed your tampon in over eight hours) is the Toxic Shock Syndrome and you can get that even from diaphragms. I don’t know why the glorious tampon is such a reviled product. Once I switched to tampons I couldn’t go back. Why would I want to?

Now let me state at the outset that this is not about feeling less like a woman or feeling ashamed about my cyclical bleeding. This is about comfort. The wonder and amazement and joy you will feel when you use a tampon for the first time and walk with it inside you and realize that you are walking without a bolster between your thighs – well, it has to be experienced.

I know some women won’t use tampons because they think it’s gross to put their finger inside their ‘you know’ to push the tampon in. Seriously. A] They come with applicators now. B] Seriously?? Don’t you clean your ‘down there’ after you pee? Or when you bathe? So what – you like urine but not blood??? I don’t get that. How can something that’s part of you, in you, be gross to you?

Menstruation is not gross or shameful or dirty. Menstruation is not a pregnancy check. Or it shouldn’t be anyway. Menstruation does not make me feel more womanly. If that’s what makes you feel like a woman – you have other issues – please get help. And lastly, sanitary napkins/pads are not the only options available to a menstruating woman – you will not go to hell if you use tampons!

We’re in 2011. But here’s a film Disney made in 1946, called The Story of Menstruation. Probably the only Disney film that says the word ‘vagina’. In 1946! And now, in 2011, we STILL cannot talk about blood, pads, tampons - it seems to me they had better sex education back then, in 1946 (65 years ago!!!) than they do now. Waaaaaaaaaaay better.

If it wasn’t so sad, I’d laugh!

Fuck sad. It’s bloody pathetic.