On bodies I've been reading through some of the fascinating posts on the gendergeek Carnival of Feminists and saw that the next Carnival is going to be dedicated to body issues. Which got me thinking...

Body issues are actually one of the big reasons I wear hijab. A long time ago, as a young woman, I saw hijab as the ultimate "up yours" to the cult of sexuality, the abusiveness of the beauty industry, and the objectification of women by hollywood and advertisers that had spawned an epidemic of anorexia and bullemia among young women and its flip side, an epidemic of obesity, and which left practically no women happy with her body. Hijab (and by hijab I mean not only the headscarf, but also the long, loose clothing) was delightfully freeing, a way of stepping outside that game and rejecting it utterly. I knew that this interpretation of hijab was something quite unique to Muslims in the Western world, but I also knew there were plenty of other women -- both converts and those who were born into a Muslim family -- who saw it in much the same light.

Since then, I've grown more and more aware of how, for most of the Muslim world (including many who are living here in the west), the hijab is the mirror image of the cult of objectification of women's bodies. Cover up because women are too tempting and men cannot control themselves -- once again it's the sexualization of women to the exclusion of their personalities, their hopes and dreams, their essential humanity even. That's not a Qur'anic notion -- indeed it is a bastardization of Islam's understandings of gender -- but it certainly is widespread in the Muslim world.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't, as the old saying goes. I wonder if we'll ever get to a society where women are no longer objectified!

The other issue which I've been dealing with for the years since my last child was born was a crisis in my own self-image. The "baby weight" of my last child stubbornly refuses to come off, indeed I've gained a few extra pounds since then, and my willpower to gym and diet has been non-existant. Which puts me in the unusual (for me) position of being unhappy with my body. Of course, many middle aged women have to deal with this issue, not only in terms of weight, but also in terms of wrinkles, age spots, grey hair, etc. I have always been decided that I would not care about these things, that I would age into those one of those wonderful women whose faces proudly bear the years of experience and joy. Of course, saying that and living that are two different things. I don't mind the age spots and the wrinkles, and grey hasn't been an issue yet, but I definately mind the softness of my body. Anyway, I've written a poem about some of these ideas, and I thought I'd post it here.


I stare at myself in the mirror
And see a Renoir nude
Ponderous, pendulous bosoms
Soft slouch of stomach
Dimpled round mounds of buttocks and thigh
I loathe this pale, flabby flesh
Covering my true body
Which lays beneath
Svelte, slim, sexy

I scroll through Renoir’s paintings on my computer screen
Bathers, Seated Girl, Nude in the Sunlight
Diana the Huntress, After the Bath, the Nymphs
Trying to see myself through Renoir’s eyes
Such adulation he stroked upon these women
You can see it in the golds, the browns
The creamy sweetness of their skin
The lush pink of their mouths and nipples
I imagine him lavishing his adoration on my flesh
Painting me in tones of peach and admiration

But the image fractures
My mind won’t compass it
I need a painter’s hands
To hold my flesh
In his brush
A lover’s hands
To hold my flesh
In his fingers
Perhaps then I’ll believe
In voluptuous beauty

Since when, I wonder
Do I need a man to tell me who I am
Or who I am not
Since when do I need someone else
To love this body of mine
In order for me to love it myself
Once, I lived beauty
Once, my flesh knew its own splendor
Without anyone speaking it into being

Why does that sure knowledge now fail
Just when the flesh has filled in
Why does my heart believe
Those who judge me overly abundant
When the clear evidence before my eyes
Ample bodies are glorious, glorious
Allure lies not in thick or thin
But in exultation in God’s bounty
Why do I believe the critics, the judges
And not Renoir  ¶ 9:08 PM