Determined against all odds

I have always liked Frida Kahlo although at times I find myself not at ease with her paintings. I guess I am more attracted to her personality than her art. Maybe or maybe not; I still cannot decide. I appreciate her strength at times when life was not easy for her, at times of Diego's wandering and womanizing, at times of pain and surgery, at times when she lost many babies to abortion, and many more instances of frustration and pain. I also appreciate her resistance in staying out of any categorization. She never let anyone to label her as a surrealist, and never joined the communist party while at the time it was kind of en vogue to do so. She always stood her grounds, and was an active agent of her life as well as in her art.

I find it amazing that she used her life and her personal experiences as subjects of her paintings, such as in the Two Fridas, in which she uses one Frida (on the right) to show herself as loved and happy while the other one shows the rejected Frida, sitting stoically while bleeding to death. The rejected Frida along with her heart are both broken and damaged while the other one--the happy and contented one--is dressed in traditional Mexican garb holding a picture of Diego Rivera in her hand.

By looking at any of her paintings, one can easily see and, I would like to claim, feel the pain and the misery this woman experienced in her life while keeping herself strong and upright at all times, and determined against all odds.

Afterword: It is disturbing to see that MS Word does not recognize the name of this great artist and underlines it in red. >:(

Ziba Karbassi and the poetry of gasp

I am posting a short note I wrote back in February of last year mainly because I believe Karbassi is a powerful voice to consider and recognize.

During a reading in San Mateo (CA) on February 8, 2009, the London-based poet Ziba Karbassi—who has been touring California—mesmerized the audience with the depth of her understanding of poetry in general and what she refers to as the poetry of gasp in particular.

At the same time, the unsurpassed beauty of her words and the provocative and at times offensive language she is recognized for was enough to make the seemingly older and more conservative Iranian audience much nervous and the mood of the reading hall a bit tense. However, her deliverance of her own poetry sprinkled with bouts of anger at the Islamic regime of Iran on one hand and her flirtatious and sensual reading of her love poems on the other left the crowd in much admiration and respect for the young poet.

The 33-year-old poet categorizes the Persian poet Rumi as the poet of exhale while in her opinion, Rumi’s guru—Shams—is a poet of inhale as Hafiz and Khayyam are; with the same conviction, she labels herself as a poet of both conditions—inhale and exhale. A poet, she believes, is the hunter of the moments of suffocation in whose poetry all the living creatures and lifeless things are in constant love making. The poem is the result of a state of restlessness in the poet’s soul which is usually marked by heavy breathings and severe panting before and after the birth of a poem. It is in the poetry of gasp, Karbassi suggests, that we encounter eroticism in language.


Indeed
By: Ziba Karbassi
Translated from Persian by Shirindokht Nourmanesh

And you—the innocent, virtuous, and chaste ladies
with your bent necks
and your effeminate walk
with your precious thousand-year chokers of stillness,
you are indeed right,
I am a whore.
And certainly this sun too
is peeking out from underneath your skirts
here
on my paper.

© 2009

Educated without a background of reading

During an Q & A session after my talk at Butler University a month ago, I was asked to give sort of an "advise" to young American girls. My first (internal, of course) reaction was: goodness gracious who am I to give anyone any word of wisdom? Honestly, I wanted to scream and run away. I wished to say I'm just a writer; please please let me go home.

Indeed I didn't run away and didn't cry. I stood there and to sets of inquiring eyes earnestly gazing at me waiting to hear the wisest thing they've ever heard in their lives, I mumbled that girls need to read and they need to read a lot. Accordingly, I launched into explaining what I meant, which, considering the fact that I'm a much better writer than I am a speaker, I'm sure did not come out as grand as I intended it to be. At any rate, they got my point or at least I think they got my point.

Well, the past is in the past and one shouldn't be dwelling in it. However, what triggered me to write this short note is that I just read one of Doris Lessing's articles in her wonderful book Time Bites in which she argues that the all-encompassing body of knowledge people used to enjoy in the old days does not exist anymore--i.e. the one that was rightfully sprinkled with not only mathematics and religion but with arts and language and law and so many other good and favorable subjects. "This kind of education," she argues "the humanist education, is vanishing." She claims that one educated person had to feel at ease and very close to another educated person from another part of the world because they "shared a culture, could refer to the same books, plays, poems, pictures, in a web of reference and information that was like a shared history of the best the human mind has thought, said, written." [p. 69]

Lessing elaborately says what I tried to explain on that cold day in Indianapolis. "To call oneself educated" she continues further down on the same page, "without a background of reading--impossible."

I feel like shaking my finger in front of every young girl's face who passes me by and say: see, you need to read. You need to pick up books wherever you go. You must leave copies of books in different places of your residence, one two three or more next to your bed, one two three or more in the bathroom (yes, right next to the toilet bowl), even more copies in the kitchen. It doesn't even hurt to have a number of books in your car; they will definitely come handy during rush hour traffic.

It is always a pleasure to read especially if it has to do the old fashioned way; to have a hard copy in your hands, to feel the page, the paper, the black of the ink on the white of the paper, the sudden unexpected cutting of the skin on the edge of the page, that burning--the burning sensation of knowledge--formed in sweat in blood, if I may in some parts of the world, of writers.

My poems at The Other Voices International

I was asked to share a number of poems with the Other Voices International Project, a cyber-anthology of poetry. Participation in this anthology is by invitation only. If interested, you may find my poems here.

I would very much appreciate your comments, and do hope you enjoy. :-))

Still trapped in a world characterized by gender inequality, the 19th century women began to realize that their assigned roles as domestic caregivers and partners were at odds with the societal transformations resulted by the advent of industrialization and urbanization. With a new and developed consciousness, the 19th century female writers and artists started to question and analyze the society’s expectations of women, attracting attentions to their own issues. In works of writers such as Charlotte Bronte, a female character like Jane Eyre retains her selfhood till the end of the story when her lover’s gaze is damaged by blindness—i.e. an unthreatening male gaze. The Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt presents her female characters completely covered and involved in active roles; these characters are neither presented for male audience’s pleasure nor they are objects of the male gaze.

At the same time, on the other side of the world in my birthplace Iran, a literary and mystic giant Fatemeh Baragani, better known as Tahireh Qurratul-Ayn emerged to change the course of women’s lives in Iran. Poet, scholar and the first women’s rights martyr in the world, she received religious training in her father’s court, and became a master of Persian language and religious studies. She left her husband and children very early on to become one of the top leaders of the religious Babi movement. She constantly engaged herself in private meetings or in public debates disputing the teachings of different sects of Islam, and often lectured in favor of women’s emancipation: “I was born to serve / the New Teacher” she announces in one of her poems, “and show my sisters / that we are equal.”

Twelve centuries after the advent of Islam, she became the first Muslim woman to expose her hair and body in a public gathering in Badasht, Iran. Her action was considered so overwhelmingly disgraceful that a man present at the meeting killed himself right then and there so not to witness such promiscuity and transgression against God. Such courageous act resulted in a decree by Nasseredin Shah (of Qajar Dynasty) sentencing her to death on August 15, 1853. She was later on murdered by a posse of men led by her husband, and her body was thrown into a well in an unknown location.

Her poems reflect her passion, depth of knowledge and her mastery of different forms of Persian poetry. Her words still resonate in Iran and have become the most important and all-encompassing slogan of Iranian women’s rights movement as their voice becomes louder: “You can kill me,” she wrote “but you cannot stop the emancipation of women.”

Women without Men, a novella to read

An ambitious and daring account of Iranian women’s lives in Iran, Women without Men is a modern tale of five women rising against social norms and traditions—reinventing themselves, giving their existence a voice, and coming in terms with their bodies. In a country that women are deprived of legal equal standing with men and that their sexuality is under constant attack from the society, Parsipur’s novella takes us into the lives of five women with different backgrounds and upbringings, presenting to us their struggle to free themselves not only from the patriarchal society but from misogynistic thoughts and judgments that shape their understanding of their own bodies.

To Shahrnush Parsipur, existence does not mean living or breathing; it is becoming and constant changing. It is a graceful metamorphosis. If a woman claims to be alive, she needs to go through this process of metamorphoses and transformation; otherwise she is dead. It is the woman’s responsibility, in Parsipur’s world, to move up and forward. The future is now and in it there is no room for inconsiderate, selfish, misogynistic men or even thoughts and systems of beliefs. By empowering woman and believing in her abilities to rise, change, and shine, Parsipur puts her in an equal standing with men, capable of revolt, competent in sharpening her senses, able to shape her life as she wishes and certainly gifted enough to write her own story.

Women Are Overtaking Men in the U.S.

I came across the following article and thought you might find it interesting.

Women Are Overtaking Men in the U.S.

An empowering ad--[for a change!] :-))

Myth & Misogyny

If an inquiry is made into the history and thus the ideology of rape, it becomes obvious that the Renaissance is an ideal period to both re-present medieval and classical assumptions of rape and also to lay the foundation for what we recognize as rape. At that time, as it is unfortunately the case today in most parts of the world, the heart of the matter was the concept of consent. Reluctance to acknowledge the actuality and truth of rape has always been noticeable in our law, culture, and language which in return become ways of the comic representation of the woman who says no and in reality means yes. We discover that rape is rationalized and politicized and even becomes a metaphor—i.e. it is transformed into an occasion for the conflict between men and for benefiting their honor.

The history of rape tells us that the medieval law recognized the offense primarily as a signifier in the power relations among men. The act of rape was seen as a crime against property, and the law pertaining to it was constructed around the protection of male property in the form of their movable goods, their wives and daughters, their inheritances, their future heirs. For instance, the myth of Lucrece treats the rape as both a rivalry between men and as a crime of property. What is of concern is the power struggle between men emphasizing on male honor and male relations, more than it is concerned with the personal injury afflicted on Lucrece.

To be by herself and in her private, away from much contact with the public, is what defines Lucretia as a chaste woman. Lucrece obviously is a victim of a society that defines her existence in her chastity and in her relationship to the men (father, brother, husband, son) in her life.

In the myth, she sees her body after the rape as tainted and unclean; hence, she resolves to kill herself in order to remove the whole contaminated mind and body.

Lucrece’s confusion and her internal chaos eventually lead to action. She dissolves the shame afflicted on her, puts a stop to any possibility of carrying an offspring, and takes control of her own body. By committing suicide Lucrece frees herself from the possession of her father and husband, the spell of the rapist, and the laws of the land; she becomes un-punishable. After death, she is then beyond the reach of anyone.

On the other hand, the act of rape becomes a threat to woman’s identity. Under the light of rape, it is possible to see Lucrece’s suicide as another misogynistic act. By committing suicide Lucrece prescribes to masculine violence and therefore loses her own identity and becomes another person—one who subscribes to violent behavior. Renaissance ideology definitely governs how Lucrece sees herself.

Afterword: It is also possible to suggest (as it is seen in Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece) that although her action is a repetition of the rapist’s violence, the fact that she deliberately not only kills herself but does it in daylight and in front of an audience makes her act a freeing act and portrays her as a free agent of her will: bringing the private to the public.

What's an artist to do?

The surveyor in me is on her way to acquire a female gaze

In May of 2009 I decided that it was time for me to turn my gaze inside and stop looking at myself from a male-oriented perspective; so I did what I have always wanted to do and that is letting my natural gray hair shine like a beacon of age and experience at the top of my head. Despite my incessant efforts throughout my life to stand up to culturally accepted norms, the surveyor inside me—I am sorry to confess—had been and had acted (on occasions) as a male. “Men look at women.” John Berger suggests, [and] “women watch themselves being looked at. […] The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object—and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.” [Ways of Seeing. BBC & Penguin Books, 1972]

Throughout years, I have learned and realized that in order for me to have the male dominated society to treat me the way I want to—not as “an object of vision: a sight”— I have to take on an active role and consciously define what can and cannot be done to me. True. I sometimes slipped from the path, but everybody makes mistakes. Nevertheless, during the process, I have shed many of my acquired male-oriented perspectives and started afresh with a new understanding and gaze at myself and my surrounding.

My decision to turn gray has so far received rave reviews, if you will, from women and has been seen as a courageous act. At times women have confessed that they see me as a brave woman. Although I can understand the appeal the act has generated in these women, courageous or not I do see it as yet another step in my ever-continuous endeavor to define my being the way I want to not the way others want me to be “represented”.

Now, having said that, let us for a second imagine me as an object—a woman to be looked at and to be desired by a presumed audience, i.e. heterosexual men. Contrary to the positive response I have been receiving from other women, the men now receive me in a totally different way. Now I am for most part invisible. Their gaze does not stay on me as it used to, and if it does, it flies away in disarray at the moment it meets my gaze—as if threatened, at times suspicious. This of course is not true about all men. My dad thinks I look very trendy and the man I used to date (now a friend) loves my new me.

At the same time, the gray has brought about a certain kind of respect, and I have noticed that most people—men or women—address me as “ma’am” while just four months ago I was referred to as “Ms.”

To gather up my thoughts, if it is true that every one of my actions is also read as an indication of how I would like to be treated, then I have to say I have been enjoying the way I am being seen and treated now. Honestly, I am not sorry to see that men and women who possess a male surveyor inside keep their distance and consciously create a vast space between us obviously trying to stay on the safe side, making it much easier on me.

Now that my social presence has changed, I would like to have around me women and men who have shed their so-called male gaze (gray hair is NOT a requirement,) and have stopped surveying others as objects, or have stopped surveying completely.