Asma II

            One blog post was simply not enough to properly convey all the info I gained from when I interviewed Asma. Asma is the exact opposite of how most Middle Eastern women her age act. My grandmother for example has been asking me and my brothers when we’re going to get married since we were 13 whereas Asma’s been warning us to take very good care of any girls we’re in a relationship with, otherwise she’ll, “box our heads in.”

            She’s extremely pro women and to this day surprises me with how open minded she is. Another of my interview questions was about the difference between the relationship between men and women when she was my age and nowadays. She said, “It’s getting better because women have jobs but I still don’t think we’re equal to men when it comes to income.” Which is extremely similar to Naomi Wolf’s vies in her book, “Women are shown either to receive less than men, or to get nothing at all. That is still true”(49).

            Another question I asked was on the subject of beauty. “What do you think true beauty is?” I asked, to which she responded, “that’s for everyone to decide for themselves.” This quote kind of blew my mind and I have a feeling that Naomi Wolf would agree with Asma because in her book she says, “Why that one?” referring to the vague nature of beauty. She also discusses how the ‘perfect face’ is only ‘the perfect face’ because millions of women are looking at it and the marketing industry itself is calling it ‘the perfect face’ (71).

            Lastly, I asked her about how she was treated in Lebanon as a politically active woman, showing up to the male dominated protests of the time. She responded by talking about how she wasn’t accepted and sometimes even abused just for showing up. Attractive women weren’t supposed to try and be on the same level as men, which echoes the double standard that Naomi wolf talks about in The Beauty Myth when she says, “Women are allowed a mind or a body, but not both” (59).

            I got lucky that I even knew Asma, she was the perfect person to interview on this subject. She has never bought into the beauty myth, and she didn’t need a book to tell her what was wrong with it, all she needed was her life experience. If you ask me that shows me just how false the beauty myth is and how much awareness needs to be spread.