What I'm best at

Since I didn't post yesterday, I'm just going to have to make up for it today.

The following posting is extracted from my Fashion and Politics class Web site. I know, fashion and politics don't seem like subjects that go together, but I'm learning more and more how fashion is influenced by politics. I wrote this rant about the Beauty School of Kabul, a center that was opened by the Beauty Without Border foundation in the aftermath of 9/11. Basically, stylists from the U.S. would go to Afghanistan with a translator who had escaped the country years back and she would train the women there how to practice beauty application. Interestingly enough, women had been cutting, styling and dying hair and giving makeovers under the Taliban regime to make money and had been earning more money than their husbands. Some women worked in Pakistan for a while and I'm thinking there was a bootleg beauty product trade from Pakistan to Afghanistan. If you find what I'm talking about interesting, you can check out the documentary "The Beauty School of Kabul."

In the U.S., we're always bombarded with discourse about going in and aiding others who are less fortunate than us. I mean, just think of "Idol Gives Back" and the many educating-women-in Africa, Mid East, etc.-centered programs that are always on 20/20 and all the other news magazine shows. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about helping other people; I think as humans we should want to all help each other. However, I've noticed that often this act of kindness is accompanied by an arrogant attitude. And just as often, our kindness is somewhat of a justification, an act of trying to make ourselves feel better, for a problem we created. Like how, as (my professor) Mimi mentioned, we tried to turn the bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq into positive events because we were saving the people of those countries from themselves.

The idea that our society is so equalized that we need to go into other countries and bring them to realize their potential to be like us is preposterous. With the Beauty without Borders mission, the people behind the charity claimed to go into Kabul with the vision of getting women to participate in the economy. On the one hand, the lack of rights for women and the need for empowerment was used as a justification for, as I said earlier, "the War on Terrorism." Additionally, while the people behind the project had good intentions, though slightly misguided at times, their idea of aid basically turned into another case of cultural imperialism. In the film ("Beauty School of Kabul"), we assume that women need to be empowered through the application of proper makeup because the feeling of beauty is transforming. Yet, when the Beauty School of Kabul workers find that the women have Bollywood standards of beauty and have actually been doing their hair and makeup in secret for years under the Taliban (modeled on their favorite South Asian actresses), they are told to conform to Western beauty ideals. This is especially noticeable with the first aid hairdresser, Terri, the one who says she is doing "selfless work" and judges the women as being stuck in time for their perming methods.

I find it interesting that we find our society free of repressions. While women here have a different standard of individual freedom, the people funding the School are the editor of "Vogue," the head of MAC cosmetics, Frederic Fekkai, etc. - all the same people who define what women can and cannot be and what defines beauty in the U.S. So in addition to our arrogance in treaty women in "developing nations" as charity cases, we're also trying to train women to abide by our narrow standards.