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Some feedback from my sister

Published Sunday, April 24, 2005 by Angelo Embuldeniya | E-mail this blog post

Well i guess this might come as a surprise to some of you, I rarely blog about my sister or family for that matter, but today, after a very long time i found this email from her giving me some feedback about my blog, and i thought it would be nice to share it with u all. My sis is 5 yrs older than me, currently in the US doing her PhD and another one of the interesting species from Oxford University.

Basically i copied and pasted from the email she sent me, it just too good to waste it by leaving it sit in my inbox for months to come, so why not blog it, anyways here it is:

Some feedback about the blog:

Just a note about the “Fine Nude Art Photographed by Tommy Edwards (link at the bottom of your website) - I am perfectly okay with nudity if it can somehow be theorised as a form of art or social critique, but in the photos of Edward's site, I notice that the photos predominantly depict women, which I personally find offensive, as it just propagates the idea that the feminine body is an object to be stared at and objectified. Just thought I'd pass that on to you - if this photographer photographed equal numbers of male nudes as well, this perhaps would not have been as big an issue, even though it still might have been problematic as such depictions of women have a long history of demeaning associations which depictions of men do not. Also, I would have like to see more of a critical commentary on why he consideres these photographs art and not pornography (As I don't buy the line that all porn is art).

Also, I thought the reference to "chicks in hijabs" and "the husband's supposed to be giving out half of what he ears to the chick!..". ( Dec 27, 2004) terrible offensive. Please do not call any woman a chick - its morally degrading and if the course you did on womens studies did not get these issues through to you by introducing you to the ways in which language can be used to exercise power over people, it certainly didn't do a good job.

Also, in response to this:

"I'm being honest here when i say "I AGREE WITH Bahrania". Actually, i'm totally attracted to those who wear hijabs - no, it doesn't mean i'm not to others who do not, however, the hijab or whoever's wearing the head scarf - kinda' gves off a mysterious feeling - something i enjoy very much."

I know you don't realise the damage your attitudes cause - what this is is an example of men turning women (often women who are seen as "exotic/ different/ mysterious" into an object that is to be looked at as an object. There has been work done on this often in terms of white males who want to go out with Chinese and other Asian women because like you, they see them as "mysterious" etc. This emphasises certain aspects of the woman which are really created by the man's fantasy and silences the rest of herself which is non-mysterious/ exotic, etc. So its really an act of violence that is performed on her, as she is turned into an exotic object and is not accepted in her totality.

This is meant to be constructive criticism - I really wish you could be in one of the classes I teach - my own students who are your age are grappling with all these issues at the moment. I've attached an article that I thought you might find interesting - it doesn't deal directly with the problem of fetishisation but it does talk about language and the manipulation of power by phone sex workers. Let me know if you need help understanding any part of it, its really easy to read compared to most things, but you might have to go a bit slow if it gets theoretical in places.

2 Responses to “Some feedback from my sister”

SillyBahrainiGirl on 6:52 PM, April 26, 2005

Will you register your blog with the Ministry of Information of the Government of the Holy Kingdom of Bahrain ?
Angelo Embuldeniya (Strav) on 11:57 PM, April 27, 2005

Of course not! I'd rather move up to the North pole with you :D

but seriously, i wouldn't even if it was for all the dinars/dollars they'd pay me to! (or maybe, i'll take their money and still not register my websites/blogs :-D)

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