Friday
January 19, 2001
Feminism for dummies
Like many readers of The Iranian I have been a witness to the
controversy that started from a simple black and white picture posted in
this webzine and rose to unexpected (or maybe quite expected) heights.
I haven't got a chance to read every single one of the letters exchanged,
and the ones I have "read" I have only looked through. Some
of the remarks made by the writers of the letters were so amusing and made
me laugh ghah-ghah, and some were somewhat depressing or made me noch-noch
or let out sighs!
But all the ones I saw were written passionately, and especially after
reading one of the rather passionate ones, an idea hit me which I thought
I would share with other readers of The Iranian. The idea is roughly
as follows: writing a book about feminism for Iranian men and thus putting
an end to the Daryl-Maryam
saga and similar stories once and for all. This could make a really nice
project, even perhaps some sort of dissertation!
The title I would certainly choose for this book would be "Feminism
for Dummies" and hereunder is how the table of contents of this book
could look like:
-Preface
-Acknowledgments [Don't forget to mention my name in the acknowledgments!]
-Introduction
-Definition of Feminism [This would be quite necessary, since most of
us, Iranian men, have no clue whatsoever what this word means.]
-A brief history of feminism movement and how it made Americans a happy
nation
-Feminism's achievements: pluses and minuses
-What great feminists of the 20th century have said about cooking, cleaning,
ironing, and other house chores. [Although one quotation at the beginning
of each chapter would probably be more than enough.]
-Successful feminists' view about bearing, tending, and raising children
-Why Gloria Steinem succumbed to "the institution" [This chapter
may start with her famous quote about fish needing bicycle, or maybe the
whole book should start with this timeless no-brainer.]
-A Persian version of feminism specifically designed and developed for
the Iranian community and logically derived from a Zoroastrian motto
-Why traditional subservient women do not make good wives and mothers
and how a girlfriend can be transformed to a wife in three easy steps
-The ideology of virginity [whatever it means] and the taboo of promiscuity
and how to get over them overnight
-Definition of love and how a real feminist follows your heart everywhere:
marriage, then divorce, then marriage, ad infinitum
-A solution to the Madonna/Whore complex, an awfully prevalent disease:
a challenge facing modern Iranian man
-Examining a whole spectrum of parameters shaping the fate of women
all over the world, from ugliness to higher education
-How wearing hijab betrays the feminist ideal of equality of the sexes
-How Iranian fathers, brothers, and husbands can help make the feminist
movement's progress smoother
-Conclusion
-Index
I leave it to the creativity of the lady who is going to take up this
much needed task to come up with new items, as the above list is a random
one that was jotted down while I was sipping hot tea in a noisy coffee
shop.
I also strongly recommend her to take some tranquilizer pills before
rolling up her sleeves (in case she wears anything with sleeves) before
starting to write each chapter.
Ataollah Togha
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