To Hip or Not to Hip?

The Washington Post printed an article entitled, “Black women heavier and happier with their bodies than white women, poll finds” on Monday, February 27. In it, it provides the following information:  “The poll found that although black women are heavier than their white counterparts, they report having appreciably higher levels of self-esteem. Although 41 percent of average-sized or thin white women report having high self-esteem, that figure was 66 percent among black women considered by government standards to be overweight or obese.” I have had many African-American friends over the years (and still do), and I can say from my personal experiences with them and our random discussions about our bodies, with comments here and there about things we like or dislike, that the poll does have some truth in it. It seems that black women do embrace their bodies, they take it as is, and actually like the curvy nuances and accentuations that come naturally. By naturally, I mean body parts that are not honed to angular perfection and interminably smaller and smaller proportions. As a certified gym rat, I have seen and worked out with many black women, and have inferred from either observation or from conversation, that the workout serves a few purposes: 1) for a healthy lifestyle, 2) for pleasure and stress release, and 3) to maintain but not change that healthy curve of the hips and backside. A few times, I have caught myself looking down over my shoulder to note my not-so-curvy backside and boy-figure hips, thinking ironically how I often put myself in a psychological conundrum: To hip or not to hip?

On one side, beautifully curvy women, such as Selma Hayek, Queen Latifah, and yes, Kim Kardashian are praised for just that—they look womanly, and carry those curves so well. But then you flip the page in the magazine, and you see Heidi Klum or Angelina Jolie looking impeccably thin and well contained…and you may think to yourself, “Well, she’s beautiful too! Which do I like? And which one can I try to mold my body to be like?” I cannot make a blanket statement, because perhaps not all women look at their bodies with a critical angle, or sigh heavily while saying or thinking, “I need to work on my…” Or think to themselves after an indulgent meal, “Tomorrow…diet!!!” I can say that I have said it. I have thought it.

I have had conversations with not only women, but also with men, and men and women together about bodies, body types, and what women like versus men. One of the points that come up often is that women do not dress or try to look good for men, but for other women. Other women notice a curvy bulge of a women’s stomach over her skinny jeans, or a butt that looks like it belongs in anything but skinny jeans. And women also notice when a woman that can pull off those super tight leggings and a tight tank top (as opposed to the flowy top that can disguise a week of bad eating, a very common pairing with the leggings, just an FYI). Just like we notice the girl with the LV bag who just walked in, or notice the Burberry collar of her jacket as she swings it over the back of the chair. Men, on the other hand, just notice if the woman looks good, and looks good to whatever standard that personally appeals to them. They want a woman to look feminine—to look like a woman. If this means to them hips or no hips, so be it.  Again, this is just what I’ve inferred from my friends over the years.

But my point isn’t just to call attention to that social paradox presented daily to all women. But the study got me thinking: Why do some cultures embrace curvaceous-ness and others not? In Middle-Eastern cultures, historically, the curvy woman represented a healthy, well taken care of body that is feminine and sexy. One summer when I went to visit family in Syria, with my calves strong from running and my arms purposefully toned, I was constantly having food shoved in my face by smiling, encouraging family members who couldn’t imagine that I wanted my body to hard as opposed to soft and inviting. I remember before my wedding, one of my aunts from overseas was visiting, and when I was getting my makeup done, I heard her ask aloud to whomever was there, “Her legs have muscle, does she want them like that?”

If there weren’t gyms on every corner serving as constant reminders of what we should be doing at the crack of dawn before work, on our lunch break, or after work, would we still instinctively feel the need to train our bodies? What if the back of our pants didn’t have a number indicating the size, would we care what size we really are? If there was no number system within which we fall into, where there is always a number lower (and lighter) and a number higher (and heavier), would we have that piece of cake when the craving strikes, and would we still have the urge to go on a morning run just because it feels good?

Definitely some food for thought…

Does the poll ring true? Please, I’d love to read your comments!

A Call to (Email) Arms!!

In light of what I expressed in my first blog about daytime television's apparent passive-aggressive boycott of all things Ramadan, I am now looking to all of my readers to help me out. About two weeks ago, my husband and I were at our friend's house one evening, and we were talking about my first blog and the overall frustration we feel about the issue. The idea came up to get everyone and anyone to email Martha Stewart and inundate her mailbox with Ramadan emails. Despite my annoyance at not causing any notice over in Marthaland with my steady emails, I'll admit that it's very possible mine were lost amongst the multitude. Maybe one or two snarky assistants didn't like my tone and deleted them, but I think it's more likely they were never read in the first place. 

So I look to all of you who may read this blog to do me and my fellow Muslims a favor (and all the non-Muslims who will benefit from the show :)). This is a Call  to Arms to all my media warriors! Let's come together! This is the game plan:

Below is a short email written to Martha Stewart, asking her to give Ramadan a go on her show. Just cut and paste the whole thing in an email and send it off to emailmartha@marthastewart.com, with my email as the contact info. A couple emails can be ignored, but surely not hundreds, right?! We have to keep in mind that this year, Ramadan will begin in midsummer, sometime in July. During the summer,  no new shows are taped...so we therefore have to try to get the show on the air either before her season ends this year, or right at the beginning of the new season in the fall. That is why we have to start immediately!

Let the emailing frenzy begin! We can make this happen, but I need all of your help to do it! To anyone who reads this, regardless of what your ethnicity, race, or religion, please take part in this campaign to get Ramadan on daytime TV. Can I get an "Amen!"? :)

Thank you to everyone who participates! Good luck!

P.S. You will most likely receive an automatic reply email from the production staff at Martha Stewart. Hopefully one of those producers will take note and actually read our emails!

_____________________

Dear Martha,

I am writing to hopefully convince you to do a show on Ramadan. For all Muslims who participate in the month of fasting, it is a month of spirituality, steadfastness, dedication, unity, community and worship. It is also a month rich with delicious and unique foods, made for their nourishing, comforting qualities. So many shows on daytime TV have done whole shows or segments on various other religious holidays. Easter, Christmas, Lent, Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, Chinese New Year, and Kwanza have all had their chance to be highlighted and honored on your show...all except Ramadan. Ramadan is a month that affects the large population of Muslims living in the United States (not to mention globally), and I think they would all take pride in having you dedicate a segment or a show to the foods, traditions, and culture behind such a wonderful, spiritual month. I am sure not many of your viewers know much, if anything, about Ramadan. Please help myself and many others, and be the first to provide a venue with which to begin showing your viewers a very peaceful, beautiful aspect of the Muslim culture that perhaps as never been shown before on television. 

Please contact correspondence at: mssmais2@gmail.com.

Thank you so much!

Most sincerely,

Your Loyal Viewer

A few pics from Ramadan dinner at my house in 2010. There was more food in the kitchen! :)

 A closer view...

Something to talk about...

So obviously my first blog was inspired by something i am very passionate about. I feel infinitely motivated to seeing my dream of equality within the realm of day time TV come to fruition. I sometimes fall asleep with the chant, "Ramadan on Martha!" over and over in my head. With your help, my chances are even greater.

But that's not to say that my blog posts will be solely religious, political, or a combination of both (it's often hard to separate both sects of discourse). Instead, what i offer at Mssmais place is a little of everything. Many times I hear from my friends after I've regaled a story that I should write all my anecdotes down--stuff that I experience is often so unique, outrageous, hilarious, wacky, and sometimes just plain odd, that I'm told one could not "make that s*** up." The expression on my husbands face while I'm telling him about my day is often one of amusement and a hint of disbelief, and is usually followed by a shaking of his head, while muttering the words "crazy baby.." Then when my typical annoyance, frustration, anger, and whatever cocktail of all three, dissipates after my divulgence to his nonjudgmental ears, we usually laugh hysterically. 

So here, at Mssmais place, I thought I could share these stories with you as they come up. And maybe a few recipes that (ladies, listen up!) will guarantee that the trash is taken out without the second, or third, or fourth, request. Maybe even without a single request. They're that good. 

I hope you'll keep visiting me here, and that you'll find yourself chuckling as you read. I also hope I'll inspire you to think out loud and to act out loud. If something I write agrees with you, join me in saying so. If not, by all means, I want to hear it too. 

So, in short, expect the unexpected at Mssmais place! 

Let me begin with a story about something that came up this weekend. I love every opportunity to share my culture with anyone and everyone who is curious and willing to learn something new. Having just moved to a new city about 6 months ago, I have been lucky to meet some really nice people, and I have made great new friendships with some amazing women. I came up with the idea to host what I called a belly dance party, but to be even more specific, it'll hopefully be a cultural night full of Arabic music, some dance, and some Arabic food. I thought it would be a great way to introduce aspects of my culture that are not typically advertised in our media culture here in the US. Believe it or not, Arab families are not all concocting the next jihadist movement, or planning how to overtake the US government with sharia law (that'll be a topic for another blog!), but actually enjoy life with good food, good music, and great friends. My wonderful friends of course are open and excited for the girls night at my house. 

Well, I brought this up to a friend of mine over the weekend. She lives in New York, and is herself an amazing hostess. Her parties are legendary, everyone looks forward to her parties because she cooks incredible Arabic food, has a beautiful, spacious home, and is a funny, attentive, and generous hostess. I brought up my party idea to her excitedly, thinking she'd love the idea of me introducing my culture to my friends. 

Instead, to my surprise, she was 100% against it. She said that because belly dance has a stigma of bearing a likeness to stripping, and is associated with loose, promiscuous women, to host such a party in my home where I'm introducing and participating in such dance is unacceptable for an educated, successful modern woman.  My friend went on to say that she would never host such a party in her home.

Ouch.

But I didn't understand, and I still don't.  Why shy away from a chance to show my friends what Arabs do when we get together and have fun? We sing and dance, eat and laugh...they are just as much my friends as my Arab friends, so why not share the same with them? Help them get to know me better? The way I see it, if I can do my duty as an Arab-American and help dispel some of the misconceptions people may have about our culture, then I'll do it whole heartedly. And to do it in a way that's fun and entertaining...tell me, what is wrong with that? 

Maybe because my New York friend was born and raised in a middle eastern country, and only what we here would call a "fallen" woman would become a belly dancer, that her opinion of my party idea was uncomfortable and in bad taste. One has to keep in mind that in middle eastern countries, the majority religion is Islam. With that comes the social modesty of women that our religion embraces. Belly dancing can often be viewed as disrespectful to the values Islam projects. A performance belly dancer stands at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum from a woman who wears hijab (head scarf). While a belly dancer wants to entice male temptation, a woman who wears hijab wants to protect herself from it. I can understand my friend's opinion from that standpoint. After all, perhaps most people think of as "belly dancing" is of a scantily clad voluptuous woman, wearing nothing more than a bejeweled bra and minimal skirt with long slits all the way her thighs to her hips...long, wonton hair, who is twirling her hips and wrists (holding mini-cymbals) while rolling her belly, shaking her breasts and hips like Shakira, and who has in mind to elicit the desire of every male in the room. 

Ok. Well, there are those belly dancers, of course...those that come sauntering around to "oriental" music in the occasional hooka bar or an middle eastern restaurant that caters to mostly non-Arabs, in effort to draw in people to watch and then hopefully, eat. It can be fun, if not ridiculous, particularly when she walks over to a red-faced, unassuming man and wraps one of her scarves around his neck, drawing him up out of his chair and forcing him to clap and twirl his wrists, to "dance" to that, again, "oriental" music. Those of you who have been there, can picture what I'm describing. Maybe those of you who haven't, may now want to go. 

But from this I must clarify. Belly dance, such as I've described above, is performance belly dance. Women who can do amazingly complicated motions with their bodies, while making it look fun and effortless, are trained. It is a trained art. Much as tap dancers, salsa dancers, tango dancers, etc., train and practice, as do belly dancers.  

But back in Syria, Lebanon, or Jordan, when people go out to a arabic music dance party or attend a pop Arab singer's concert, are the women wearing belly dance outfits? Nope. Are they moving their hips seductively, while simultaneously  reaching back in a sensuous back bend and twirling her wrists? Nope. But while we do move our hips and shake with the music, it's not done as performance. It's not done with the purpose to elicit the lust and desire of a male audience. It is rather the movement of one enjoying the music and expressing their pleasure in doing so.  The dance moves fit the music. It's different than American song and dance, it uses different muscles, different rhythms, but that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of all dance. It is cultural. 

So back to my original issue: is hosting my cultural night a potentially scandalous affair, where I'll be propagating the stigma belly dance has, or will I be doing our culture a service by showing  my friends something they've never experienced before, or that they have a mysterious misconception about? And if I had referred to it as "arabic dancing" rather than "belly dancing," would it have elicited the same response from my friend, and spurred this entire discussion just the same?

If my friends leave my house with a better understanding of who I am, if I break up the fog that clouds over our culture, then in my opinion, it was success. If I can make the Arabic culture less threatening, less intimidating, and more approachable by showing the more fun, happy aspects of it, should I miss the opportunity to do so? 

The Holidays and Daytime TV....Oh Martha, Barbara and Rachael, can you hear me?

Living in the United States as an Arab-American Muslim definitely has its ups and downs, and more often than not, the latter. If I want to go against my usual M.O. and look at the glass half empty, I can find many reasons to feel frustrated, discriminated against, disrespected, and more regularly, misunderstood. The tragedy of September 11 pushed the slow-stepping positive progressions Muslims had made in the United States all the way back to square one. We have had to start over, and unfortunately, we have not had the best success in doing so.

However, putting politics aside and purposefully turning my cheek from the ironically racist comments and anecdotes figures like Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich have shared with the world, my focus here is on a part of American culture that perhaps may be considered “neutral” in the context of religion and politics. But from my perspective, again as a Muslim and Arab-American, that is not always the case. I am talking about daytime television.

During the time I was working on my doctorate, I had some time off work to complete my dissertation. Suddenly finding myself home during the late morning and early afternoon hours, I discovered the world of daytime television. Shows such as The Martha Stewart Show, Rachael Ray, The View, and The Talk suddenly became the voices I’d hear in the background coming from the other room while I worked in my home office. One day while taking a lunch break, I caught an episode of The Martha Stewart show. It was around the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays, and that day Martha had two segments on cooking traditional foods for Hanukkah. The following segments on the show were on Jewish traditions, such as the significance of the menorah and the eight days of celebration. Interesting show, the food looked delicious, and I actually learned a few things. Then a few days later, she had a show on, of course, Christmas recipes, as well as decorating tips, entertaining tips, etc. Some days later, I caught another daytime show that did a cooking segment on Kwanzaa. Something dawned on me. Holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, and later in the new year Easter as well, hold major significance to Americans including Jewish-Americans and African-Americans, and any other race and culture that belongs to that religion. But, what about Muslims and Ramadan? Muslims living in the United States endure a month of fasting, from sunrise to sunset (FYI: no water, no gum, no breath mints, no sex), and the entire month is filled with not only beautiful traditions of prayer, and personal and communal spiritualism, but also absolutely delicious food. From all of these cooking segments I was seeing on TV, not one was done on Ramadan and the month of fasting. Unlike the other holidays getting airtime with Martha and Barbara Walters, Ramadan lasts an entire month—not just one special eve and day, not 8 days, but an entire 30 days.

So my radar as been up, and my DVR got the most exercise ever recording these shows as part of my “research.” Just the other day, I saw 2 different shows on Chinese New Year. In the past 6 months, I have written steadfastly to Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, and more recently with the new show The Chew, I have written to Mario Batali, Daphne Oz, and Clinton Kelly. I’ve stalked them on facebook with hopeful comments, little “heads up”…”Hey Mario, just wanted to let you know I sent you an email for a show idea. Please check!” But unfortunately, all to no avail.

My point is this: Muslims are in the United States, and we are not going anywhere. With it, we bring our culture and our traditions. We bring our religion. We bring our customs, our food, and of course, we have a passion to share it. Unfortunately, as daytime television has shown me over the last year, we have no one to share it with.

Isn’t anyone interested to know what one eats after a day of fasting from daybreak to sunset? If so, please speak up and give a shout out to Martha. Or Barbara. Hell, even Miss Rach.