Muslim Women In War And Crisis : Representation and Reality

The following text 'Muslim Women In War And Crisis' is written by Lina Abirafeh and edited by Faegheh Shirazi . In the following text writer talks about women's rights in Afghanistan . 

She starts her talk with describing the gender politics in Afghanistan . She explains in the 19th century there had been an attempt of emanipation of women in Afghanistan . She also describes the relation between modernization and conservative black lash .

She then focuses on the post war period where aid agencies tried to save the afghan women . They also designed aid programs which have been unable to integrate women . Because  Afghan women were potrayed as weak women who need help from something because they cannot do it themselves . 

Then the writer also talks about the interview she had with the afghan women in the rural area where all of them were the participants of the aid program . She began her research by analyzing the identity to challenge the assumptions the gender , as self identity was the most important for analizing Afghan women . She asked them certain questions to get a better understanding of how Afghans themselves value certain aspects of their identities . The main objective of this interview was to demonstrate that does the aid programming artificial divisions based on sex may not be valid for some participants . Then she also talks about the worlds view about the afghan women is like slaves of men and prisoners in home . The meaning of women in Afghanistan has come to be "being deprived of all kinds of rights " Afghan women are synonymous with guilt and shame . Women in Afghanistan must give positions to themselves and have to struggle for there own rights in the society . She says that women are not allowed to educate because men are afraid to loose their importance as the 'man , important person of the house ' . 

Most important is what she writes about awareness that women suffer because they are not able to see the world from their eyes instead they are forced to do the things always told by others that has made them to suffer them alot . 

The Ephemera Of Eternity : The Irish Catholic Memorial Card As Material Culture

The following text 'The Ephemera Of Eternity : The Irish Catholic Memorial Card As Material culture is written by 'Mary Ann Bolger' . Mary Ann Bolger is a lecturer in Design History and Theory at Dublin Institute of Technology . She is a graduate of joint MA in history of design at the royal college of art and the Victoria and Albert Museum , London . 

She starts her text with describing the Irish Culture describing the relationship between the Irish culture to death . But the majority of this text focuses on the political uses of death and the funeral and on the folk tradition of the wake . She then focuses on the design of the memorial card , it is a mass produced object intimately associated with Irish catholic mourning . It has become throughout the twentieth century though largely undocumented , aspect of Irish Catholic funeral practice . A memorial card is a single or bi-folded card about two inches by four , with a holy picture on the obverse , typically an image of a christ , the virgin or a saint , sometimes reproductions of famous often counter-reformation , art works . O n the reverse sides one finds the name , date of death and address of the deceased and few short prayers .

A brief history of memorial cards : 

Memorial cards have only been a part of Irish Catholic Funeral practice since the 1870s , but the use of printed obituary cards in a catholic context seems to date to the first half of the seventeenth century . It was in the first decade that advertisements for catholic memorial cards first appeared in Ireland , during what the historian Emmet Larkin termed the devotional revolution . 

Evidence of the surviving cards appears that the repositiories supplied lithographed french and german holy cards with reverse either left blank or stereotyped with standard prayers to the Irish print trade . The modernisation of Irish Culture ,devotional revolution was a part of moderm form of production . Certainly the religious goods depots provided an economical way for Irish printers to produce high quality illustrated cards . 

Nowadays the trend is changing they mostly use photos of people rather than the potraits which represents the identity of the following family . The development of these memorial cards can be seen stylish and continuous as we can see earlier portraits were used but in todays world they use photos which is influenced by the printing techniques and styles . But at the end i like the tradition of the Catholic Ireland of the memorial cards but i think nowadays it is getting more modernised and commercial . 

Hair Styling , Culture , and fashion

The following text Hair Styling , Culture , and Fashion is written by Eiluned Edwards and is edited by Geraldine Biddle-Perry and Sarah Cheang . Eiluned Edwards is a reader in global cultures of textiles and dress at Nottingham Trent University . In the following text Edwards how purity and pollution are the key concepts in the orthodox Hindu Schema and also in the history , myths and devotional practices that surround hair in India . She says idea of ritual purity and pollution are exemplified in the social and religious hierarchy of caste which offers a unique insight into the function of barbers many of whom are ritual specialist . Edwards also talks about large number of people donating hair as ritual customs which are later used for making hair extensions . 

Then edwards talks about the relation between myth and social customs in India . Many customs are evolved directly from myths and stories found in each state . Hair removal as prevention or cure is prevalent in different forms throughout India and the barber who caries out this task is versed in a ritual practice . Then she also mentions about a Indian widow dressed in a plain white sari with her hair shaven and with absence of ornaments . 

Hair is a rich source of myth in India where each state and religion has its own stories . And hair plays an important role in Hindu Mythology Mahabharata where draupadi was forcely brought to thr court and she was seen in a single piece of cloth with her hair loose after taking a bath because she was in a menstruating cycle which indicates that a women in her menstruating cycle wasnt allowed to take a bath over head . This myth conveys hindu notion of purity and pollution and uses the medium of hair to convey violation . Edwards also talks about goddess Kali of west bengal how terrifying she is in her dishevelled hair indicating a female shakti . Hair tonsuring is thus carried out at religious sites throughout India but it has reached at industrial scale at the temple of lord Venkateshwara  at Tirumala where thousands of devotees donate hair to the god . But much of this donated hair is exported to Europe and United States where it is transformed into extensions for the stars of fashion , music and film industry which i dont think is the right purpose of it . 

My Body Is My Manifesto : SlutWalk , Femen and Femenist Protest .

The author of the following text 'My Body Is My Manifesto : SlutWalk , Femen and Femenist Protest , is Theresa O Keefe which was published in 2014 . She was a lecturer in sociology department at National university of Ireland Maynooth . Her book Feminist Identity Development and Activism in Revolutionary Movements was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013 . She mainly emphasizes on the uses of intersectional analysis to look at a popular form of womens protest to raise questions . She then mentions about the body protests Slut Walk , and Femen . 

In the following text she talks about where slutwalk took place , and how was it formed . All this started when a police officer told a woman to present in a safety information session at University's Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto by saying that if she wanted to be safe they should avoid dressing like sluts . She also makes a comparison between a Slut Walk and Femen . This article is mainly about her difficulties in analyzing slut walk and femen . Then in her sub heading spectacles of defiance or compliance she first stated the meaning of bodies . Then she questions about how do we build bodies that are inclusive of differing bodies like skiny , fat . ugly etc . On slut Strutting she stated that the slut walk modus operandi is to challenge the world slut and words like sexuality and sexual assault and to correct the world slut to use in a self defining and positive way . 

About Femen its main point was to defend with their breast sexual and social equality of the world and to organize publicity stunts where breast is used to capture the attention of mainstream media .Femen was founded in Kyiv in 2008 by Okasana Shachko Inna Shevchenko , sasha shevchenko and 23 years old economist Anna Hutsol . Femens believe that womens liberation is tied to what they wear . 

I think Theresa has made a great comparison between Slut Walk and Femen . This text is mainly for the ones thinking positively and taking things in a positive manner for what is happening around the world and taking positive steps where needed . 

Changing The World

The text 'Changing The World ' is written by Nicholas Mirzoeff . He is a visual culture theorist and a professor of Media , Culture , and Communication at New York University . He started with the introduction about EZLN(Zapatista Army of National Liberation / Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion National) and its function why the group was formed . The group was mainly formed to create alternatives to globalization for the local maya and other groups , concentrating on civil rather than armed resistance . He also mentions about the financial order broken down due to peoples money was converted to repay international loans by the government . 

In the sub heading of 2011 and after North America : he focused on social media and other forms of communication . FaceBook was used to communicate news and dates for action . Social Media has catalysed the movement in ways that had not been seen before . Then about occupy wall street is about visual activism and visual thinking . A call was launched to 'Occupy Wall Street' by a canadian magazine Adbusters in july 2011 . Later than a Tumblr called 'WeAreThe99%' was created to allow people share their stories and to represent themselves . Tumblr is an easy to use blog site that is really popular among teenagers mow-a-days . Spray here was a social movement about distribution of photographs and video on social media showing police violence . Thousands of people watched video of pepper spraying of three young women by a new york police department apartment officer . 99% Tumblr and the pepper spray video went vital because their audience were adapt at sharing and disseminating media content . Perhaps visual imagination , visual thought ,and visualizing combine to make words that live in and seek change based on Nicholas Mirzoeff to make the world look better .   

In The City Of Bikes : By Pete Jordan

In The City Of Bikes : By Pete Jordan

The two chapters from the book 'In The City Of Bikes: The story of Amsterdam cyclist' is written by the author Pete Jordan and he tells us the story of Amsterdam as the city of bikes and reveals the unknown facts in the history of cycling from 1970s to the modern days .  He starts by describing the city's attraction to which youth from all over the world are getting attracted to it . Freedom , Tolerance , and relaxed atmosphere are the major attractions to which the youth generation is getting attracted to it . 

The first text ' Death To The Car :The 1970s' Pete begins his talks about the period for cycling in Amsterdam in 1971 and the emergence of its first protest movements sparked by conditions for cycling and increase on cars and subsequent pampering of motorized transport . The troublesome amsterdammer founded by 30 year old architect and graphic designer Bierman and 28 year old sociologist Bakker . The main policy of this was directly to taking directly to the streets of bikes to attract peoples attention to the growing numbers of cars .The new movement called De Kabouters (the gnomes) established the 'Car elimination sevice' . This movement was started by Roel van Duijn for ecological transformation of society . This battling with cars started taking more and more people involved in it . Jordan also tells the readers that this activist were sometimes battered by other motorist which in its turn spurred the retailatory acts of newly dubbed 'bike guerilla' came for the first time in the new radical newspaper in 1972 . 

The new pattern of carless lifestyle started its integration into the minds of the dutch people in a hope to assuage fears of total economic collapse the prime minister himself rode a bicycle at his official recidence in front of news and cameras . 

On November 4th , with the advert of 'no bike sunday' Amsterdam started a new chapter in the history . During the oil embargo , bikes sales shoot up . After that we also come to know from the text that many people started reconsidering the role of cars in their lives and amsterdam some also said that bike gave them new dimension to life . There were many bike demonstrations after 1974 where there was a crowd of almost 15000 cyclist which started many changes in amsterdam . 

Pornostyle : Sexualized Dress and the Fracturing of Feminism

The article ' Pornostyle : Sexualized Dress and the Fracturing of Feminism ' is written by ' Pamela church Gibson . She is a reader in cultural and historical studies at the london college of fashion . She talks about the topics such as role of fashion and costume in the movie industry and the relation between film , fashion , fandom and celebrities . She starts the article talking about the new unacknowledged system of design and promotion which was emerged and had its own fashion leaders . The leaders where the young female celebrities and it also had its own magazine , media and internet . The styling of this young women was associated with that of hard-core pornography .

Then in the introductory passage she talks about visual communication and how powerful it is a mean of making subversive social statements and also about 'fashion theory' different subcultures and then comes to the main point . She talks about the new 'system' emerged other than the high fashion and its different agenda and that this system has its own style icons and its own seperate system and circuits of promotion , dissemination and consumption . The intention of this article is to show different cultural trends that yoke together fashion and pornography in various ways like from reality television , celebrity coverage and high ed fashion magazines .It can be seen that now a days many young women dress i a sexy style to emulate particular celebrities these celebrities wear designer clothes and flaunt expensive accessories . Therefore these young celebrities and their followers have created a mode of self presentation which challenges and coexists with what is normally seen as 'fashion' . This new 'system' is not altenative which was applied in the past to the subcultural styles and in particular to the 'hippy' look .

Pamela church Gibson says that the true power of the new highly sexualized image is shown through the way the figures are established in the "fashion pantheon"which have been seduced by the potency,popularity and commercial viability of what has been described feminist academic as 'porn chic' . In this system boundaries are becoming blurred showing its power if leading players within high fashion such as Moss , Testino and Meisel work in this way . A perfect example of this style is the fashion feature 'Retrograde' in the august 2013 issue of British vogue where noticeably curvaceous young model is posed on a double bed in thigh-high laced-up boots , legs spread apart , a shearing coat draped over her naked body , a nipple carefully revealed . This system is constantly supported by celebrities with pornified photoshoots , commercials , films and their public appearance .

Further she also talks about the reality shows like 'The Fashion Police' and 'What Not To Wear' where she got to know that the sexualized look of the celebrity itself is moving across the social boundaries . A ideal curvaceous model is constantly exhibited and promoted . Because of this the beauty industry is on rise .

Pamela also describes 'raunch eroticism' which influences the behavior of young women , she is concerned to protect them from sexual harassment and worse .

An then in the conclusion she says it is impossible to predict how the two systems (fashionable and porno chic) develop in the next decade . She says that the relationship between feminism and fashion has been exacerbated by the new dress codes which she described which are the clearest visual signal .