i've just got back from an arab wedding. what an experience! i tell you what, those arabs really know how to party. it was a segregated affair, with the men in a totally separate room. this meant that the headscarves and abayas came off, and underneath were the hottest and most gorgeous gowns you could imagine. and the dancing was pretty hot too!
it's such an amazing contrast. this was the first time i'd seen many of these women without their full islamic clothing. those who i thought were pretty chaste and demure ended up being the best dancers of the lot. if you didn't know it, all (yes, i mean ALL) arab women know how to belly-dance. whether they are from egypt, syria, lebanon, jordan, the emirates or anywhere else in the middle east. even iranian women are great dancers. age is totally not a barrier, with young and old all having a great time.
and i think it only works so well because of the total absence of males. it means that all the women can relax and not be self-conscious. and the best thing is that these women are all having a wonderful time with having had a drop of alcohol or any other mind-altering substance.
helen clark has given some great interviews this morning. if you missed her on agenda, you can watch it here. she was also very good on marae and on eye-to-eye. and she's on prime tv as i write. in all her interviews, she has looked relaxed and confident, even though she's had a pretty tough grilling by all journalists thus far. i have to say the rt hon winston peters made mincemeat of one mr john roughan on agenda. it doesn't matter how many blows he gets, this man just doesn't give up fighting.
one more week to go, and it's going to be a very hectic one. one potential voter i came across today decided he didn't need to vote since labour was going to win anyway. needless to say, we did our best to persuade him otherwise. but it was nice to know that some are so confident!
oh, and here's a link to the rod oram piece i mentioned in my previous post.
3 comments:
"and i think it only works so well because of the total absence of males."
Doesn't this say something about having a culture or religion that encourages women to cover up generally stargazer? I mean the same thing would presumably have applied in Victorian england when women were expected to behave in a certain way & wear certain clothes. Do you think this will ever change? (I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing either btw)
um, why? i'd rather it says that the male gaze and being physically pleasing to all men all the time is not important.
victorian england? did they have women's parties in victorian england where everyone got to take off their corsets and hoops, and just relax and have a good time? can't see the parallel, sorry.
"did they have women's parties in victorian england where everyone got to take off their corsets and hoops, and just relax and have a good time?"
I don't know if they would have or not. My point was that women in that period would presumably have been more inhibited about how they behaved with men around because of the social norms at the time. Certainly in contrast to how women in Western countries now tend to dress & behave if you visit a nightclub! I'm just saying we've seen, in a fairly short space of time, quite a change in how women dress & act.
Although I think the wesst, if anything, has gone too far in the other direction where there is a lot of pressure to appeal to men. You can see this in some of the fashions that are clearly designed to maximise attractiveness to the opposite gender. Although men are more insulated from this pressure.
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