Pakistani women (and bringing my pakistani housewife fantasy back to earth)

So I haven't really been keeping up with pakistani politics, and I do care so I am a little bothered about not knowing what I am talking about and not knowing what to believe (though I do think all this celebration over Musharraf resigning and support of PPP is a little short sighted and naive on the "liberal"'s part)... which is all well and good (or not) ... But on a separate topic, I realized something about the not so liberal portions of pakistani society (which I have known for years, but I guess I finally articulated it in a succinct form in my head):

1) The ones that aren't very "westernized" are super insecure about not being "westernized enough".

(-> And others are trying to "take back" the idea, and be proud of their heritage which is great, but at the same time it is sad because most of the ones that are doing that are the more westernized ones (which usually also means, the more privileged ones), rather than the ones who need to start being proud of their heritage - but it's a step in the right direction i.e. towards stopping self hatred).

2) Within the group of insecure people, the men are incredibly sexist, which may have to do with being insecure about losing their hold over the one thing they can feel superior to - women (and other typical sexist macho crap).

Of course, some women are allowed to be smart... I am sure you can guess why though. If you are androgynous enough, then you are allowed.

but pretty AND smart? No f-ing way!



Anywho, this leads to an awkward situation when hanging out with family members who fall into this category. When you challenge the sexist status quo, when you dare to have an opinion or thoughts or you demonstrate an interest in intellectual debate, you are immediately put down or mocked. So then if you try to protest or stand up for yourself, the other WOMEN will call you naive and immature and laraka and bewaqoof etc.

This is probably a combination of two things:
i) Misery loves company. If I cant have an opinion, you shouldn't get to have one either!
ii) Peace. We are financially dependent on the men, so stop being an idiot and pissing them off. Let them think they are smarter.

At which point, you have a few options:

you either have to concede that you are the naive, silly girl who thinks she is allowed to have a brain and as a way of showing your "maturity" start sticking to safe topics.
OR

be labeled someone who thinks she is better because she is "westernized".
OR

be labeled a naive trouble maker (ghuswar, bad-mizaaj).

So yeah.. I am ashamed to say that I took the first lameo option... Of course, the only way I can live with that option is by living far far away.

But now that I have put all this down I am realising there might be other, less obvious options, which I guess I didnt have when I was a teenage girl living in Pakistan. You can actually be the older, wiser, more mature person and try to make changes.

This involves, first of all, to NOT estrange the idiots who are allowing the status quo to continue thriving, cuz then they won't be interested in listening to you. You don't respect people, they don't give a shit about your opinion, it's as simple as that. And fair enough this respect won't be sincere, but it should be. You want to change society, not hate and destroy it. You don't hate the people, you hate the culture. Just remember that.

Second of all, it involves having a little patience, being persistent, but don't expect changes to happen overnight.



That's it.

Hippies & house wives

So I was having coffee (read hot chocolate) with this guy I know here.. and turns out I had a lot of talking inside me bursting to come out! We started talking about Musharraf's resignation, the fact that my friend (the guy I was speaking to) had just gotten married and was returning from his honey moon and somehow ended up talking about how unnatural urban living is, and religion and life, and philosophy for the next two hours!

I am not feeling particularly articulate or verbose after the long spiels I went on last night, but these were the main topics:
- feeling disconnected and away from nature. Sub topics: processed food, natural unprocessed food more expensive than processed food which technically was more expensive to prepare being totally f-ed up and unintuitive,
- Capitalism, urban neurosis, consumerism, individuality, taking away from the idea of community. Making it virtually impossible to have a community for people who aren't economically and financially blessed/privileged. You have to be extra rich and work ultra hard to have what you would think should be a "normal life"
- Religion as political and as a revelation from god is bullshit. As a guide to a way of life, as a source of ritual and community, as a means to express your spirituality - makes more sense.
- Catholic punishment guilt vs ridiculously opulent churches dichotomy is kind of abusive.



Yes yes we have heard all of this a million times, and for some reason, the ideas are completely prevalent, everyone knows it, but the only people trying to escape the neurosis of modern urban living are hairy hippies who don't shower and who talk in a california drawl even when they are from the east coast. What gives? Being part of a community and eating real food shouldn't be an "alternative lifestyle"! It shouldn't be "leftist liberal socialist crap", it shouldn't be "oh those crazy pot smoking kids". How the hell did this happen? Alternatively it also shouldn't be rich pseudo-intellectual, liberal, leftist crap! I mean this is sensual, real, tangible stuff we are talking about. How did the intellectual leftists or the spaced out hippies become associated with it?? You are supposed to be in touch with your emotions and your body to want these things, not be lost in your brain dammit.

And it really shouldn't be inconvenient and you shouldn't have to go out of your way grmph.

Which brings me to other thoughts I have been having for about a month or so which somehow feel connected.

So emotional "boundaries" are an important issue in relationships, which I may not have been the best at paying attention to in the past, though I think I have gotten better (to the extent of having ridiculously strict boundaries). So my sister mentioned it to me the other day - and I figured I would pay respects to my gods and so I Googled "emotional boundaries" and apparently, people who have trouble with boundaries are people who have a not so completely developed "Ego". It's really bizarre and sad that the word ego has the connotations and meanings it does associated with it (egotistical, arrogant etc), while its meaning in Freudian psychology is completely different. SO I figured the next thing was to pray to my other gods to see what the definition for Ego really was within psychology, and Wikipedia dutifully answered:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego

Anyway, I think it's worth checking in and analysing how well developed your Ego really is, because having a good rapport between your Super Ego and Id is generally pretty useful. That's all I am saying.

SO the last thing I wanted to say is.. that I have housewife fantasies sometimes. And it bothers me that I can be so lame as to have house wife fantasies... But I broke it down into its sub-parts:
1) house wives get to see sunlight during the day time hours since there is no 9 to 5
2) in my head, being a house wife entails living in pakistan where so far the more natural food IS cheaper, the weather is warmer, mangos and guavas are good quality and easily available, and there is a beach nearby.
3) i dont need to work :P or stress about money, cuz someone else takes care of the finances.

Yeah so... what's wrong with that?

"You heterosexuals are weird!" hahahah - hear hear!

Another gay movie!

There's something so romantic about forbidden angsty love... and now that straight love is acceptable between race, religion and class... gay love is the only love you can watch in a movie about forbidden love and actually buy into. Nothing else is forbidden anymore..

Yes I know it's a good thing that things aren't forbidden... but you have to admit, the romance, the excitement, the passion in the struggle to cross forbidden barriers is something you end up missing out on!

In defense of lying..

I just read a short story ... well it's a true short story about someone who lies - a lot.

About inconsequential things.

But she lies.

Sometimes she invents an actor boyfriend, or pretends to be a designer living in Rome, or claims she has had 4 husbands when she has actually just had two. She lies to make herself seem more glamorous, less ordinary, more interesting, more fun. She is honest in her personal life, with her friends, she doesn't bullshit people. But when it comes to inconsequential things - she lies.

It's interesting because she claims she does it out of insecurity, it's an innate need to not feel ordinary... so.. feeling ordinary drives her to make up these stories. I don't buy that. That just sounds like one of those psychobabble conclusions that helps everyone sleep at night. That kind of thinking doesn't allow for the possibility that someone who tells lies (bad bad) could possibly not have a dysfunction.

I personally think she's just trying out new identities. And why shouldn't she? She's a writer, a story teller, a performer, you either do it professionally, or you do it in your life. (or hey, you could do both, a writer needs to do research, collect material!) My point is why *should* anyone be stuck in one life, one identity. Do you really owe the truth to complete strangers in social contexts? It's much more fun to make up stories. It's not like they care whether you are telling the truth or not. Other people enjoy hearing these stories just as much as you enjoy telling them. It's an outlet for your creativity, it's a performance, it's a refusal to be put into one box and be forced to present yourself in that box, it's an opportunity to free yourselves from your "identity", your "demographic" and present yourself how you imagine yourself on the inside at that particular moment in time. Sure your life in all it's down to earth practical non-glory limits you to that one identity and one life, but why can't you expand your mind and heart and soul to create a world, a person, that clearly resides in you, and present that person, that identity, when you meet people.

I am not usually a proponent of telling lies. But I have this problem. When I meet new people and I present my true credentials it makes me squirm, because I feel a disconnect. My credentials don't feel like they represent me. It feels like I am talking about a third person that somehow came and took over my life. When I present my career, my ethnicity, my sexuality, I become... someone I am not. Because with those labels go so many assumptions about who I am.



And it makes me wonder.... Wouldn't it be more honest to present an identity that is true-er to who I am on the inside? And what would that be?

I think this calls for some experimental flights of fancy...

Dating

Disclaimer: When I say dating here, I am talking about the system of asking someone you barely know out to "a drink" or "dinner" with the explicit understanding that you are measuring each-other up for relationship potential - along with all the "rules" that go with this concept of dating.

A friend of my sister's once said... that dating is just a way to make women prostitute themselves within a context that looks respectable and fools them into thinking they are doing something else. He phrased it better, and I am dragging it all over the place, but you get the point. You will think I am cynical, but honestly, I agree. If someone wants to "date" you as soon as they meet you, not knowing anything about you, then clearly what they are after is the body, not the person. And that essentially means, I pay for dinner, and you give me sex later. A socially acceptable approach to prostitution. And highly artificial and uncomfortable at that, especially if the two people have different things in mind. (You know... one wants the sex, the other wants the food.. Hmm.. I suppose that could work out.. )

But seriously, the real problem is the same as the problem with unemployment benefits. The fact that the people who don't need it unfairly cash in on it, by working the system, and the people who are sincere end up having to deal with the extra bureaucracy created to try and prevent and discourage the ones that are taking unfair advantage. Dates are supposedly a way of getting to know each other to gauge relationship potential, but instead it's become "do I have sex on the first date or the third date?"... errr...?

The sad thing is so many women go out on dates hoping for a relationship, perhaps by dragging out the sexual seduction part, when the whole setup is so not conducive to a serious honest relationship. I would absolutely love to get my hands on some statistics that tell you how many people have gone on dates that have actually lead to relationships. Women in cosmopolitan urban cities constantly complain about the dating scene in their cities. The majority of people I know in relationships did NOT meet through a date (and I am talking about hetero relationships, gay relationships have an entirely different dynamic), they met at work or volunteering or through friends or family. They met in situations where they weren't forced to have a contrived sex interview, but were actually allowed to get to know atleast something about eachother before expressing an interest.

In fact I wish I could find this website, but several months ago I was sent a link to this website which had a ranked list showing you "where to meet" men/women. This list was based on people (both men and women) selecting or submitting if it wasnt on the list, where they met their partners and the majority of the people had met "at work". "at bars" was way down the line, and random dates.. just not...

What triggered this? I went on a date and even considered giving a legitimate chance to this guy who later turned out to have a wife in a different country. I also spent all this time trying to get him to stop trying to get me into bed and arguing with a friend of mine, that I was not interested in attracting this guy by "showing more skin" and how it made me feel objectified and disgusted that he would suggest that as advice. Fortunately though I had already lost interest before I found out about his wifey and had instead been lusting after his friend for a few days.

But back to dating in theory... Fair enough, if you are going to have to spend all this time with someone to figure out relationship potential and they turn out to not measure up, go ahead get laid... And if a guy/girl really is just looking to get laid, they need to make sure that a) they are disqualified from relationship potential. b) they are still sexually attractive to the other side (so make sure you dress and smell nice etc) c) Don't act too jerky so that you are not only disqualified from relationship potential but also sex potential.



In other news... I slept next to a gorgeous naked woman the other night and essentially as my friend puts it "couldn't get it up".. the next day for lunch I met this absolutely adorable poly bi girl who was a friend of a friend for lunch and she kissed me on the cheek and *that* turned me on... my libido baffles me!

Except it doesn't. If it's not drunken crazy sex, then it needs to be real intimate honest sex. This girl may have been physically gorgeous, but she was so emotionally closed off... I wasn't drunk enough to care more about sex than the person I'm having it with. It felt f-ed up.

I spoke too soon. I had no idea the summers in this place actually made it impossible to escape from people. Oh isolation how I miss thee! Except I can completely tell that as soon as I have time on my own, I will feel sad and depressed and scared.

Well I know why.. it's because I want solace in company.. not social exciting company. I want the kind of company where you can sit on your balcony and smoke and no words are spoken, no looks exchanged. The person is just there to share the view.