Feminism - East, West & the Rest

Hello!

During my university years in Lund I was active in a so called 'Student Nation'. A student nation is a place for students to meet, for various reasons. The nation I was a member of was one of the few ones that had a political agenda, in this case socialism and feminism. The only thing I really did there was to book bands for their alternative music stage. Anyhow, the reasonn why I brought this up is because my two years there made me start to think about feminism from a different point of view.

A couple of years ago when I was working on my Bachelor's degree, I was doing some research about Afghanistan and modernisation, with focus on women. I stumbled over a book with a chapter written by one of Afghanistan's Miss Afghanistan. She wrote that to her it was a great victory for women in Afghanistan that she was able to compete in beauty. She says:

"I wanted to send a message to the world for the liberty and freedom of Afghan women...who should be allowed to speak their minds and be whatever they want to be,".

In contrast to the feminists in Sweden, and the student nation I was active in a lot of energy was put into criticizing the fact that you do compete in beauty and everything that is related to it. I am not sure what the point is with this blog enrty, but I guess you could say that one womans emancipation is another's objectification.

Also see old blog post: Yes We Can....Not!

(I should add, that I think competing in beauty is rubbish, but hey it might have something to do with where I was born!?)

Bye