Category: Uncategorized

First Thing I Saw This Morning …

… so I might as well share it, having a wife and daughter myself.  I quote from Annalisa Merelli  of Quartz:

Centuries of patriarchal history were captured in this week’s pictures of policemen on the beach in Nice, France, forcing a woman to take off her shirt and headscarf to comply with the so-called “burkini ban.”

Across countries and cultures, women have been seen as offensive for showing their ankles, necks, faces, hair, arms, legs—or, in turn, for failing to do so. Shaving is immoral. Not shaving is dirty. Wearing make-up is immodest. Not wearing it is sloppy. High heels are provocative. Flat shoes are unprofessional.

In the 1920s, US law required women to wear a full bathing suit—and a record-breaking swimmer was arrested for showing her knees on the beach. A century later, a full bathing suit got a Muslim woman in Cannes fined; the ticket she was given literally said her outfit was not respectful of “bonnes moeurs,” good morals.

Men, or societies, that force women to undress are no better than or different from those that force them to cover up. What freedom or progress is there in armed men demanding that a woman take off her clothes? This wasn’t about protecting France’s secularism; it was about a man’s right to police a woman’s body—still.

Naturally, there was Islamophobia at the core of this, too. Nuns, Orthodox Jewish women, and surfers were not fined. But before a court overturned the ban, its apologists resorted to absurdities to justify it: Nice’s deputy mayor Rudy Salles told the BBC that even Catholic nuns shouldn’t be allowed to wear their habits on the beach.

The message is clear: no woman’s right is sacred enough to get in the way. Even as women might be just about to run the world, their bodies are still the easiest battlefield, their freedom still the first casualty.—Annalisa Merelli

Existential Developments

A few days ago, I mentioned reading “At The Existentialist Cafe“.  Finished it and now Kim is devouring this wonderful book.  Two items of note:

1. Author Sarah Bakewell frequently refers to books and films with relevant influences and connections.  One she mentioned was the 1949 film “Rendezvous in July” (“Rendez-vous de juillet”) in which French youth, driven by American culture and trends, adopt lumberjack-inspired fashion (a forerunner of today’s metrosexuals?).  Here is a clip from that film:

2.  Herman followed up with his previous mention of having seen Sartre’s and Beauvoir’s gravesites in Paris (about ten years ago?) by sending along photos he made of a postcard that appeared in the grass alongside, apparently from an admirer who had jotted down some sentiments upon a visit to Montparnasse Cemetery.

I am encouraging Herman to send his photos to Bakewell, so we shall see what happens.