Yesterday I read an interesting article discussing the use of Benzodiazepines (Valium®, Lithium® etc) by Afghani woman in response to Taliban oppression. This article detailed the lives of two university educated women who had both held positions of power, prestige, and affluence in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, one as a school principle and the other as a TV journalist. Unfortunately, upon Taliban takeover in 1992 woman’s “education and professionalism became irrelevant” and these woman, along with many others, were forced, by law, to exist only within the domestic sphere, prohibited from public association with men and women outside their families as even woman’s “laughter…was banned from the streets” (Burkett, 2002). Such women began living lives of solitude, with no medium of public expression, and in constant fear of punishment. Due to this lack of intellectual stimulation and community, many Afghani women turned to sedatives in attempt to deal with the monotony, boredom, and fear that characterized everyday life. In reading the above article I was reminded of the Friedan piece, The Problem That Has No Name, in which the use of prescription sedatives to treat the “plight” of the 1960’s housewives, described by women as the search for something more or a validation of their worth outside of the domestic sphere, was examined. It occurred to me that woman of every class, race, country, or time period have felt stifled by the confinements and pronouncements of traditional femininity, whether defined by Taliban radicals or middle class American suburbia. Woman across the globe have and still continue to fight the same battle and it is no coincidence that in 1990 alone 800 hundred tons of Valium® was prescribed to American citizens, most of whom were women (Ksir, 2006). While I pose no solution to this problem, as its magnitude is global, I do, however, recognize the power of shared sensibilities within this universal problematic. Maybe, just maybe if women could unite under the banner of Hooks’ shared sensibilities, leaving their racial and class differences aside, traditional feminine constructs could be challenged and a solidified feminist community could generate cultural and social change that crosses global class and race divisions.
(Above Picture: Traditional Burka meets Ameriacn High Fashion)
Kelly Mac.
Burkett, Elinor. “It Was a Slow Poison.” Elle Magazine. 2002. Vol. 199. pp 214-217.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. Norton: NY, 1963. pp 15-32.
Hooks, Bell. Post Modern Blackness. 1990. pp 1-6.
Ksir et al. Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior, NY, 2006. pp 221-225.
1 comment:
Prescription sedatives and drug addiction have a weird relationship with women. I agree that the situation is a global problem; however it is hard to close the gaps to create shared sensitibilites. For example North American women challenged the traditional feminine constructs to join the workforce. Women’s entry into the work force contributed in creating the double day and higher expectations of women to be able to perfectly balance work and family. As seen an Oprah many times, the desire for this perfection and balance can drive women to drug addiction: if you do not work then you better be able to raise perfect kids and keep a perfect house, if you do both you better be able to balance your lives well so you fit in just as well as men in the work force. However white upper-middle class mother addicted to valium are portrayed very differently than the addicted African American or Aboriginal women. White women can come out of their drug addiction and confess and re-enter society by returning to the norm, getting rehab and becoming a good mother again, wanting another child etc. African American or Aboriginal women are just bad women with no hope of re-entering into society regardless if they see rehab or public confession. The initial challenge to constructs split women apart and created a drug problem, I am just having a hard time fathoming how women would banner together when challenging the traditional feminine constructs in the first place incurred this problem.
Women & Embodiment: Joanne Musak, Department of English Dissertation on Women & Drug addictions
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