A tale of two sisters: the hijab and the nose ring

Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor, known for being fashion forward, wore a nose ring (“nathani”) as the only piece of jewelry at Cannes Film Festival in 2013—presumably both as a style statement and a declaration of her “Indian-ness”.

By Tanvi Misra 

Some women choose to wear the Islamic veil because it’s an expression of cultural identity rather than a symbol of patriarchy for them. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s quite similar to why I choose to wear a nose ring.

A lot of people, even South Asian women who have nose piercings, may not know the significance of a nose stud in Hinduism. A lot of people say it’s associated with goddess Parvati—the lady up there in charge of matrimony. Some apparently also believe that a piercing on the left side eases the pain of childbirth—something about it being linked to the reproductive organs.

Some women in India probably still do it for the above reasons; I don’t know any of them.

My friends and I got our noses pierced in high school. We did it because it was the safest form of rebellion for us—it wouldn’t alienate our teachers and parents because we could pass it off as traditional. But if we mixed it with western clothes, it felt like we were being subversive.

It seemed to be quite appropriate choice for our breed of post-colonial lost children with our Hinglish slang and Indo-western fashion trends. We were privileged enough to experience the “clash of civilizations” in our backyards, and we proudly wore the spoils.

For a lot of us girls especially, traditions were like hand-me-down clothes, we tried on what suited our personality and stuffed the rest at the back of a proverbial closet without knowing or caring about the context.

I myself have discarded several traditions without a second thought. The nose ring is not one of them because till today, it reminds me of my composite identity—of the peaceful coexistence of my Indian-ness and rebelliousness.

So when I look at Iranian hijabi women in this street fashion blog or that video showing American Muslimahs chilling to Jay-Z’s “SomewhereinAmerica,” I can relate.

I know the two aren’t the same, but there are undeniable parallels. They both have had a religious significance in a non-Western culture. They can both be viewed as endorsing historically patriarchal systems. They’re also both almost exclusively worn by women.

Now, to be clear, I don’t advocate being forced to wear a veil just like I’d really hate it if someone were running around forcibly piercing the noses of all South Asian girls. But I’d also be pretty annoyed if while working in London or France, some sort of self-righteous piercing police was trying to ban wearing nose rings in public.

What I do strongly advocate is that women be free to express themselves and their identities any way they choose—no matter where they are in the world, what their religion or skin color is.

For many of these women, the hijab is an association with the Muslim culture, customs or faith than with oppression and patriarchy. It exists in different avatars around the world, many of which are a part of the traditional dress of a region.

But the West has a hard time understanding it. Why would anyone wear it voluntarily? Because I wouldn’t, it might be easier for me to explain it away: they must be forced, and so the solution is to force them not to. I’m making so many assumptions about people in this case and offering a simplistic, logically flawed, solution. The actual reasons behind why women wear the hijab are much more complex and varied.

Laila Shaikley, one of the women behind the “Mipsters” (Muslim Hipsters) video, grew from an awkward, young skateboarder, to a trend-setting world-traveller. She worked with the organizations such as the UN and NASA, helped establish TEDxBaghdad and involved herself in social entrepreneurship around the world. In this article in The Atlantic, she talks about her decision to wear the hijab.

As I grew and changed, I faced one particular choice again and again: To represent my Muslim identity or to leave it for the easier world of religious anonymity.  I chose to maintain my relationship with hijab.

This was Layla’s choice, just as it is my choice to wear a nose ring—just as it’s my college roommate’s choice to not wear a traditional white wedding dress and accompanying veil at her wedding.

This roommate, a white woman from North Carolina, explained to me the reason behind her choice.

It’s a little to do with the white dress and veil combo reinforcing patriarchal systems, but mostly, she doesn’t like the idea of weddings being these over-the-top celebrations of Disney values that little girls fantasize about.

“I have no interest in feeling like a princess. So it is a little about patriarchy, but also just an expression of my values and personality, which relate to my personal identity,” she said.

Why she has decided not to wear the dress and veil combo, is why a lot of women in the West—a lot of them feminists—decide to wear it. It ties them to tradition perhaps, and it’s compatible with their personalities.

Traditions, customs and rituals are changing as cultural contexts are evolving. Any element of expression—be it a word of a few meters of cloth— needs to be seen in the context it is used.

 

About the author:

I’m a journalist. I am currently writing features for BBC’s online news magazine and trying to graduate from the Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. I hope to be a successful adult soon after—so I’d love it if you offered me a job. I got my Bachelor’s degree in political science and French from the University of Pennsylvania—my parents are still wondering why. I am originally from New Delhi, India. One day, I will travel all over the world and do great things. But for now, I okay with wasting my time on the Internet while eating cheese. I used to be a dancer, but now I like to run—usually away from things. The last book I read was Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and it made me cry. At the moment, I am listening to a Modern Lovers album and pretending I don’t care about what you think.

Follow me on Twitter @Tanvim because then I’ll have more followers and that is good for my self-esteem.

Exotic: the “veiled” compliment

By Tanvi Misra 

Henri Matisse’s Odalisque à la culotte rouge, 1921, at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris is an example of orientalist art depicting non-western women as “exotic”. 

I’ve had a variety of reactions to being called “exotic”. I’ve rolled my eyes at the dude at the Philadelphia college bar who used it as a pickup line. I’ve sighed in a Chicago classroom when a classmate said that my “exotic” appearance would definitely get me a job. I’ve laughed awkwardly when my white, American ex-boyfriend called me that because I wasn’t sure where the joke ended and the fetish began. A couple of weeks ago, I ignored the salesmen who yelled it at a London street market. But most surprisingly, I’ve often been called exotic in India—the place I’ve lived most of my life.

Usually, not always, but usually, it’s meant as a compliment. So why does it annoy me? Two reasons: it’s unoriginal and it’s ignorant. Unoriginal, because after scraping the barrel of his/her mind, the person came up with the most obvious, superficial thing about me. It’s ignorant, because the person has chosen to overlook or ignore the problematic historical context of the word.

Source: Oxford Dictionaries online

My problem with the word is pretty well encapsulated in the first example sentence of its definitions in the Oxford Dictionaries: “exotic birds”—creatures to be gawked at, be taken as trophies, be tamed or be saved—that’s what I feel like when people call me that. It’s uncomfortable.

It’s impossible to go on without mentioning Edward Said at this point. His book Orientalism was key in articulating the problem with the word. It was a milestone in postcolonial and feminist studies, crucially influencing the discourse in both those fields.

Among other things, the book explained the justifications for colonialism of the “Orient”—the East—by the “Occident” or the West. The “orient” and its people were characterized as irrational, exotic, erotic in comparison to the occident, which was rational, familiar, moral and just, explains feminist scholar Charlotte Weber.

The word “exotic” helped Western men and women distance themselves from non-western women by making them the “other”, Weber says.

It also objectified them, painting them all with that one brush stroke. Non-western women of all colors, sizes, ethnicities and nationalities suddenly became flattened projections of the western gaze. Either we were all Princess Jasmine caricatures, swishing seductively in veils or geishas, passive and pouring tea. Either way, we all needed to be—no, were begging to be liberated. If the liberator felt like a bit of adventure, he would strut in, strip the veils, “liberate,” and strut out. That we were “asking for it” remains a justification for the rape and exploitation of women of color today.

Still, when I’m in America or the U.K., I can explain it. I can see that calling me “exotic” is sometimes attempt to exclaim that I am foreign. It’s not surprising and I can explain why it bothers me if people are interested.

What I don’t get is people calling me that in India—a country that runs the whole gamut of physical features. That’s why every time I hear it there, spoken by well-meaning friends and family, it confounds me.

Of course I’m not the only one. On Facebook, I got some interesting responses when I asked women their experiences of being called “exotic” abroad and at home.

Priyanka Chopra, a beautiful, darker-skinned Bollywood actress is a great vessel through which to talk about reasons of why someone might be called exotic in India.

The New York Times just published a profile on the actress, who recently released a music video with Pitbull called “Exotic”. In an interview, she was quoted saying she liked being called that, presumably by Indians and westerners alike.

The lyrics of the song and the music video made me question why a woman who looks more like the majority of women in India would like being labeled “exotic”? And also, how does that affect how people see women who share her skin color and her Indian identity—like me?

The explanations I’ve come up with assume the existence of a colonial hangover—especially in former colonies like India. Maybe it’s inevitable. We, as Indians, have internalized the aesthetics, language and to some extent, even the “western gaze” as Said described it.

My evidence includes but is not limited to the Indian film industry. In Bollywood, the dominant aesthetic is that the leading ladies (quite like the “wanted” brides in matrimonial advertisements in Indian dailies) be tall, slim and most importantly, fair. So the truth is, if Bollywood were its own country, dark-skinned Chopra would be a minority.

Perhaps unwittingly, she doesn’t know she is using problematic language to sell herself to a western audience, as well as an Indian audience fatigued by the fair faces in Bollywood. Or perhaps, knowingly, she has decided to reclaim the colonial term to survive in that industry and some might even argue, to advocate throwing out the fairness creams and embracing dark-skinned beauty.

I’m not sure.

All I know is that for women, such as myself, who like standing out but are tired of being irredeemably different in the places they call home, celebrities calling themselves “exotic” is not doing any favors.

About the author: I’m a journalist. I am currently writing features for BBC’s online news magazine and trying to graduate from the Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. I hope to be a successful adult soon after—so I’d love it if you offered me a job. I got my Bachelor’s degree in political science and French from the University of Pennsylvania—my parents are still wondering why. I am originally from New Delhi, India. One day, I will travel all over the world and do great things. But for now, I okay with wasting my time on the Internet while eating cheese. I used to be a dancer, but now I like to run—usually away from things. The last book I read was Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and it made me cry. At the moment, I am listening to a Modern Lovers album and pretending I don’t care about what you think.

Follow me on Twitter @Tanvim because then I’ll have more followers and that is good for my self-esteem.