TW: Sexual Assualt, Rape
This post was supposed to be entirely different from how it turned out. I had been excited about the Barbie movie for months. I was convinced it was going to perfectly exemplify the degradation of women in patriarchal systems and structures. I watched an early screening with five of my beautiful friends. I cackled, I related, I smiled, I empathised and I was in awe of the clever way this movie portrayed the experience of what it is to be a woman.
I had so many ideas I wanted to write about, unpacking all the intricacies of this film. About how Barbie exemplified everything a woman could be and yet she was seen as just a vessel. About how men suffer under the patriarchy too. How Barbie apologised to Ken, yet Ken never apologised for his mistreatment of Barbie. How the worst thing that happened to the Kens was that they were ignored, yet Barbies were objectified and forced into servitude. About how Barbie is simply a doll and yet she cannot escape the villainization of women. I wanted to discuss my favourite line of dialogue "Women hate women the same way men hate women, it's the one thing they can agree on". The film addressed beauty standards, girlhood, the patriarchy, misogyny, feminist critiques and women's rights.
Can you feel the but coming?
Two weeks later I am sat here, typing, sick to my stomach. I watched a documentary called 'Seven Winters of Tehran' five hours and six minutes ago. I sobbed for a bare minimum of 45 minutes of the film. It devastated and crushed my soul in a way I can't really understand. I feel physically and emotionally drained. This documentary is the story of Reyhaneh Jabbari, an Iranian woman who was arrested for the murder of a man after she stabbed him in self-defence after he attempted to rape her. She was sentenced to death. The story follows phone recordings, video clips, letters, diary entries and interviews that detail the seven-year-long fight to free her and stay her execution. It was heartwrenching and horrific to watch and hear the trauma she faced and the pain she suffered. The treatment she faced within the prison and judicial system was aberrant. She was not believed, she was tortured into confessions, her trial was rigged, she was villainized and belittled.
After the film ended, we sat in the theatre sobbing, thoughts spiralled around and around. How had I a week ago praised Barbie for its feminist strides when women in Iran are executed daily by an oppressive regime that denies their fundamental rights? How was I supposed to go on with my day? I felt fundamentally altered by Reyhaneh Jabbari and her story. As much as I loved Barbie, for the story it told and the representation it provided, it is a white woman's feminism. It is tailored for privileged women like me. It made me feel understood, but it is not universal. And it is still important, it is. Men throughout the Global North feel entitled to women's bodies, to objectify them, to degrade them, to belittle and to diminish.
But the Seven Winters of Tehran painted the story of a woman without privilege. Women who are killed for asserting bodily autonomy. Women who go through one of the most horrific things to ever happen to a person and then are executed for it. Women who live in constant fear of an oppressive regime that strips them of their rights, dignity and humanity.
I cried because I was angry, I cried because it was unjust, I cried for Reyhaneh, I cried for her family, I cried for all the women she met in prison who suffered a similar fate, I cried for the women who were unable to defend themselves, I cried because it hurt to see this woman live our worst nightmare. I cried because I am a woman, I cried because I wanted to save her.
All women feel the effects of the patriarchy but we certainly do not feel it equally. The Barbie movie addresses issues that are largely felt by privileged, predominantly white, women who live in developed countries. Those issues are important, they are. But The Seven Winters of Tehran checked my white feminism, it emphasised why intersectionality is fucking critical. Women in Iran are oppressed by the patriarchy in a fundamentally different way from those of us in the Global North, to those of us who relate to the Barbie movie. I hope I never forget that ever again.
I feel empty. Please watch this documentary. It's important.
Comments