Dressing to reflect a style or personality is a common practice in American culture. However in countries like Iran, the government outlaws such freedoms that we as Americans take for granted. In turn these privileges to dress and act freely have created a scale that many people use in determining acceptance of a person.
In her book Lipstick Jihad, Azadeh Moaveni shares her experiences as a woman living in Iran. Having to deal with an oppressive government, Moaveni details her feelings towards the rules instated after the revolution in 1979. The new rules after the revolution posed a ban of public interaction between men and women not related, and further forced women to cover their faces and bodies in the company of others. These rules brought great stress on the people of Iran, and made life for women very difficult. People soon found ways to secretly interact with one another, but the consequences for breaking the rules were brutal. Seeing that the face is the only part of a woman’s body allowed to be exposed, some women turned to plastic surgery in desperate attempts of self-expression. Under these new rules women in Iran struggled with being set lower than men and having their identities removed. In turn this effected Moaveni’s outward appearance, creating inner psychological problems with not only her but the women of Iran.
Toni Morrison’s book “The Bluest Eye” tells the story of a young girl named Pecola, living with her parents in Ohio. Struggling with a broken home life and the constant reminder of her “ugliness” Pecola decided to give up on the notion of being beautiful. Yet her greatest wish throughout the book is to one day have the bluest eyes. In a way her search for the bluest eye is a metaphor for her wanting to be accepted by people. Since society has programmed Pecola to believe that she is ugly, it has negatively effected her outward appearance of understanding her true self.
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