Western Women's Harem Analysis

Is Western woman still under man’s dominance? For years, men have been seen as the gender with the most power; however, women’s position has improved throughout the years. Nevertheless, women still feel that there are still differences at the workplace, at home, and financially that make them feel inferior to men. In order to prevent more inequality between both genders, six years ago the President Obama signed an executive order on equal pay for women. Without a doubt, this will be beneficial for many women because it would help them to feel recognized in their place of work. However, there are still women who believe that men have other ways to govern us. For instance, they use beauty and money as their arms against women. Even though men …show more content…
In her essay, “Size 6: The Western Women’s Harem” Mernissi states, “The Western man uses images and spotlights to freeze female beauty within an idealized childhood, and forces women to perceive aging — that normal unfolding of the years — as a shameful devaluation” (277). Her statement remarks that man is the person who controls the industry of beauty in other words he decides what should be the perfect appearance, size, and weight for a woman so that she can be considered beautiful. Moreover, she emphasizes that Western women life is worse than her own women’s culture. In fact, in her essay, she mentions, “These Western attitudes, I thought, are even more dangerous and cunning than the Muslim ones” (277) because Western women are trying to please their men rather than love themselves. She strongly believes that it affects the women’s self-esteem because they try to be someone else rather than be themselves by letting men to manage how she should look and how she should dress up. Besides, she cannot support that Western women can criticize her Easter women of how they are being controlled by men when in their own culture, Western men are doing exactly the same thing, and the worst part is that women allow men to do