Counting Your Blessings Department

I was just watching the last half of the appalling documentary, I Was Worth 50 Sheep, which some of you may have seen. Basically it's about the traditional Afghan practice of selling young girls when a family is broke. This particular film follows the story of 16-year-old Sabere, who was sold to a man in his 50s when she was all of 10 years old. She was both wife and slave to him for six years -- during which time she was frequently beaten, talked to constantly as though she were lower than a dog, and had four miscarriages, as well as a forced abortion when she was seven months pregnant -- before she finally escaped, and made her way to a safe house in Mazur.

The film is also concerned with the plight of Sabere's half-sister. Her mother had had to remarry after the death of her husband, Sabere's father, in order to avoid the shame (and destitution) of widowhood. She and her second husband -- who was, as tradition dictated, a cousin of her deceased husband -- also had a daughter. The husband, who had lived in and been deported from Iran, had heavy debts which he could not pay. He "had no choice," but to sell his daughter. When he said this, during one of the interviews with him, I let out an unamused laugh. "You had no choice," I said sarcastically to the screen. "What if selling your own daughter were not socially acceptable -- that wouldn't be a choice -- you'd have to figure something else out!" The father had made a deal with the buyer -- who was also a much older man -- that he and his wife would be able to keep their daughter with them until she was 15 -- when, according to the father, she would be "old enough" for marriage -- and instead of receiving the sheep all at once they would receive 10 a year.

The "drama" of the film had to do with the fact that Sabere, with the help of the people at the Safe House, was trying to obtain a divorce from her husband, while at the same time the stepfather was trying to fend off representatives from the man he had sold his daughter to, who were saying the buyer no longer wanted to wait; he wanted little Farzane now.

Watching something like this reminds us of something we all know, but prefer not to dwell on: while women in western industrialized nations have made great strides toward fair treatment and equality with men over the past century, in many parts of the world they have value only as slaves, as someone a man can kick around when he's feeling angry at the world, frustrated perhaps by his bad luck, or a bad day, someone he can always feel superior to. The stepfather, who kept insisting he did not want to have to give his daughter to the man who had bought her, nonetheless lay around on his cushions-on-the-floor barking "Bring me some tea," "Bring me a glass of water," to the three women who lived under his roof. Nary a please, nary a thank-you. He did go out most days and try to sell some pens that he had, inevitably without luck. But he didn't really hustle at all, didn't do whatever he could to feed and protect his family; he just metaphorically scratched his head and said, "I don't know what to do." If ever there was an example of a loafer, waiting for a miracle to save him, this was it.

At the same time, there is no denying the crushing poverty of places like Afghanistan, the lack of jobs. The United States and various international agencies have been trying for years to improve this situation, to help "develop" the economy of the country. But an "Asian Voices" segment I was watching recently on PBS stated that too much of the intended help has been poorly thought-out, poorly organized, and ineffective. This is one reason I have been so supportive of the Central Asia Institute, begun by Greg Mortenson.  Despite the controversy that arose around Mortenson at the beginning of this year, it has seemed to me that the organization has done a better than average job of working with locals to bring schools -- that oh-so-important commodity, education -- to the impoverished familes in the hinterlands of both Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Effective aid.

We all know that too much of the aid money, from our government, and that of other countries, that was supposed to go towards Afghanistan's economic development, has instead gone into the pockets of various government officials and their families; and this is of course maddening. But do we stop trying to help? Do we throw the country back into the hands of the Taliban (the man Sabere was married to was a member of the Taliban). What to do, what to do...

To color or not to color

All right, enough of this heavy-duty philosophizing; let’s talk about something trivial. Like coloring ones hair. Although as a matter of fact, I take that subject fairly seriously, mainly because it represents that ol’ double standard that has always driven me crazy. Women in our society feel compelled to color their hair in order to continue looking young, which is equated with being attractive, while most men (these days there are exceptions) feel no such compulsion; and indeed, would be appalled at the thought of coloring their hair. Wouldn’t be manly.

It is women who spend so much time and money hiding the reality of the physical changes taking place as they age. (This includes other things besides hair, but right now we’re talking about hair.) Because if they don’t...well, I think of poor Barbara Bush, and all the “She looks like his mother!” comments that, I believe, sprang from her head of silvery-white hair, in contrast to her husband’s youthful brown locks, with just that bit of grey at the temples that made him look “distinguished.” After all, she was an attractive woman, with a pleasant face. I’m sure, had she colored her hair, no one would have thought she looked older than her husband.

Or...can you imagine an actress being able to continue playing romantic leads – playing anything other than mothers in aprons – if she allowed her naturally grey hair to show, the way Steve Martin and Richard Gere did? An actress with grey hair can’t play anything that suggests sex. I think it’s all part of the deeply ingrained cultural taboo against sleeping with ones mother. A lady with grey hair smacks too much of Mother!

I myself have been a “bottle blond” for about twenty years now, and before that I was a bottle brunette for three or four years, when the grey began to appear in my Basic Brown hair, and I decided it was way too early for that. So for many years, every couple of months or so I have engaged in the tedious, time-consuming business of applying some smelly gunk to my hair, then walking around looking a fright for 45 minutes while it “set.”

A few months ago I reached “a certain age,” and made the decision to stop coloring my hair. See what happened. See what it looked like au naturel. I already knew the entire front was a pretty white, and thought it wouldn’t be too bad if it all looked that way, though I suspected that it wouldn’t (and it doesn’t look like it’s going to). I mainly did this because I thought, “Who am I kidding?” For many years I looked younger than my age, then I began to look approximately my age, but for the last few years, thanks to degradations in the neck/chin/jowls regions, I’ve looked exactly my age (despite my mother’s insistence to the contrary). And just how appropriate was it for a 61-year-old woman to have blond hair? One might say, it doesn’t matter how old you get to be, you have the right to make your hair whatever color you want. And of course I do, but why would I want it to be any color other than the color it naturally is? Why would I want to continue going to that trouble and expense? The reason up to now has been: in order not to look old, in order to be as attractive as possible. Which actually meant, in order to be attractive to the opposite sex. But given the aforementioned physical degradation...

So does all this mean I’ve just given up on the idea of being attractive to the opposite sex? Well, I don’t think it’s just a matter of that (and, you know, hope does spring eternal). There’s also the fact that I don’t want to seem pathetic. Look at her, trying to look young. Who does she think she’s kidding? I recall seeing a picture of Ginger Rogers some years before she died, and there she was with her fat, heavily made-up, late-middle-aged face, and all that flowing blond hair. Pathetic was definitely the word that came to mind.

I don’t want to look pathetic, so I guess I’ll settle for looking like someone’s mother. Or...maybe not.