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Like others who have already posted, Satrapi’s discussion of the veil has been very interesting to me. Within the first few pages I was, like smalina, reminded of a cartoon I saw a few years ago. Here it is:
Throughout this section, there were a number of references made that indicate that Marjane comes from a family of financial privilege; more concretely, we can see the role of class in the way the events surrounding her family and her eventual leaving of Tehran play out. For example: when her uncle must leave the country for medical care but isn't granted approval for a passport, they plan to pay for one for him; they . More generally, Marjane and her family's attitudes towards the oppression they face highlights a comparable level of privilege. She continuously defies authority by purchasing luxuries--clothing, posters, jewelry, tapes--to the point that tempting fate starts to seem like a bit of a game, even after she is almost detained (134).
Persopolis has been one of my favorite readings of the semester so far. I had read the graphic novel a decade ago when I was in High School and I have had an entirely different experience this time. One of my biggest observations is the narrative of Marjane finding her own feminist voice, against her circumstances. I believe she is practicing her own nego-feminism in her conversations with classmates, teachers, and even her conversations with her parents. Both of her parents have a history of engaging in civil discourse but Marjane still fights to have her own, unique perspective.
I think it is really interesting how Marji idolizes people who have been tortured in prison, and how the revolutionaries idolizd martyrs (without any critical inference of if the people they were herolding actually died in protests), especially in context of what we talked about in Disability about the way that disabled war verterans are treated differently than other disabled people.
As Kristin mentioned in class today, it certainly seems that Solomon relies a lot on analogy to promote "better" understandings of identities. In all probability, this is related to the fact that Solomon himself does not personally identify with many of the identities he writes about, and is likely trying to better understand them by equating them to the marginalized identities he does hold. Unfortunately, this is often erasing of some or many of these identities, or reduces one to an uncomfortable point. Though Solomon himself is not always the one writing them, his decision to include analogies brought up by others is just as destructive.
What interested me most about Satrapi's childhood was her relationship with her veil. She describes feeling uncomfortable with it even after becoming "used to" it, and she expresses understanding it as a symbol of the oppression she and her family face as revolutionaries. I found this interesting considering a lot of the media today surrounding the supposed oppression of Middle Eastern women, and how this notion is simply a matter of judgmental opinion imposed by Western (or 1/3 World) women.
Often in Western feminist-as-tourist discussions of women's lives in the Middle East, certain assumptions are made about women who wear veils during their daily lives. Many Westerners inaccurately assume that the veil is an inherent symbol of women's oppression, that women who cover themselves are forced to do so for modesty, religious purposes, male possession, etc. While these assumptions are untrue and incomplete pictures of living with a veil, Persepolis prompts me to question where these assumptions come from. Satrapi tells the story of the changes that occur under the Islamic regime in Iran, including that of mandatory veil-wearing.
A friend of mine recently told me about an episode of "America By the Numbers" that focused on Cambodians in the U.S. It was well-timed because 1) I rarely hear about Cambodians on TV 2) it could help me with my thesis and 3) it relates to issues of identity and access!
If you have 26 minutes of spare time, check it out! http://video.pbs.org/video/2365363645/
Really interesting to read about the complexity of Sign language across the globe; I'd like to know more about the history and evolution of Sign. Some thoughts/questions that came up while I was reading "Deaf": I wonder if communicating non-verbally changes one's structure of thought at all? (It does seem to activate different parts of the brain: "I could literally feel that a different part of my brain was working because I would get splitting headaches" (88) ). How do different Sign languages from all over the world influenced with one another? Are there more similarities between different Sign languages than spoken languages? The reason I ask is because there must be some sort of universality to body language and expression of emotions/ideas.