Muslim women wear these fancy Western clothes for each other in private parties, since they can’t openly wear them on the street. It’s an interesting subject that I may write a blog post about, since I don’t think many American women are aware of this. I think the filmmakers of “Sex and the City 2″ were trying to allude to this in the film.

The only part that I found somewhat offensive, is a scene that no one seems to be discussing. When the foursome are pulled into the flower shop by the group of muslim women, who are revealed to be wildly interested in New York and it’s fashion! I had two problems with this:
- I thought it was totally conceded of the writers to think that New York is so wonderful that everyone wants to be like them.
- And I thought it kind of made light of muslim women’s oppression. ‘Yeah, they have to wear burqas, but they can have anything on underneath them!’ Nevermind that with the censorship in the middle east they may have never even seen New York fashion, or have the money to buy it (I don’t believe women have access to their husbands’ money to buy clothes that cost thousands of dollars), or that they would want to wear so many layers in that extreme heat.

It just seemed ridiculous to me. I understand that the writers were trying to show that a new generation is frustrated with the tradition are are trying to change things, but they could’ve done it in a better way.

Why don’t you put down your Luce Irigaray or your Julia Kristeva or whatever dour feminist tract you’re reading, and go out and enjoy the sunshine and the real world? You’ll find the real world does indeed have rainbows and butterflies – if you are willing to let them in.

However, the writers/producers may have felt that would offend Muslim men too much if one was shown being involved with a sexually-aggressive Western woman, and that’s why they actually took the somewhat safer route of just having her romance other Western men in the film. From what I’ve seen in my travels, Islamic men are already suspicious of Western women coming on to them and “corrupting” them, and so the producers of the film may not have wanted to go there.

Anyway, it must have been fascinating to live in Morocco for two years. I look forward to traveling there myself some day. Thanks for commenting.

There are so many ways the writers could have preserved Samantha’s believability while showcasing her irreverence and outrage…for example, she could have fallen hard for a local with strict ideas about women. THAT might have been a great set-up for conflict of cultures, personal conflict, etc. that would have given the character a bit more depth while keeping the audience intrigued. All in all, the writer(s) took the easy way out, and failed, IMHO.

(Full disclosure: I’m a New Yorker who lived for 2 years in Morocco, loves SATC, and know exactly what menopause is. I hope to see “my girlfriends” back in believable form sometime in the future!)

And to claim that “objectifying women in the media” – I guess here you’re talking about women being featured in entertainment/fashion/beauty magazines – somehow contributes to sex crimes, is absolutely crazy. Every single society in the world celebrates women’s beauty, and has since the beginning of history! So all art or media that features women as attractive leads to sex crimes? Thus we’re supposed to deny all attractiveness in women, ban all fashion, beauty, makeup, etc., so that men (who in your view are exclusively brutish and cannot control themselves apparently) won’t be tempted to assault women? Sorry “Feminazi,” but you’re starting to sound like the Islamic radicals themselves here, who don’t allow women to wear makeup and make women cover themselves from head to toe because otherwise the men claim they’ll be sexually assaulted (and in their societies, ensure that this is literally the case in order to get women’s compliance). So your solution is to ban everything attractive or fashionable or beautiful that women enjoy and that makes women women? Give me a break.

“Feminazi” – have your ever traveled outside of the West? I’m really curious. Have you ever been to Asia, Africa, or the Middle East? If you had been and if you honestly observed what goes on in those societies, you would see that women are way more in the background, way more second-class citizens, way more objectified and required to be meek and submissive, than in any Western society. It’s just the objective truth.

And yes, it is empowering to revere things like beauty and desirablity. It’s what art is all about! I get the sense from you though that you’re not interested in art at all, but only in ideology. If all you care about is politics and ideology, then I guess aesthetic matters like beauty would really bother you. And beauty, desirability, the celebration of the splendor of the visual world are entirely natural because they are related both to the natural human desire to survive and propagate the human race and the natural desire to celebrate the wonders of the world around us. What’s unnatural is anti-art ideologues such as yourself who are so angered by anything beautiful in nature – such as the beauty of women – that you want to suppress it.

“Feminazi” – I guess the “Mona Lisa,” the Capitoline Venus, Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus,” Rubens’ portrait of “The Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria,” Ingres’ “La Grande Odalisque,” Sargent’s “Portrait of Madame X,” and Lempicka’s “Self Portrait in a Bugatti” must all drive you really crazy. After all, they all celebrate women’s beauty! How oppressive! They must lead to sex crimes! And let’s not even mention films starring beautiful women like Greta Garbo’s “Wild Orchids,” Marlene Dietrich’s “Blonde Venus,” Vivien Leigh’s “Gone with the Wind,” Rita Hayworth’s “Gilda,” or Elizabeth Taylor’s “Cleopatra” – obviously all such films are equally culpable for sex crimes against women – at least according to your thinking – and must be censored too for the greater good.

“Feminazi” – please describe to me some movies and works of art that you actually like before I believe that you care about art at all and are not just a political ideologue.