Born to Make Who Happy?

In my class’s reading for this week in Reading Lolita in Tehran, one passage particularly stuck out to me. One of Nafisi’s students, Sanaz, will soon be traveling to Turkey to marry her fiancé, who she has not seen in over six years. Sanaz, while excited, is also quite anxious. Nafisi comments: “It was hard to tell if she was going to Turkey to please the others [ex. her fiancé, her family] or because she was really in love” (263).

This caught my eye because this past weekend, I began reading Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. The book was recommended to me by a classmate (check out her blog here!), and so far it’s been very illuminating on the current problematic state of young women and how they came to be this way.

Mary Pipher, the author, introduces the book by explaining many of the possible root causes for adolescent insecurity and negative decisions. She explains that in the transition from girlhood to womanhood, “Girls become ‘female impersonators’ who fit their whole selves into small, crowded places… [they] stop thinking, ‘Who am I? What do I want?’ and start thinking, ‘What must I do to please others?’” (22).

I was startled by the parallel in these two situations. The uncomfortable phenomenon of teenager girls learning to put others before themselves is replicated in the lives of these Iranian women. I believe that this emotion in both situations is caused by the culture they grow up in. After the revolution in Iran, “women, under law, were considered to have half the worth of men” (Nafisi 261). To put this in another cultural perspective, in antebellum America, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a white person in a population census. In this patriarchal society, women were worth less than slaves, and therefore could be imbued with the belief that their only value was in pleasing those around them.

This might seem difficult to connect to in modern America, where we claim to have equal rights for all. On the radio this weekend, I heard a song (which I can‘t seem to find the name of) but to paraphrase, it consisted of a woman explaining how she only felt happy when she was making her man happy. I mentally shook my head in disgust. The song had to be about 50 years old, and I couldn’t imagine that message reverberating with any modern audience. Yet to my surprise, I discovered that everyone’s favorite ex-pop idol, Britney Spears released a song in the late 1990’s entitled, “Born to Make You Happy”. I think you can guess what it’s about.

While I don’t believe this is the prevailing mindset of most educated women AT ALL, it is a pressure that can be dangerous if left to run rampant, as seen in Pipher‘s conclusions. I look forward to continuing both of these books to understand more about developing identities amidst the adverse conditions that can be found in many different forms, all over the world.

Shedding Light on Depression, at Home and Abroad

My English class began a new book entitled Reading Lolita in Tehran, chronicling the factual experiences of a modern Iranian woman, Azar Nafisi and the struggles she undergoes trying to teach American literature within the oppressive Islamic Republic of Tehran. From our reading so far, I’ve learned about the hardship faced by the Iranian civilians, and I’ve been appalled at what they’ve had to endure.

One passage was extremely poignant to me. After being expelled from the University of Tehran because she refused to wear the veil, Nafisi became increasingly disenchanted with the world around her. She imagined herself to be invisible, and contemplated her existence. Nafisi felt isolated from her husband, who had kept his job, and “had lost all concept of terms such as home, service and country” (169). In her own words, she became irrelevant. While Nafisi was not diagnosed with major depressive disorder or any psychological problem, her reaction to the loss of her vocation reminded me of the danger of irrelevancy and depression, especially in regards to teenagers.

Adolescence is a trying time. It seems to me that we are in an unfortunate conundrum: we think we’re adults, yet still treated like children in many ways. On our bad days, it seems like our voices can’t be heard amidst the din of society. I would diagnose us with the same ailment as Nafisi: in many ways, we are irrelevant.

Most teens cope, but some become depressed and feel “despair and a lack of hope for the future”. This depression can affect them so terribly that they feel no choice but to take their own lives. According to this excellent online presentation, “teen suicide is a fairly modern tragedy”.

It seems that depression (and consequently, suicide) is an unavoidable predicament in Iranian society, for teenagers as well as adults. This 2005 study found that 71% of Iranian teenagers had some degree of depression, noting that teenage girls were twice as likely to suffer. In many cases, these girls were victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. As we learned in Reading Lolita in Tehran, it is also very likely that they have been severely oppressed and abused by the regime, and even possibly arrested for crimes they did not commit. Suicide rates have also risen drastically in the past twenty years. In 2006, it was determined to be the second leading cause of death in Iran, with higher rates among women than men. (For more information, check out this link)

Depression can be triggered by unexpected, stressful life events, as seen in Nafisi’s case with the loss of her job or, more commonly with teenagers, the death of a loved one or parental divorce. It can also be caused by years of dehumanizing abuse, demonstrated those under the oppressive regime in Iran and teens who were abused as children.

I believe it is incredibly important to shed light on these issues that often get overlooked. A lot of media coverage is focused on breaking news and problems in troubled areas, rather than the human conditions in those places. By recognizing personal struggles abroad as well as in our own backyards, I hope we can feel empathy and make a deeper connection to all members of the human race.

If you or any loved one is suffering from depression, please do not hesitate to get help. There are many wonderful sources, many anonymous (such as save.org and online forums such as this that offer support as well as success stories), that save lives. You are not alone.

(graphic: Period of Darkness by jenniholma )