Response "The Bluest Eye" & "Lipstck Jihad"

There are many ways in which a persons outward appearance affects their inward understanding of self and identity. Even though everyone is an individual in society, society also shapes the individual.

In "The Bluest Eye" Pecola Breedlove represents the lowest status a person can have in society. Her family was black, poor, uneducated, and ugly. "You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized it came from their conviction" (39). Since Pecola was taught from the day she was born by society that she was ugly, she believed it. And because she truly believed she was ugly, this caused her to have very low self esteem. She believed that if only she could have blue eyes she would be beautiful and would be accepted by society. She envied and longed to look like Maureen Peals, a blond haired rich girl who had blue eyes, just like the baby dolls she would get for Christmas from her family. At the end of the book, Pecola copes with her low self esteem, caused by her rejection from society, by making up a best friend who tells her she is beautiful and has beautiful blue eyes. But even this does not help her out of the blackness. "But suppose my eyes aren't blue enough....for you!" (203).

In "Lipstick Jihad" Moaveni watches as the government tries to make women feel as though they are lesser in society then men after the revolution, by telling them they had to wear a veil in public and that they could not be seen with someone of the opposite sex unless they were family. If they didn't obey these rules, there were horrible consequences such as public beatings and hangings. "The general stressors of Tehran life -toxic smog, traffic jams, fundamentalist theocracy, inflation, unemployment- together with the special burden of the veil made Iranian life particularly wearisome for women, who were depressed in large numbers. The depression had a major physical component, in that it was compounded by the clothing regulations of the regime" (156). So what choice did these women have? Society told them they were at a lower status then men, which hurt their individual identities. When they went out in public, the only skin they could show was their face. Since this was the only way they could express their individuality, women in Iran became obsessed with having the perfect face, so they resorted to plastic surgery. "It assuaged so many urges at once -to look better, to self-express, to show off you could afford it, to appear Westernized. The compulsion to work these interior issues out through one's apperance was a curious phenomenon unique to revolutionary Iran" (164).