Thursday, November 02, 2006

The Bald Lady

I was flipping through the TV channels when a talk show on NBN captured my attention. The show was "Sejal" hosted by Rabia Zayyat whose guest was a Lebanese photographer called Carine something. Carine was not there to talk about her career and photography, but rather to talk about her hair or the non existence of it to be more specific. What I saw was shocking, not because it's the first time I see a "bald woman", (I've seen Demi Moore before :P) but because it was uncommon to see an "Arab" bald woman.

Carine isn't bald because she suffers from a certain disease that caused her hair loss or something, not because she had to shave her head (as Moore did) either. She chose "for a change" to get rid of her hair and become completely bald.

I didn't see the whole interview, but I want to shed light on a few points.

The girl was arguing that shaving her hair is something very personal, and people have nothing to do with it. There's nothing wrong with changing "the look" as long as we do not change from inside. Carine with or without hair is still the same person, nothing had changed. She insisted that people should not judge others by their looks. Judging a book from its cover is very wrong. Why would people care about her hair? Is it the hair that makes one's personality? Why do people ignore everything she has and concentrate on her baldness?

According to her, shaving her head was not necessarily to draw attention to herself; it was to change the look, no more no less. Besides, she is not intending to change that look anytime soon, despite all the comments, whispers, looks and stares she's getting. Some people are even wondering about her gender, suspecting that she suffers from a certain sexual disorder.

To be honest, I liked the girl's confidence and high self esteem. She was obviously an educated sociable lady, who doesn't seem to have any kind of psychological troubles.

But why did she do that and decided to abandon her femininity? (Knowing that she insisted that the hair is not an indicator of femininity, she can still be feminine without it).

"just because" or "for a change" are definitely not convincing answers, are they?

Is it the dominance of the male side of her? Or was it the rebellious side? Or maybe the insanity of artists, they do crazy things you know.

Is it to draw attention (khalef to3raf, as we say in Arabic)? See, she became famous, hadn't she shaved her head she would never appear on TV, and I will not post about her in my blog :D

A compensation of some deficiency maybe? Is it lack of confidence or excessive confidence? I mean what if the girl is so full of herself that she thinks that she doesn't need hair, LOL. That sounds odd.

Whatever the reason is, I still think that she looks DISGUSTING.

fi3lan, akher zaman. Girls are shaving their heads while boys are making ponytales


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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I stumbled across your blog by clicking the "next blog" feature. You are an arab living in Lebanon who has a blog in English..

As a second generation arab (father was born in Jordan) in the US I find it curious to see what life is like back there. Your english is so good, did you move back after living a time away?

I hope you don't mind me asking, I am just curious.

Thanks!

Diana said...

Hello Nora :)
I've always been living in Lebanon, never lived anywhere else. I have the Jordanian nationality though, and I'm originally from Hebron, Palestine. Does this sound complicated? :D

thanx for stopping by :)

Anonymous said...

It is her hair. she can do whatever she wants with it. Sorry to disagree with you :-)

Anonymous said...

They must teach great English in schools then! Our language training is certainly not up to par.. but I guess when my Uncle brought his wife back she had never been to the states before and spoke great English... Maybe we ought to look into your educational system.

Diana said...

Abu shakuush,disagree with me on what? I did not say otherwise, did I? :)
I only said that I think that she looks disgusting.

Dino$ said...

hahah nana eish haaaaaaad! u know this is my sadma week.. kolo sadmaat... ya3ni first i felt sorry i was like she probably has cancer... but then i read what u wrote and i was shocked that she did this with her OWN WILL! ya3ni... its just ODD.. uNattractive... takeas a lot of GUTs but .. ya3ni bil mara mo 7ilo.. a7al ishi il wardeh!! lol

Anonymous said...

My sister was sitting next to me while I was reading, and she seemed a bit shocked. She asked whether the woman in the pictures had survived cancer, and I replied 'No, she is perfectly fine!"

My sister then said she thinks it took the woman a lot of guts to be confident enough to shave her head off since a woman's hair represents most of her beauty. Well, she might be confident, but certainly unattractive. And let us not take this too far, mesh na2es ella aza2efelha for her act of bravery :P

I personally think she wanted to look funky, and she got what she wanted.

Diana said...

Dina, esmallah 3aleeky, ensadamty zayee? :D
I agree with you and Hala that it's very odd and unattractive.
3an jad taj el mar2ah sha3ra.
regards to ur sis Halool.

Anonymous said...

Ay moo 7ilo! different msih different it's ugly!

Diana said...

of course it is not a must milanoroger. What I meant was that the girl is fully aware and convinced of what she did , and that was not out of any psychological disorder, because usually those who lack self confidence tend to do crazy things to capture attention.

Anonymous said...

I think she looks fantastic.