Size 6: The Western Women's Harem by Fatema Mernissi

Fatema Mernissi was raised in Morocco, where beauty is veiwed differently. She then travels to the middle east. Mernissi explores the mystery of the Western harem. It all began with a cotton skirt in an American department store. A size 6 apparently did not fit Mernissi. The saleslady that was with her, could not find a skirt for her in the whole store. The saleslady told Mernissi that she was too big! Mernissi did not understand, and never has she ever heard such nonsense about her size. Mernissi "felt not only ugly, but also quite useless in that store, where if you had big hips, you were out of the picture,'' and so she wrote this story, The Western Women's Harem. This is the story about the difference between Middle Eastern, and Western veiws about beauty.