women in islam

today we had a very interesting lecture by a very accomplished female scholar named Dr. Samira Khaleldeh on the status of women in islam. now, i'm definitely a cultural relativist insofar as i understand that my personal feminism is a result of my priveleged american upbringing; i don't really believe in international human rights laws because i think they are based on a uniquely western perspective, and that imposing these sets of and values globally is essentially moral imperialism.

so most of what dr. khalaldeh said i could get behind, or at least understand. she believed that the islam that most people were practicing was not true/pure islam; that pure islam fiercely protected the rights of all humans, men and women. that the religion gives women the right to life, education, participation in public life, divorce, and economic independence. and all this is true. shariah law is not true islam; rather, it is based on cultural and political values. she said that women nowadays do not understand their rights and do not do a good enough job fighting for them, and that they should not wait for a "savior" (the west) to bring them these rights.

when she opened up the floor for questions, i raised my hand. i told her that i believed this to be true, but that the potential obstacle i see in this perspective is that this society (as others, american included) is still very much dominated by men. and that perhaps educating women about their rights within islam was not enough; that men needed to reach this understanding too. i asked her if there were efforts to bring awareness to men of women's god-given rights. she said yes, but did not provide me with any concrete examples.

she said some things about women's dress that i found i couldn't reconcile. i have no problem with veiling. i think that women have many and varied reasons for veiling, and that few of these reasons have anything to do with outside pressures (obviously the exception is countries under shariah law). the veil has, detrimentally, become a symbol of progress of a society. it is unfortunate that this has become critics' focus; it puts the burden of progress on women's bodies, which is dangerous and unforgivable.
dr. khaleldeh quoted 2 verses in the qur'an that instruct women to dress modestly, covering their bodies except for their face and hands so that they would not attract the gaze of men. she said however, that men were only required to cover themselves from the waist to the knees.
i asked her why. this seems to deny that women, like men, have sexual desires and covet men's bodies just as men covet women's. she said yes, this is true: women aren't subject to sexual desire. in islamic culture, men are virile, and their sexual appetite is greater than women's. but the evidence she used to support this claim was cultural, not scientific. obviously women have biological sexual desires. this is scientific, not cultural, fact. her evidence was, firstly, that men in islam take multiple wives. i have a hard time believing that she herself thought this was a legimate argument. as scholarly as she is, she should know that polygamy was born out of necessity; that during wartime, the shortage in men gave rise to polygamy so that the community might sustain the population. her second piece of evidence was advertising; that advertising shows many images of sexualized women to attract men to their product, but that you rarely see images of half-naked men in advertising. i don't feel i need to explain how laughable that justification is.

all in all, i thought it was an interesting lecture, and i was glad to hear the perspective of a self-proclaimed muslim feminist, and, for that matter, a veiled and deeply pious muslim feminist. she defied many of the stereotypes that i think many people have in america of muslim women. but still, i found myself unable to understand some of her opinons, especially regarding the sexual desires (or lack thereof) of women. while i fully respect the ideals of modesty that exist in this society, i think that denying women their sexuality can lead to dangerous imbalances in sexual relationships/marriages, with women viewed as the object of men's sexual fulfilment. perhaps the view that women aren't sexually desirous results from that fact that sexual education in schools is virtually non-existent in jordan.

i'm not necessarily shocked by this fact, but i am concerned about it's repercussions. here, it is very important for men that they marry virgins. but the converse is not necessarily true. as such, prostitution is actually a big problem in jordan, with many women arriving from russia, romania, and ukraine and working in sex trade. with the lack of sex education in jordan, i wonder if men are contracting STDs from prostitutes and passing them onto their future wives. this is something that would be worth investigating in an ISP (the independent study project that we work on for a month at the end of the semester), if it weren't such an obstacle getting people to open up about sex, which is still quite a taboo topic of conversation.

there are no easy answers, but being here has provided me with a greater perspective into the lives of modern women in jordan. every day i view them with more and more respect as they support their families (really though, men here seem to be utterly helpless, getting taken care of by their mothers until they get married and then are taken care of by their wives. if they were on their own, i'm confident that most of them would starve to death) and keep them together like glue, manage jobs and an education, and earn respect from others not just with their bodies but with their minds. and they do it all with a bit of sass and plenty of good humor.

footnotes in gaza (yeah i'm gettin all political-like)

from the graphic novel/investigative journalism piece by joe sacco (READ IT):

"And what were the options of the Palestinian refugees who had lost their homes and land with Israel's birth and found themselves roaming the sands of Gaza?
Of them, an Israeli Foreign Ministry report in 1949 predicted that 'the most adaptable and best survivors would manage by a process of natural selection, and the others will waste away. Some will die but most will turn into human debris and social outcasts and probably join the poorest classes in the Arab countries.'"


and a headline from Friday:
"U.S. Blocks Security Council Censure of Israeli Settlements"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/world/middleeast/19nations.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
"The widespread eruptions of antigovernment protests in the Middle East have focused on domestic issues and have not been tinged with anti-American sentiment. The Obama administration said it hoped that the veto, which it has as one of the Council’s five permanent members, would not change that public sentiment."

and today:
"Jordan slam US veto on Israeli settlements resolution"
http://jordantimes.com/?news=34708

i like the way jordanians celebrate

meet marhaba! it has been a while since i've posted anything, and today was quite a memorable day, so here goes:
well, firstly, here are some pictures that i think are past due:
here is the view from my window at home. i live in the tla'ali area of amman. there is some construction going on next door. it is annoying most of the time. but i have earplugs.





so tody was an exciting day in jordan because students got back the results of these huge exams they have to take. the quality of their marks determines whether or not they go to university. so for all those who got good grades, it was a time to celebrate. celebrating in jordan involves three things: leaning out of cars screaming and honking horns, shooting off guns into the air, and setting off fireworks. i like the way jordanians celebrate. a bunch of fireworks were being set off on my street, which was fun to watch from my bedroom window.

in more personal news, today i went with my host family to the dead sea!! we went with my host mom's sister (mona) and her family (8.5-months pregnant (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) safaa and her husband khaled, mohammad (14 yrs) and ahmed (10 yrs)) who i'd visited in their home in naour previously. safaa is the best, and she speaks english really well, so it was fun talking to her today. here is a picture of her and ahmed (who i'm obsessed with, he's hilarious) at the dead sea:






we had a picnic feast; there was more barbecued meat than i'd ever seen in my life. i'm so glad i decided to forgo vegetarianism here in amman. it would be difficult to have a balanced diet, plus i'd miss out on amazing meals like this:









and here is a picture of my host dad, mohammad, barbecueing and just being an all-around G:





dads of the world, please note what an excellent fashion move a t-shirt tucked into sweatpants can be.

all around, it was an excellent day, and i was just happy to feel warm for the first time in about a month; amman is surprisingly cold, and the dead sea is a good 15-20 degrees warmer than the city. i also couldn't help but be amazed that i could look across the sea to israel. it felt so close, and yet a million worlds away.







oh, and here is a picture of me, to appease family members and prove that i'm alive and unscathed. today khitam and safaa said i look like princess diana. i'm going to choose to believe this assertion, despite evidence to the contrary (i don't think princess di would ever go for 4 days without a shower). but you know what they say, all white people look the same.

body-builder boyfriend

thursday was an interesting day.
here friday and saturday are weekend days, and jordanian families take advantage of the free time to see every member of their family (at least that's what it feels like). normally i come home from school during the week and my mama and baba are just watching tv in the tv room, but this thursday i came in and heard a chorus of voices.
mama was in the doorway with tin foil in her hair, getting it colored by her sister. mama's sister had her entire family over: her husband jimmy, and her three sons. two of them are married, and their wives and babies were over. BABIES. FINALLY. yum yum yum. one of them was name tu'reen (tutti for short) and was 2 years old. "terrible twos" defined. but i'll get to that in a moment.
i came into the tv room where everyone was watching al jazeera and smoking cigarettes and drinking redonkulously strong turkish coffee. after "marhaba"s were exchanged, i sat down. the first thing jimmy said to me (in english yeyeyeye) was "do you want some money??" and reached into the plastic bag he was holding and pulled out a 2-inch thick stack of lebanese bills, waving them around. "oh, um, maybe later?" was the only thing i could think to say. WHAT ON EARTH???? i need to investigate this further.
then, jimmy tried for like 25 minutes to pitch his single son to me. he saw that i had a ring on a silver ring on my ring finger and asked if i was married. i answered honestly. MISTAKE. he was like, "oh, you're ashreen se'a (20 years old) as well? so is my son!! he body builds." then jimmy said something to his son in arabic, and he pulls out his cell phone and shows me about 10 pictures of his shirtless, muscular physique. i think my mama is in on this little arrangment too. back in the tv room i saw her and my future husband whispering and smiling and staring at me. ACK!
so i found solace in playing with little tutti... until she started slapping me and grabbing my cheeks and pulling them out as far as they could go. when this happened, her mom grabbed her and slapped her across the face. i gasped, which i feel really bad about now. jordanian ideas of punishment are definitely different than american, but i still was very taken aback. then tutti climbed on the kitchen table, grabbed a fork, and tried to stab me with it. i wrestled it from her tiny little hands, but not before she laid her teeth deep into my arm. ok, tutti. final straw. when she later accidentally hit herself in the head with a cabinet door i didn't feel all that bad.
i took solace in the tv room once more, but then i found myself intruding upon a "boys club" of sorts (just like at mac! can't escape being a bro). before i realized it, all the men where on the couch with me and the door was closed. they conversed in arabic, which i didn't understand, smoking cigarettes and drinking more turkish coffee. i could not have felt more out of place. story of my life in amman so far.

anyway, this all sounds pretty bad, but it was actually a pretty amusing evening. i've heard stories like this from my other friends too. jordanian families are just large and loud and a little crazy. but it's part of what we love about them. and they make for some entertaining stories.

still loving amman! explored downtown yesterday, haggled successfully for a shirt (.5 JD!! that's wassup) and ate some delicious chicken (with two spoons. people just don't use forks or knives here). more l8r.

crowned cutie

maybe it's just because his face is everywhere, but i'm starting to find our hashemite king quite dashing. it's not just me; some of the other girls think he's a royal cutie too. here's a picture:

meet marhaba!!

two new great things i have learned this week:

1. greetings are like a game of one-upsmanship. if you say "marhaba" (hello), the other person will say "marhabtain" (multiple hellos), or, better yet, my favorite: "meet marhaba" (100 hellos!). my host parents got a kick out of that one when i said it to them last night.
my spoken arabic teacher said that plural greetings are more polite (like "vous" instead of "tu" in french) and also more religious. you are greeting not only the other person, but also "the two angels on their shoulders and all the creatures on the earth."

2. "personal questions are normal questions in jordan." it is not uncommon for a stranger to ask you a deeply personal question ("what is your relationship with your boyfriend like?" is a question my friend got on her first day in her new home), especially regarding your origin. it is not impolite at all to ask if someone is "jordanian-jordanian" or "palestinian-jordanian," even though some of the issues surrounding palestinians in jordan are quite tense.

the longest post ever

friends and family,

i’ve gotten emails and facebook messages of concern and worry because of the political situation in the middle east. please know that i am very very safe in jordan, and that the unrest in egypt has not carried over here!! there have been demonstrations the past few fridays (including today, though i didn’t see it when i was out, and it was just outside the egyptian embassy in support of the pro-democratic movement), and as i wrote in my last post, king abdullah responded quickly. he dismissed his government and is in the process of appointing a new one. my academic director at SIT, when he heard the news during an orientation session, got very excited. so things are stable and very very safe. i haven’t felt at all uncomfortable or concerned. the only reason i haven’t been able to email in a little while is that i just moved in with my host family, and they don’t have internet for me. we should be getting it tomorrow, “insha’allah” (god willing). if this never happens, i will have access during the week (sunday-thursday) at SIT headquarters.

so! about my family:
i live with a host mother (khitam) and father (mohammad) in an apartment just west of the universtiy of jordan, which is in northern amman. they have one daughter (donya) who is 28 years old, but she lives in texas with her husband and their 4 children. i feel so truly blessed to be with khitam and mohammad; i could not be in better hands!! they are so kind, patient, and generous. khitam calls me her second daughter and “habeebti” (my sweet/my love), kisses me on the cheek constantly, and says “nighty night! i love you” in english when i go to bed. she speaks basically no english at all, which is tough because my arabic is slim/none at this point (having not taken any classes in over a year). mohammad knows some words and phrases in english, but hardly any. both of them have been teaching me some arabic words (mostly food, haha) and then quizzing me on them throughout the day. they are so patient! sometimes they start talking to me in arabic, and when i look at them confusedly they just laugh understandingly and pat me on the shoulder. but even with this total linguistic disconnect, i don’t feel alienated or lonely. they have welcomed me into their home so graciously and have made me feel so comfortable. things will only get better as my arabic improves (which it will, and quickly, considering i will have class 3 hours a day).
and mom got to meet khitam and mohammad!! using their computer, we skyped and i got to seem mom’s face and she got to meet my new “mama wa baba” (mom and dad). mom was so happy with the obvious love and kindness that mama and baba were showing me that she started to cry.

about the program and my fellow students:
as i said before, the program leaders are awesome! dr. raed is the academic director and will lead most of our seminar classes. he holds a masters in arid land management, so he will be an invaluable resource when i do my independent study project. dema is the homestay coordinator and a “badia princess” (she is from a badia in the north and very wealthy, with her own nice car and beautiful clothes). she is as sweet as sugar, but does probably the hardest job out of everyone. it’s really difficult to find people to host students, especially for the men, jews, non-smokers, and vegetarians. only about 4% of the population of jordan is christian, but about 25% of our homestay families are. there are a few reasons for this: christians are most likely to host jewish students (of which we have a few) and also men. muslim women will stay veiled in their home if they have male strangers or guests, though they wouldn’t if it was just their husbands and children around. so it would be a pain to host a male student and have to stay veiled all the time. lots of jordanians smoke, so it’s hard when people request specifically to be with non-smokers. and the concept of vegetarianism is not easily understood here. good thing i’ve switched back to meat! the lamb is delicious!
all of us students are in a bit of a honeymoon phase. as dr. raed said, we are now the “SIT tribe” (tribal culture and family life is an extremely important part of jordanian culture). we are still all eager to get to know each other and are reaching out at every possible moment to hang out or explore amman all together. i’m sure that’ll start changing as we get to know each other on a more personal level, with some becoming better friends than others. or not! who knows. everyone seems remarkably compatible, so we could just be one big 25-person friend posse. people are a lot like macalester students actually. super smart, pretty nerdy, just slightly socially handicapped, but still know how to have a good time. as one student, sarah, put it “we are all weirdos in our own way.” so far i really like everyone. you could say it was love at first bananagrams game (lots of board-gamers in this group! just my type).

about amman:
as of now, i’m struggling to get a grasp on the layout of the city. granted, we’ve mostly been at SIT headquarters in abdoun for orientation. but the city is quite sprawling, the roads aren’t in any kind of grid, and all the buildings are made of the same material and are all about the same height, so it’s hard to find landmarks and use them as points of reference. i think the best way to learn any city is to force yourself to learn the public transportation system, but amman has none to speak of. so just getting in a taxi and being zoomed around to my destination doesn’t help me figure out this city much. luckily, even though city transportation is nil, dr. raed says that it’s cheap and easy to get to other cities. a bus down to aqaba for some sun and sea would be only about $15 and would take just a few hours. i’ll definitely take advantage of this on more than one weekend!!
that said, i think amman is quite pretty, especially with all its hills that remind me of home (a nice break from flat-as-a-pancake minnesota). the library/study space of the SIT HQ, which is on the 4th floor, has an amazing view of the whitish-yellow limestone (or maybe jerusalem stone?) buildings that turn pink at sunset––expect pictures soon! it is also quite a modern city. the roads are wide and well-cared for, and the streets are very clean–– i’ve hardly seen a speck of garbage. and it feels extremely safe, with policemen posted at stations on the street, especially in abdoun, which is a neighborhood with several government buildings and embassies.

some cultural observations:
so far, there is nothing about the culture that has really made me taken aback. so far i feel very comfortable. but it has been interesting to witness some of the daily practices, especially in regards to islam. there seem to be a lot of ways to “get around” some obligations. well, this maybe isn’t the best term. i’ll give an example: if it’s time to pray and you are unable to attend a mosque (masjid in arabic), you can pray from wherever you are. at prayer time, khitam changed the tv channel to a program that had a voice singing the prayer and the words displayed on screen so she could follow along. i witnessed something similar when i was in a cab this afternoon: the cab driver changed the radio to a station that had the prayer being sung and he recited along. just a convenient way of fulfilling your obligations while keeping them from interfering with daily life.
TV is a big part of down-time here, maybe even more so than in the U.S. but this could be exaggerated due to the situation in egypt; the TV is on 24/7 and almost strictly on aljazeera. khitam and mohamman watch and go “tsk tsk tsk” at all the violence. in arabic, khitam explained it to me: “fi amerikya, clinton wa bush wa obama. laiken fi masr, mubarak mubarak mubarak. tsk tsk tsk.” mama and baba also love cooking shows on the jordanian equivalent of the food network, fatafeat. they have some american shows with arabic subtitles; last night we watched barefoot contessa!! THE BEST.

about the food:
this will probably turn into a pseudo-food blog because khitam is such a good cook!! yesterday for lunch/dinner we had rice with peas and carrots that was flavored with saffron (i think), with roasted chicken (dijej), pita bread (khobez), and a tabbouleh-like salad. for breakfast this morning we had more khobez (definitely the staple here) with something resembling cream cheese with olive oil (zeit zeitoun), scrambled eggs with peppers (filfil) and onions, and my new favorite thing in the whole wide world: zata. it’s a mixture of herbs (i’m not sure which ones, but i think there is some oregano in there) with sesame seeds, and you take the khobez and dip in first in zeit zeitoun and then the zata and it’s DELICIOUS. mohammad and i just eat and say “zaki, zaki, zaki,” which means delicious. i could have it all day.
here breakfast is pretty light, lunch is huge and late in the day (3 or 4), and then dinner is either at about 8 or 9 or not at all. sometimes if lunch is food enough, dinner is just a snack of fruits and nuts. that’s how it was last night. khitam was so sweet: she served these nuts/seeds which resembled pumpkin seeds. like sunflower seeds, you have to crack the shell with your teeth to get to the edible part. they were so small and thin and i was having a lot of trouble, so khitam cracked the shell for me and then fed me the the seeds! oh i love her!!

well, this post is probably long enough. i finally got something which will allow me to put my photos on my computer, so stay tuned for some photos of my new home, SIT headquarters, and amman!

until next time,
molly

first day jitterbugz

so yesterday my study abroad program with SIT officially kicked off! everyone (there are 25 of us, i think?) arrived at the airport in the evening and we were shuttled over to a hotel near the 4th circle, where i am now. (an easy way to orient yourself in amman is by the circles, which are numbered from east to west) anyway, after about 24 hours of awkward small talk, we are starting to get comfortable with each other. a few rounds of bananagrams didn't hurt either.

today was all about orientation at the SIT headquarters in the abdoun neighborhood of amman, which is pretty chic and upper-crust (BOUUUUGE). so we were inside all day, but no one minded because it rained all afternoon. orientation was both comforting and off-putting. the directors of the program are amazing. they really emphasized that we could come to them with ANY question and ANY concern ANY time.

however, a lot of the reason they wanted to us to feel comfortable with them was in the context of responding to sexual harassment. about 1/3 of our orientation day was about harrassment, what kind of harassment we should expect and at what frequency. they had MANY stories to share from semesters past, including some very disconcerting incidents with homestay fathers. a former student who is still in amman doing fulbright research was here today, though, and she said women probably have to deal with harassment maybe only 5% of the time, and it's mostly just catcalls or overly-chatty taxi drivers. she gave some very good tips and arabic phrases to shut down any inappropriate conversation, and how to react to catcalls (pretty easy, just ignore them and don't make eye contact). in the end, i'm not too worried about it, but i'm definitely going to have to make an effort to change some of my habits.

for instance, striking up a conversation with a cab driver can be very suggestive, even if you truly just want to get some insider info about this new city. also too much smiling is a no-no, as is laughing when it's not called for. this is bad news bears for yours truly, as i love making small talk with strangers, i tend to smile whenever i talk to strangers, and i definitely laugh as a nervous habit. i'm going to have to bite my tongue a bit more though so i don't accidentally end up with a jordanian cab driver boyfriend.

we've had some changes to the program this semester due to the political situation over here. there was originally going to be a 5-day excursion to cairo, but that's no longer in the cards. so the alternatives are syria (please please please) or oman! i'd be really excited either way. things here in jordan are changing too! just today, king abdullah II dismissed the government (like, all of it) and appointed a new PM. (here is a cnn.com article about it: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/01/jordan.government/index.html) the SIT staff were all pretty excited about it, and, "insha'allah" (god willing), it will mean real reform for jordan.

tomorrow we learn all about our homestay families and do some "drop-offs" within the ciy. i don't know exactly what this means, but i assume i'm going to have to put my geogrpahy skills to the test and do some extreme map-reading. then on thursday we meet our homestay families and move in with them. then we have the weekend (which is friday and saturday in the arab world) and classes start on sunday. fingers crossed for a homestay family with babies and/or grandparents and/or one million pet cats!!

so, family and friends, don't worry! i'm alive and quite well, taken care of by a generous and kind SIT staff, and in the company of some good people. until next time,
molly