our friend abdullah serenading us
jordan flag. nationalism!
the oldest school in jordan
salt!
from a very old church
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
salt pictures
finally, some pictures from a pre-badia day trip to the city of salt:
our friend abdullah serenading us
jordan flag. nationalism!
the oldest school in jordan
salt!
from a very old church
our friend abdullah serenading us
jordan flag. nationalism!
the oldest school in jordan
salt!
from a very old church
conundrumumumumumum
today we had yet another interesting lecture about the feminist movement in jordan (or lack thereof) from a jordanian scholar working at the university of jordan. she teaches american lit, which i think is an important point to remember, and started the women’s center at uj. she was an excellent public speaker, almost dangerously so, and i found myself completely enraptured in what she had to say. it wasn’t until after i had thought for a few minutes, checked back over the notes i had taken, and processed her rhetoric that i started to feel a wrench in my stomach.
mostly, i felt her lecture to be extremely disorganized and she jumped from place to place. she went off on completely unrelated tangents, then at the end of the lecture started wrapping up with the history of the women’s movement (which she really spent no time talking about), and then read a letter written by an egyptian woman in 1909 that i think she expected us to cry over.
i guess i’ll start with what i liked/thought interesting about her lecture and then move into what i found problematic.
she raised some points about cultural views of women and the impact on their health that i had never realized before. for instance, here it’s crucial that a woman be a virgin when she marries, and the way to prove her chastity is the blood from her broken hymen. this is so important, in fact, that some parents don’t even let their girls ride bicycles or participate in sports because they are afraid that their hymens might break prematurely. this compounds a lot of what i’ve noticed regarding health in this country. there doesn’t seem to be a lot of knowledge about healthy eating or proper exercise. for example, my host sister in the badia asked me why she was so fat when she walks a full two km per day. well, that’s only about one mile and she doesn’t walk it very quickly. also she eats sweets galore (jordanians love their sugar). similarly, a girl on the program here stayed with a very traditional family in the badia whose women essentially never left the house. they were all pretty overweight. it worries me that these cultural views are keeping people from healthy and active lives.
the lecturer also said that it sometimes takes her hours to convince a woman to get a mammogram, especially in rural areas. she couldn’t figure out why this was until she realized that the only physician in town was a man, and the women of the village felt that it was improper for him to touch them in such a way. highly educated female physicians didn’t want to live in those villages where they felt their lifestyles were restrictive. she also said that religion can influence women to make unhealthy choices. here there is a sort of fatalism: whatever happens, god has willed it. the lecturer spoke of a woman she met who knew she had a lump on her breast but wouldn’t go get it checked out because she had faith that whatever happened was the will of god and she didn’t want to betray his will.
also, she and our last lecturer brought up a point of “distribution of resources” point. they said that jordan, as a developing country, and its government have a hard time focusing on feminist demands when they are so strained and stressed in other areas (a consequence of this is that the feminist movement is necessarily limited to upper-class participants, making it, like second-wave feminism in the US, a bourgeois/intellectual movement). going hand-in-hand with this point is that jordan, the middle east in general, and palestine in particular face huge political obstacles, particularly in relation to israel but also to the global political stage in general, in making their voices heard, understood, and respected. our lecturer said, and i’ve noticed this as well, that men here definitely have a macho attitude going on, which i see as being a product of feeling emasculation in other parts of their lives (note to self: look up statistics of domestic violence in the US before and after the recession).
now to the stuff i didn’t like:
while i appreciated the information the professor gave us, and i found much of it enlightening, she was definitely coming from a western perspective on feminism which makes me question the potential success of her point of view becoming the mainstream in jordan. she noted, but then seemed to dismiss, the impact of colonialism on reactions to feminist movements. she said that here feminism still has a huge stigma attached to it because it is seen as a betrayal of islamic values, that it is part of the “westoxification” of the arab world. then, she went on to say that feminism is a secular movement. this raised a big old red flag in my head. we have been talking this whole semester about how the religion of islam cannot be separated from other realms of society. it is not just a system of thought and beliefs but a way of life; islam is orthopraxic not orthodox. how then, can feminism (or at least the secular feminism that our lecturer prescribed) succeed in jordan? when she was talking to us, it was almost as if she was commenting on a people and culture other than her own. probably had something to do with her western education and the fact that she in an english lit professor.
she did say though that these “westoxification” accusations come readily partly because there is just a lack of middle east-produced feminist discourse (egypt is the exception). to a certain extent, there is nothing to do but borrow from the west.
herein lies the conundrum that i’ve been struggling with for so long re: feminism in the islamic world. i really don’t think that western feminism can survive/thrive in the middle east. firstly, there is too much outright rejection of anything western-produced in all realms of life, something that i don’t think will change until the US stops supporting israel (it’s amazing how i can trace almost every problem in jordan back to israeli-palestinian conflict; but this isn’t me extrapolating. it legitimately permeates every facet of life here). secondly, it doesn’t account for how deeply islam is incorporated into people’s life. thirdly, there is such a huge divide between intellectualism in amman and tribal traditionalism in the rural parts of jordan. i don’t think that the strength and influence of tribes in jordan can be underestimated, especially when the king right now relies heavily on these tribes’ support. i don’t know how connected these feminist intellectuals are with the needs/desires/challenges of women in rural jordan. the feminist movement here is definitely very bourgeois.
we were talking about top-down vs. bottom-up social reform. is change only going to come if the king/government (likely the king because parliament is very patriarchal and there are only female ministers because of a quota system) declares it, or is there a way for more grassroots change to occur? and even if it could, would it really be bottom-up reform? the point that i brought up is that because feminism here is so bourgeois still the bottom doesn’t really seem like the bottom. the analogy i brought up is freedom summer, in which white college students from the north went down to mississippi to help the black community exercise their voting rights and participate in the civil rights movement. it seems like this is almost what would happen be happening between women in the city and in rural areas. i can’t figure out how i feel about this. obviously i’m glad that mississppians voted, but freedom summer had some lasting negative effects. as david on my program brought up, sometimes the perfect gets in the way of the good. but i don’t know if i agree with this either!! i’ve never been a fan of band-aids. i think there needs to be patience, for people to realize that women have only been able to vote here since 1974 (which, humorously, i think is the same year women gained the right to vote in switzerland) and that there have been huge changes in that short period of time. there’s no easy answer other than it definitely isn’t the west’s responsibility to “save” islamic women. and if people in the west had any real interaction with women over here they would realize that they are much more capable than most give them credit for.
buzzword in my life for the past few weeks: CONUNDRUM. aaaaaaaah.
mostly, i felt her lecture to be extremely disorganized and she jumped from place to place. she went off on completely unrelated tangents, then at the end of the lecture started wrapping up with the history of the women’s movement (which she really spent no time talking about), and then read a letter written by an egyptian woman in 1909 that i think she expected us to cry over.
i guess i’ll start with what i liked/thought interesting about her lecture and then move into what i found problematic.
she raised some points about cultural views of women and the impact on their health that i had never realized before. for instance, here it’s crucial that a woman be a virgin when she marries, and the way to prove her chastity is the blood from her broken hymen. this is so important, in fact, that some parents don’t even let their girls ride bicycles or participate in sports because they are afraid that their hymens might break prematurely. this compounds a lot of what i’ve noticed regarding health in this country. there doesn’t seem to be a lot of knowledge about healthy eating or proper exercise. for example, my host sister in the badia asked me why she was so fat when she walks a full two km per day. well, that’s only about one mile and she doesn’t walk it very quickly. also she eats sweets galore (jordanians love their sugar). similarly, a girl on the program here stayed with a very traditional family in the badia whose women essentially never left the house. they were all pretty overweight. it worries me that these cultural views are keeping people from healthy and active lives.
the lecturer also said that it sometimes takes her hours to convince a woman to get a mammogram, especially in rural areas. she couldn’t figure out why this was until she realized that the only physician in town was a man, and the women of the village felt that it was improper for him to touch them in such a way. highly educated female physicians didn’t want to live in those villages where they felt their lifestyles were restrictive. she also said that religion can influence women to make unhealthy choices. here there is a sort of fatalism: whatever happens, god has willed it. the lecturer spoke of a woman she met who knew she had a lump on her breast but wouldn’t go get it checked out because she had faith that whatever happened was the will of god and she didn’t want to betray his will.
also, she and our last lecturer brought up a point of “distribution of resources” point. they said that jordan, as a developing country, and its government have a hard time focusing on feminist demands when they are so strained and stressed in other areas (a consequence of this is that the feminist movement is necessarily limited to upper-class participants, making it, like second-wave feminism in the US, a bourgeois/intellectual movement). going hand-in-hand with this point is that jordan, the middle east in general, and palestine in particular face huge political obstacles, particularly in relation to israel but also to the global political stage in general, in making their voices heard, understood, and respected. our lecturer said, and i’ve noticed this as well, that men here definitely have a macho attitude going on, which i see as being a product of feeling emasculation in other parts of their lives (note to self: look up statistics of domestic violence in the US before and after the recession).
now to the stuff i didn’t like:
while i appreciated the information the professor gave us, and i found much of it enlightening, she was definitely coming from a western perspective on feminism which makes me question the potential success of her point of view becoming the mainstream in jordan. she noted, but then seemed to dismiss, the impact of colonialism on reactions to feminist movements. she said that here feminism still has a huge stigma attached to it because it is seen as a betrayal of islamic values, that it is part of the “westoxification” of the arab world. then, she went on to say that feminism is a secular movement. this raised a big old red flag in my head. we have been talking this whole semester about how the religion of islam cannot be separated from other realms of society. it is not just a system of thought and beliefs but a way of life; islam is orthopraxic not orthodox. how then, can feminism (or at least the secular feminism that our lecturer prescribed) succeed in jordan? when she was talking to us, it was almost as if she was commenting on a people and culture other than her own. probably had something to do with her western education and the fact that she in an english lit professor.
she did say though that these “westoxification” accusations come readily partly because there is just a lack of middle east-produced feminist discourse (egypt is the exception). to a certain extent, there is nothing to do but borrow from the west.
herein lies the conundrum that i’ve been struggling with for so long re: feminism in the islamic world. i really don’t think that western feminism can survive/thrive in the middle east. firstly, there is too much outright rejection of anything western-produced in all realms of life, something that i don’t think will change until the US stops supporting israel (it’s amazing how i can trace almost every problem in jordan back to israeli-palestinian conflict; but this isn’t me extrapolating. it legitimately permeates every facet of life here). secondly, it doesn’t account for how deeply islam is incorporated into people’s life. thirdly, there is such a huge divide between intellectualism in amman and tribal traditionalism in the rural parts of jordan. i don’t think that the strength and influence of tribes in jordan can be underestimated, especially when the king right now relies heavily on these tribes’ support. i don’t know how connected these feminist intellectuals are with the needs/desires/challenges of women in rural jordan. the feminist movement here is definitely very bourgeois.
we were talking about top-down vs. bottom-up social reform. is change only going to come if the king/government (likely the king because parliament is very patriarchal and there are only female ministers because of a quota system) declares it, or is there a way for more grassroots change to occur? and even if it could, would it really be bottom-up reform? the point that i brought up is that because feminism here is so bourgeois still the bottom doesn’t really seem like the bottom. the analogy i brought up is freedom summer, in which white college students from the north went down to mississippi to help the black community exercise their voting rights and participate in the civil rights movement. it seems like this is almost what would happen be happening between women in the city and in rural areas. i can’t figure out how i feel about this. obviously i’m glad that mississppians voted, but freedom summer had some lasting negative effects. as david on my program brought up, sometimes the perfect gets in the way of the good. but i don’t know if i agree with this either!! i’ve never been a fan of band-aids. i think there needs to be patience, for people to realize that women have only been able to vote here since 1974 (which, humorously, i think is the same year women gained the right to vote in switzerland) and that there have been huge changes in that short period of time. there’s no easy answer other than it definitely isn’t the west’s responsibility to “save” islamic women. and if people in the west had any real interaction with women over here they would realize that they are much more capable than most give them credit for.
buzzword in my life for the past few weeks: CONUNDRUM. aaaaaaaah.
Friday, March 4, 2011
addendum
1. today i ate brains. i don't know from what animal (story of my life because i still can't speak this goshdarn language), but i'm assuming cow?
2. i also ate goat stomach in the badia.
3. here are my host nephews. they were adorable, except when the littlest one tried to eat my arabic textbook, which i borrowed from SIT, not bought. don't be fooled by his old man appearance. he still cannot talk. maybe that's why we bonded. because i cannot talk either, except "shookrun" (thank you), "qoyes" (nice!), "majnoon" (crazy, as in "qaddafi majnoon" which is my go-to political conversation starter nowadays), and "moomkin" (my favorite word because of its versatility. it can mean may i or maybe or so-so, and i use it in all situations).
2. i also ate goat stomach in the badia.
3. here are my host nephews. they were adorable, except when the littlest one tried to eat my arabic textbook, which i borrowed from SIT, not bought. don't be fooled by his old man appearance. he still cannot talk. maybe that's why we bonded. because i cannot talk either, except "shookrun" (thank you), "qoyes" (nice!), "majnoon" (crazy, as in "qaddafi majnoon" which is my go-to political conversation starter nowadays), and "moomkin" (my favorite word because of its versatility. it can mean may i or maybe or so-so, and i use it in all situations).
the badia, the bomb.com
this past thursday-monday i was doing a rural homestay in the southern badia, in the town of al-rajiff, some 30 minutes from petra. it. was. amazing.
i stayed in this house with "oomy" ("my mother," as i was told to call her), who was quite old, with bad teeth and rough-skinned hands. unfortunately i have no pictures of her because she is shy. she has 7 daughters and 1 son. all of them, except the youngest daughters, are married with kids of their own, but they all live in al-rajiff too. they are always at the house, especially on the weekends, cooking and cleaning and tending to the animals. oh yeah, my family had like 13 goats and 8 chickens, approximately. but we ate 4 of the goats (i'll get to that story in a second).
the first night i was there, my youngest host sister (23-year old maliha) got engaged to my friend natatlie (who was also staying in al-rajiff)'s host brother!! that meant one thing: mansaf. mansaf is the national dish of jordan, and it consists of either goat or lamb meat, rice with leben (tart, milky yogurt), parsley and almonds. it's delicious. it's cooked over a fire in huge cauldrons basically. so that afternoon we (by we i mean definitely not me, but the men in the family and all the male neighbors) slaughtered 4 of our goats. i thought it would phase me more because i was a vegetarian for 3 years. but it really didn't. they slit the throats and out poured a waterfall of blood, which the young children had fun running around dodging. my host sister burned something called baqhour to mask the smell of the blood. unfortunately (or fortunately, depending), i don't have any digital photos of the slaughter to show you, dear readers. i took them on my film camera. some cvs photo guy is in for a fun surprise!
so the next night we had a "small party" (oh, just about 100 people) at our crib. all the women were inside in the sitting room, and the men were outside under a makeshift tent. natalie and my other SIT friend staying in al-rajiff, anna, were able to come. the three of us were required to wear hijabs and dish-dashes (a long, shapeless dress covering your entire body), which was pretty fun, except my host sister sprayed my hijab with like 800 spritzes of perfume. we sat and chatted as my host sister came around with a bucket of water so we could wash our right hands, and then with a pot of turkish coffee and two cups, which 50 women shared (which is, undoubtedly, why i'm now ill). then the mansaf came in several GIGANTIC plates, and we ate on the floor with our right hands, occasionally using bread to pick up the goat and rice. yum yum yum. here are some pictures. natalie and anna are the ones who are obviously not arab. natalie looks like a badia bride.
it was a great evening, except there was no dancing, because it was still the mourning period for my host dad who recently passed away.
in case i didn't mention, al-rajiff is located at the top of a huge valley that looks like it was carved out by giant eagle talons (lord of the rings?). the mountains also sort of looked like the bumps on dave lanegran's booze nose. my host brother-in-law, abu adl (which means father of adl; people here often take the names of their firs-born sons) led me around the valley, which he grew up in. he said he used to walk all the way up the mountain from the bottom of the valley to go to school... barefoot. he would leave at 4 in the morning, with only a breakfast of a palm-ful of sugar to sustain him. oh, also, abu adl used to live in bahrain and work as a bodyguard for the al-khalifa royal family. no biggie.
he showed me old bedouin winter homes, which you'd barely be able to find if it weren't for the tiny chimney poking out the top. inside was just a bed and a few necessities, and the resident had scratched a greeting and his name on the wall with a soft rock.
he also showed me traditional water collection methods of the bedouins, which i of course flipped for. here is abu adl and his daughter miriam, walking up the steps to a catchment pool for rain runoff:
then we gathered some brush and made shay marameeya (tea with sage) on a cliff overlooking the valley and lay out in the sun. i died a little bit of happiness, especially when abu adl said that i was a bedouin because of how much i love tea. but apparently i am not a bedouin because i pick up after myself. bedouins here just litter. everywhere!! when i picked up the cans of juice that abu adl and his daughters left behind, he said: "BADIA. NOT CALIFORNIA." but i took them back home anyway.
i did more stuff, but i'm too tired to write about it now, sorry. maybe later. except it is worth telling that it took a really long time to get back from the badia because the bus driver had us over to his house for tea. this is typical. i love this country.
i have two arabic midterms sunday so i have to study up. thursday i will be leaving for oman, where i'll be for a week. again, no biggie. tomorrow i'm going to ajloun to visit some castles. jordan is the best. sorry minnesota, but i'm going to try to get an internship here for the summer, or maybe in israel (codename "disneyland" so we can talk about it in public places without drawing death stares).
i stayed in this house with "oomy" ("my mother," as i was told to call her), who was quite old, with bad teeth and rough-skinned hands. unfortunately i have no pictures of her because she is shy. she has 7 daughters and 1 son. all of them, except the youngest daughters, are married with kids of their own, but they all live in al-rajiff too. they are always at the house, especially on the weekends, cooking and cleaning and tending to the animals. oh yeah, my family had like 13 goats and 8 chickens, approximately. but we ate 4 of the goats (i'll get to that story in a second).
the first night i was there, my youngest host sister (23-year old maliha) got engaged to my friend natatlie (who was also staying in al-rajiff)'s host brother!! that meant one thing: mansaf. mansaf is the national dish of jordan, and it consists of either goat or lamb meat, rice with leben (tart, milky yogurt), parsley and almonds. it's delicious. it's cooked over a fire in huge cauldrons basically. so that afternoon we (by we i mean definitely not me, but the men in the family and all the male neighbors) slaughtered 4 of our goats. i thought it would phase me more because i was a vegetarian for 3 years. but it really didn't. they slit the throats and out poured a waterfall of blood, which the young children had fun running around dodging. my host sister burned something called baqhour to mask the smell of the blood. unfortunately (or fortunately, depending), i don't have any digital photos of the slaughter to show you, dear readers. i took them on my film camera. some cvs photo guy is in for a fun surprise!
so the next night we had a "small party" (oh, just about 100 people) at our crib. all the women were inside in the sitting room, and the men were outside under a makeshift tent. natalie and my other SIT friend staying in al-rajiff, anna, were able to come. the three of us were required to wear hijabs and dish-dashes (a long, shapeless dress covering your entire body), which was pretty fun, except my host sister sprayed my hijab with like 800 spritzes of perfume. we sat and chatted as my host sister came around with a bucket of water so we could wash our right hands, and then with a pot of turkish coffee and two cups, which 50 women shared (which is, undoubtedly, why i'm now ill). then the mansaf came in several GIGANTIC plates, and we ate on the floor with our right hands, occasionally using bread to pick up the goat and rice. yum yum yum. here are some pictures. natalie and anna are the ones who are obviously not arab. natalie looks like a badia bride.
it was a great evening, except there was no dancing, because it was still the mourning period for my host dad who recently passed away.
in case i didn't mention, al-rajiff is located at the top of a huge valley that looks like it was carved out by giant eagle talons (lord of the rings?). the mountains also sort of looked like the bumps on dave lanegran's booze nose. my host brother-in-law, abu adl (which means father of adl; people here often take the names of their firs-born sons) led me around the valley, which he grew up in. he said he used to walk all the way up the mountain from the bottom of the valley to go to school... barefoot. he would leave at 4 in the morning, with only a breakfast of a palm-ful of sugar to sustain him. oh, also, abu adl used to live in bahrain and work as a bodyguard for the al-khalifa royal family. no biggie.
he showed me old bedouin winter homes, which you'd barely be able to find if it weren't for the tiny chimney poking out the top. inside was just a bed and a few necessities, and the resident had scratched a greeting and his name on the wall with a soft rock.
he also showed me traditional water collection methods of the bedouins, which i of course flipped for. here is abu adl and his daughter miriam, walking up the steps to a catchment pool for rain runoff:
then we gathered some brush and made shay marameeya (tea with sage) on a cliff overlooking the valley and lay out in the sun. i died a little bit of happiness, especially when abu adl said that i was a bedouin because of how much i love tea. but apparently i am not a bedouin because i pick up after myself. bedouins here just litter. everywhere!! when i picked up the cans of juice that abu adl and his daughters left behind, he said: "BADIA. NOT CALIFORNIA." but i took them back home anyway.
i did more stuff, but i'm too tired to write about it now, sorry. maybe later. except it is worth telling that it took a really long time to get back from the badia because the bus driver had us over to his house for tea. this is typical. i love this country.
i have two arabic midterms sunday so i have to study up. thursday i will be leaving for oman, where i'll be for a week. again, no biggie. tomorrow i'm going to ajloun to visit some castles. jordan is the best. sorry minnesota, but i'm going to try to get an internship here for the summer, or maybe in israel (codename "disneyland" so we can talk about it in public places without drawing death stares).
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, February 21, 2011
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
Friday, February 18, 2011
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)