Tag: women’s rights

Black Experience, books, reading

The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

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If there was ever a book that you should read to learn of how other’s lives have been lived, this is it. This epic tale – but you are never sure exactly who the hero is. You are introduced to many individuals, all who sing a different song. None of the songs are named, but each time you see a new title page with SONG, you know the speaker has changed. It is through all these voices that moves this story along, even if not linearly. You are introduced to many people, at different times in history, in different orders. None of this makes sense until you are almost at the end. You are faced with information on the many terrible things that humans are capable of, even those that are supposed to love and protect you.  


We are introduced to the Creek Indians, those that inhabited the land. White men from Europe come and took away their land as if they had never been there. They brought slaves to do their work. And through their arrogance and ego, they abused these men and women. They sowed not only the seeds of cotton and tobacco, but also of themselves. Mixed races are common, but never acknowledged by the white men that made them.

This history of a people is complex and confusing. The book reflects this in the intertwined stories of sisters, generations, family, tragedies, and fears. Throughout the book, however, Uncle Root, an educated Black man with a doctorate in History, understands that the history of the family comes from the women. He extolls the strength of Black women especially, because the burdens they have carried is so heavy.

I can never imagine having lived this history and surviving it. The brutality and ongoing ramifications are horrifying. The truth of these pains and these slights are not shied away from to make it easier for someone else to read it. The racism that still exists within the hallowed halls of education and throughout the country is astounding. I am humbled that I have probably erred without knowing or understanding, and I hope that I will not make the same mistakes again.

This book challenges you. You need to understand that we are the sum of our ancestors, as well as our times. While this book is well over 750 pages, I never once wanted to skim a page, because I was so involved in the number of people we are introduced to. I felt the pain of loss, the pain of betrayal, and the pain of self-doubt. This was worth every single page – and there is not a word I would keep out to make it shorter. We need to do the work to understand what these families have endured, and continue to endure. Until we face it and learn, things will not change.

books, read around the world, reading

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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This is the story of courage. Of a young woman, born in Somalia on the brink of war, carrying the weight of clan, gender and religious expectations, who is able to raise her head to question Why? She is able to do this despite the institutions around her trying to beat her into complete submission – literally and figuratively.

Ayaan is the eldest child of her father’s second marriage. Her beloved father, a prominent scholar and revolutionary leader in Somalia, was away fighting to build Somalia into an Islamic country for much of her childhood. This left her mother and grandmother to raise Ayaan, her sister and brother by the grace of clan members that were providing funding and other supports while the family was in exile – in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Devoted to Islam, the family was exposed to the developing Muslim Brotherhood and the strict rules of observance demanded by the religion. Ayaan was able to survive despite the obstacles set before her. She was beaten by her mother for not doing enough around the house (cleaning, cooking, laundry) even though Ayaan was actually trying to complete her school work; when in Ethiopia her cousins arranged for all three children to be circumcised – for a woman that mean cutting out her clitoris and sewing her genitals together to keep her pure; friendships outside of the religion are shunned – it is forbidden to befriend someone outside the faith – and the Quran was taught to be a holy book that could not be questioned. But when men began asking for Ayaan’s hand in marriage – never to her directly – she began to question why she had no choice or voice in who or when she was to marry.

After years of deflecting, and a hidden marriage that was not consummated due to her circumcision, her father came home from the mosque and announced she was to marry a man from Canada he had met that morning. Without asking, her fate was bound to a man her father knew for two hours. After pushing back, and not attending the wedding ritual (she was not required to be there, only her father) the deed was done. As her new husband was a Canadian, she was sent to Germany to improve her odds at getting a visa. While there, Ayaan planned her escape and made it to the Netherlands where she was granted refugee status. While there Ayaan became enthralled with the way the government worked – so helpful and caring. But what she witnessed was her clansmen – and her religion – keeping to the words of the Quran to not mix with non-believers. Through her strong ability to learn languages, she became a translator and was able to hear the stories of women being beaten by husbands and not prosecuting, honor killings for having a boyfriend, doctors trying to help women through births after being sewn as a child, and more “norms” that are foreign to people outside the construct of what Ayaan was brought up in. When the planes hit the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11, she heard the words from the Quran being used to justify the attacks, and knew that was not a fringe element, these were quotes from the Quran that are meant to be literal. Through this horror, Ayaan realized that Muslim Brotherhood had no desire to become part of the societies they moved to as refugees – that they wanted the protections but also wanted to remain outside the norms of the society they now resided in. That included the ongoing subjugation of women.

It became her purpose in life to speak out about the injustice women in the closed Muslim communities faced, and worked to encourage a reformation of Islam to not live by the Quran as unquestionable – she saw it as a way to remain in the middle-ages when it was written – but to interpret its texts for the age we live in. It was through her outspokenness that she came to be part of the Dutch parliament, trying to raise her voice to have others speak about the atrocities that were occurring that were being explained away by “multiculturalism” and allowing others to be different while turning a blind eye to the fact that there was no interest in becoming part of the social ethics that created the space for these people to come to. Due to her need to be heard, she did not shy from debates. Now under constant threat for her life, the fear was realized when her collaborator on a film, Theo Van Gogh, was murdered in broad daylight, with a 5 page memo to her stabbed in his torso on why she must die too.

While she is now in hiding, she continues to work for an American think tank to help create policy for protecting these Muslim women and girls. No longer in touch with her family for turning her back on Islam, she is nevertheless cut from the same cloth as her father – both worked to make a government bring about a better world for others.

For me, the biggest why is why is are you not allowed to ask questions? Why, in so many places on earth, for so many millennium, is a woman denied a voice? What makes us so powerful that we are to be smothered? Is it because Eve tempted Adam with an apple? Is that the reason women are not allowed to speak, to be seen, to be beaten into complete subjugation? For asking what else there may be in the world? This placing of blame ignores the fact that Adam – or any man – should have a brain, and ethics, to react and be held accountable for their own actions. By removing any responsibility for making choices creates a world where power is absolute and unquestioning.

We need to make sure that women and men understand that each has responsibility for each other – to treat each other with compassion, to do what is right for others now and in the next life, and to be judged by this alone. Until we lift each other up, protecting those who can’t, we are all doomed to remain in the dark.

books, reading

Explaining the Strength of Women

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The last few years have been difficult if you call yourself a feminist. The confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh made me nauseous with the scary déjà vu it gave me of the Clarence Thomas hearings. Again, as when I realized who won in the last US Presidential election, I felt great despair at how we continue to face the same things, again and again.  It is in the frame of mind that I set to read Rebecca Slotnit’s Men Explain Things to Me.  This collection of essays begins with the tale of Slotnit being at a party and a man began explain a concept to her from a book he just heard about. In the middle of the lecture, Slotnit’s sister exclaims that the book he was referencing was, in fact, the one that Slotnit had just published.  That did not, however, stop the man from continuing to explain what Slotnit should know about the subject, as though she did not write the book.

This phenomenon is not something that is surprising to any woman, especially if the woman works in a “male” dominated profession.  Slotnit took this experience and began to dig into the ever raging gender wars. She argues that the fight on the sanctity of marriage is actually about equality. Historically the woman’s existence ceased when she married – she lost her name and her rights, living by gender roles that deem women less than men. It is the need to perpetuate this power dynamic that refutes that marriage is a partnership of equals with equal rights and responsibilities.  Slotnik continues through various stories until uncovering that women have had their voice taken, even when it cried out “he is going to kill me.” The grisly numbers provided on the percent of women that are facing violence and death at the hands of men are mind boggling.

As Slotnit’s essays explore the language of violence against women and the ownership of blame, I become indignant. Why are women told to stay away from places, don’t dress a certain way, stay home after dark? Why are men not told to keep away from women after dark, stay home to avoid hurting or scaring someone? Women are continually being told to stay away as though it is their fault for the men coming after them. I remember the old “Take back the Night” marches and the “I believe Anita” shirts. I also remember the fear I had walking at night to my home after working late at work, and still have when alone at night on my way to my car.  The #MeToo movement, while starting an interesting conversation for me and my teenage daughter, was just another reminder that women continue to struggle to be heard, believed, and supported.

The Kavanaugh hearings again highlighted that regardless of the stature of the woman, she is the one that is on trial when speaking out for her rights. The most effective manner of defending this is to make the woman question herself, and others of why we should ever believe a woman who would be mistaken because she was hysterical or some other reason that was why she didn’t say/do etc. In this world, with this type of stacked deck against a woman, Taylor Swift was sued for reporting that David Mueller had touched her inappropriately, for which he lost his job. Three years later, after watching her mother and others be badgered and bullied by Mueller’s lawyer, Swift reported that she was mad going to the stand to testify. When asked if she had feelings about Mueller losing his job, she responded with such strength that women everywhere applauded her

“I’m not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault. Here we are years later, and I’m being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are the product of his decisions—not mine.”

And yet, this week there was another report of a model minding her own business doing laundry that was attacked by a man grabbing her, all caught on video. There continues to be these attacks on women, their rights, their voice, and their bodies. But in the end, Slotnit makes a point of showing that the genie is out of the bottle, the idea that women have a voice, a right and a strength is out. While we are far from the end, we are moving in the right directly. Keep the faith and don’t go back.  Just keep plugging forward. I will do just that, and search for more of this author’s compelling writing.

woman in pink tank top showing her biceps
Photo by Tim Savage on Pexels.com

 

books, reading

From Riyadh to Memphis

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As the world gets busy preparing for holidays, I got busy to move more books off my TBR list.  The library came through and delivered me a book to check off a country on my armchair travel list – Saudi Arabia.  Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea, translated by Marilyn Booth was a hit in the region, and I was excited to read about life from a woman’s point of view. The book, relating the quest for love by 4 women of Saudi, is told by an unnamed person writing emails to an email group. The names of the friends were changed, but the reality of the “lives” was shared by this third person.  I admit I was expecting anything but what I got. This book was related as though the emails were sent in 2004-2005. The lives of these women, while striving for love and self worth, are complex and rich. While the society does impact who and how they can be, they all take different paths to finding themselves and their own voices. And even if you don’t like which path they took, you are faced with the undisputed fact that they did all choose their own paths.

While I was reading this story of choosing paths, I was also reading Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.  In a different era, there was a horrible person that brokered babies, stealing them from poor parents and not providing safety or food properly, while doing the “good work” of finding homes for some children.  As the story is pieced together, the girls that are the focus are the “strong” ones – favorites of the fathers.  Both do their best to keep the family together, placing that above all else, until they are both faced with the fact that they need to put themselves first.  In doing so, they find a new peace.

In both cultures, across the span of time, the central characters don’t feel they have the ability to make a choice other than what their family wanted. And while the strong are the only ones left standing, the key to survival and happiness is always being true to who you are and who you want to be.

woman wearing hijab
Photo by Ambar Simpang on Pexels.com

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Women’s Rights in the 21st Century as illuminated in novels and memoirs

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2017

A “watershed” year for women. Accusations of sexual misconduct by studio heads, actors, musicians, politicians and others have been in the headlines, and the #MeToo movement continues to move forward.  Ashley Judd is suing Harvey Weinstein for career sabotage.  House of Cards folds.  Bill Cosby is found guilty.  All of these are an affirmation of women and the power they hold.

Contrast that to the women in Middle East countries run by fundamentalist regimes – Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and more.  While women in the western world are fighting for equal pay, equal access and job safety, the women in these other countries are looking for basic human rights.  While the struggle is real in western culture, it is life threatening for those behind the Burqa curtain.

Afghani women still commonly wear these Burqa to hide themselves from men, because the world there is still ruled by them.  In The Pearl that Broke its Shell by Nadia Hashimi, two stories, a century apart, are told of women facing a similar challenge.  In one, a father who has spent his life fighting for freedom of his country becomes addicted to the opium it provides.  In the other, a father spent his life fighting for freedom to cultivate his own land apart from his family.  In both scenarios only daughters are available to assist, and each father chooses to blind themselves as these girls take on traditionally male roles of helping, as is available to Afghani’s.  At the age of puberty, however, these girls must revert to traditional roles.  Within this book the two tales intertwine and support each other, with the older story helping to lead the way for the newer story.  In both tales, beatings were the norm.  The brutal handling of women for the slightest of perceived infraction occurs not only at the hands of men, but also of women in the attempt to exert what little power they have over their own worlds.

As the dawn of women in parliament is achieved, the reality of who is in power, the husband’s, remains real.  The access to news and learning continue to keep women in the dark of what they can achieve elsewhere, and that there are other options for them.

The facts of this echo in my head of And the Mountains Echoed and I am Malala.  Extreme violence against women remains a great threat to us all.  Hollywood’s brutality may be less physical, but it is no less demeaning or scarring.  In this light, how many of us can again echo #metoo? I know that, despite the promotions I have missed, the comments and looks I have endured, and the ceiling I have over my head, I am significantly more “free” than the women portrayed in the novels, or in the memoir mentioned.  There are so many more of these stories – remember Not Without My Daughter?

In the beautifully written and translated The Palace Walk series, the closed windows and doors of the home serve as a metaphor of how Egypt was closed from the world at the beginning of the 20th century.  As the world comes into the home, changes begin to emerge within.  This is true in The Pearl the Broke its Shell – thus the reason the TV is removed from the rooms when the women come to Kabul.  By trying to keep the walls up, and the world hidden, the power remains in the hands of those that have both the knowledge and the brute strength.  As women are allowed to see freedoms, even if to serve as a bacha posh, an ancient practice were young girls dressing as a boy before they mature in order to perform duties for the family that only a boy can do, it is hard to return to the ways of women.  If knowledge and access to others were allowed, the iron grip would weaken.  As it has in the west, women have sought so many more opportunities as they push through the doors, break down walls and crack the ceilings.  We just can’t forget those that have not even been allowed to see beyond their own courtyard.  Until all women are free to learn and choose, none of us are free.  So while #metoo is relevant, we have so many more greater battles to fight for our sisters.