As expected, my outline changed a bit. I combined all of the books into one chapter where I discuss their similarities. Then I created another chapter where I talk about why Nora Khouri's book is different, dangerous and potentially useful. I submitted my first chapter. I would post that, but let us be serious, it is not ready for public consumption.
I know I have a few new readers and thank you for following! It gives me a kick (not of the Inception variety) to write some more, which is helpful.
I planned on writing tonight. I thought of discussing the contents of my last chapter, but last night, I got into an argument regarding Arab women. The question was this:
"As someone who wants to teach Arabic, do you find trouble reconciling the desire to teach it with the abuses of women in those countries?"
Barely missing a beat, I said, "No."
I will allow that yes, there is suppression (of all genders) in this "Arab" world (which is vast) that he speaks of...but this question draws a direct relationship between the language and sociological issues, history, and images portrayed by the media. And as the Juan Williams scandal has taught us anything, making direct correlations between something like language/appearance and sociological issues is probably politically incorrect. If I wanted to teach any other language, a question of this variety would not have been asked. I did not bring this up in our argument, but I figured I would get too angry to do so gracefully.
It was mostly how we perceived women in the "East" and how that is a problem. I went into the details of why his perception of "Arab women" was complicated by the way it is portrayed historically. (My step-Dad backed me up, props to him.)
I wish I could say I was the image of eloquence, composition, and that I didn't fume the entire dinner.
That would be a lie. I became a bit of a curmudgeon. I have a slight, slight temper, which rarely shows unless this issue is broached.
So instead of rehashing the jumbled conversation, I provide some quotations of things I imagine myself saying in future conversations. (And hey, maybe you could say them too). The quotes are provided from Chandra Talpade Mohanty's Feminism Without Borders, 2003 from Duke University Press. Some of them are out of context, but I think the general idea of what Mohanty is trying to portray is pretty evident.
“Not only is it problematic to speak of a vision of women shared by Arab and Muslim societies (i.e., over twenty different countries) without addressing the particular historical, material, and ideological power structures that construct such images, but to speak of the patriarchal family or the tribal kinship structures as the origin of the socioeconomic status of women is to assume again that women are sexual-political subjects prior to their entry into the family So while, on the one hand, women attain value or status within the family, the assumption of a singular patriarchal kinship system (common to all Arab and Muslim societies) is what apparently structures women as an oppressed group in these society. This singular, coherent kinship system presumably influences another separate and given entity ‘women.’ Thus, all women, regardless of class and cultural differences, are affected by this system. Not only are all Arab and Muslim women seen to constitute a homogeneous oppressed group, but there is no discussion of the specific practices within the family that constitute women as mothers, wives, sisters, and so on. Arabs and Muslims, it appears, don’t change at all. Their patriarchal family is carried over from the times of the prophet Muhammad. They exist, as it were, outside history.” (28)
Mohanty quotes Marnia Lazreg: “A ritual is established whereby the writer appeals to religion as the cause of gender inequality just as it is made the source of underdevelopment in much of modernization theory in an uncanny way…The overall effect of this paradigm is to deprive women of self-presence, of being. Because women are subsumed under religion presented in fundamental terms, they are inevitably seen as evolving in non historical time. They virtually have no history.” (29)
"Similarly, a large number of different, fragmented examples from a variety of countries also apparently add up to a universal fact. For instance, Muslim women in Saudi Arabi, Iran, Pakistan, India and Egypt all wear some sort of veil. Hence, the argument goes, sexual control of women is a uneversal fact in those countries." (33)
I won't overwhelm you all with anymore quotes. Or with my obvious bitterness towards the aforementioned conversation.
Wish me luck on constructing my next chapter(s). I wish you all a lovely end-of-fall.
Best,
Liz
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