Short Response # 2

CHID 250: Julianne Sloane

11/17/11
Walking across red square, everyone has their heads down, eyes to the floorthe purpose, to not make eye contact, to not awkwardly be caught looking. We are
taught when we are young not to look, not to point out the people who are different.
As children we might shout about how weird someones clothing or hair is to be
instantly silenced by our parents, told that that is not appropriate to be talking
about. We live in a diverse world but we are encouraged not to acknowledge it. Why
do we keep our eyes down, particularly on a University Campus? A place where
everyone has something in common; everyone came to UW for a reason, yet we
refuse to make the small gesture of eye contact with the majority of people. Our
eyes are focused on getting ahead, the air with a continuous feeling of competition;
in rhythm we work to avoid even the smallest shoulder tap. As we grow up, we are
trained not to be open: one of the first lessons taught to small children is dont talk
to strangers. We are told not to judge, even though later on our lives will be run by
the judgments we make about others.
Being cold towards new people is not a universal behavior, having grown up
entirely in Washington, sometimes its hard to remember that the Pacific North West
life style is not the only way of life. This past summer I became friends with a girl
from France, Anais, she was living in my city for the summer. Anais explained to me
the struggle that she was having with meeting new people, she said that the people
here are friendly for a moment, but then they would forget about her. At first I
thought that was ridiculous, having just returned from my own study abroad in
Ecuador, I insisted, that no, its not like that, it is just the language barrier. Then I

started to realize, when had I ever seen someone, a foreigner or someone new to
town, brought under a locals wing to feel like they belong immediately after arrival
(a treatment that many had given to me while I was abroad)? I realized we didnt do
that. We look out for our own well being and someone has to fight to become
accepted. I realize that this relates directly to a point made in one of the essays in
African Women and Feminism, too close to a subject may suffer blurred vision, the
one who stands far away may have the benefit of detachment (Oyewumi 212). I
realized my inability to notice a certain situation because I had been living it for my
entire life, Anais had never been to America before, so she had no preconceived
notions about what our culture was like; however, the last part of the quote says,
but runs the risk of negating salient issues (Oyewumi 212). Coming from France,
she did not understand the competitive attitude that we grow up with. Our whole
life is driven by who is the best, who gets the best test scores means who will get
the best scholarships for the best university and then means who will get the most
money and therefore be the most successful. We are taught to fight for ourselves
and we live with this idea.
Oyewumi notes a similar inability towards Western scholars inabilities to
understand life in Africa. In regards to female circumcision, the overwhelming belief
is, female circumcision is mutilation which is wrong and should never happen. We
hardly take the time to question why it is that female circumcision has become so
popular in Africa. In one of the essays it says, typically a loving and well-meaning
woman who pursues the practice out of concern for her daughter and in sincere
belief of its benefits and necessity (Oyewumi 206). Many are too quick to classify
female circumcision as sick and dehumanizing before they start to look at why it is
so present in Africa today. Since circumcision is such a common occurrence in

Africa, than there obviously must be a reason for why it continues to be practice.
The truth lies in that the mothers who are circumcising their daughters do so
because they believe it is a necessity in order for their daughters to get married
later, for them to have a healthy home of food and shelter, they must circumcise
them. This same essay also points out, If female circumcision is their everyday
reality, it is inconceivable that it could be eradicated without their input (Oyewumi
212). Even though this practice may be considered sick, it is the custom in Africa.
Maybe it should be stopped but it must be stopped from within because only if
Africans want to see this end, can its ending become a foreseeable goal.
Thinking about body mutilation, is Africa really the only place where
mutilation occurs, or is it the only kind of mutilation that we consider bad since it is
the most foreign to us. On page 174 in African Women and Feminism, the essay
discusses Americas mutilating culture. One passage shares the statistic that in
1989 1 out of every 225 adult Americans chose to have an elected surgery. One
classmate shared a video showing the high number of Chinese who undergo surgery
in order to make their eyes bigger so that society would view them as more
beautiful. I saw during my study abroad in Ecuador that every girl (whose family had
the financial means to pay for the operation) would have a nose job to remove their
Ecuadorian nose which goes slightly down at the tip so that they could consider
themselves more beautiful. Operations to enhance beauty are such a norm in the
west that no one even questions if they qualify into the allusive category of being
ethical.
Through all the videos and discussions I am starting to see how much our
interpretation of beauty had been culturally constructed. One of the core beliefs of
any American is our right to Freedom: Freedom of speech, freedom of how we dress.

We are allowed to have agency in what choosing what we want to wear, however by
using that agency we subject ourselves to the scrutiny which comes with that
choice. One day, just a few weeks ago, I made a simple choice, I woke up tired and
cold, I chose to put on my smart wool socks- to put on my Birkenstocks, and to go to
class. I cannot even begin to explain just how many people took it upon themselves
to point out my fashion faux pas after making the sock/sandal combo decision. In
America, there are so many influences by the media that are telling us what is right,
what looks good, if we have agency and step away from the societal norms, so
many generalizations are made about us, that we make ourselves ostracized. [Since
that day I have not dared to wear my socks with my Birkenstocks.]

With so many pressures affecting us, we often struggle to follow the path of
doing whats right, what is socially acceptable. A Golden Age by Tahima Anam won
that coveted classification of being socially cool. There, plastered on the front
cover it says, National Bestseller, while the back is covered with praises from The
New Yorker and The Washington Post. if all these respectable sources are saying
that this book is worth reading, it must be true. I know I am no exception to this
rule, to listening to what media sources are telling me. If I see a book hit the Top Ten
Best Novels of the year list in TIME, I want to go out and read it. A Golden Age is the
only book from this course that I would have elected to read outside of a classroom
setting. Its the book that I instantly wanted to recommend to my mom after
finishing [and evidentially I am not alone as our classroom became a sea of
reaffirming nods after one girl said she had suggested this book to her moms book
club]. In class the question was raised, does this book matter even though it is not
purely academic? I would say that absolutely it matters and that there can be an

extremely high value placed through this book due to its easy accessibility. With an
access like this, a new aspect of feminism can be considered. In A Golden Age we
saw the role of family structure, the love of a mother. The idea that was shown by
Rehana throughout the book: Im a mother. Above all things, a mother (Anam
140). It is clear that every decision that Rehana makes throughout the novel, she
always has her son and daughters best interests in mind.
With this, I started to think about what defines me the most. Above all things
I am what? A daughter? A student? A feminist? No. Ive realized that I have not yet
found what defines me. When I started this course, I knew nothing about feminism,
it was a word associated with women and that had a particularly high number of
negative connotations. Now, after just a few weeks, a few books, and a few
discussions, I can see just how ignorant I was. Feminism is about promoting equality
for women despite the innumerable number of factors that seem to make this
impossible. Unfortunately, at this point in my college career, Freshman Fall Quarter,
I am finding that there are so many things to be passionate about, so many
important issues in the world, how can I become focused on just one. I can
understand what feminism is, I can use that understanding while making decisions
later, but I do not have the time to become a feminist [right now].
A Golden Age and our discussion have brought in a new point for my thinking,
the normalization of war. For nearly half my life, the US has been at war in the
Middle East, and for me, it has barely mattered. Rehanas life changed when her
country became inflicted by war, she had to become worried for her childrens lives.
A toothache is the sort of thing I used to worry about. Now I worry about your legs,
your heart, your life (Anam 109), for Rehana life changed when War started, yet
here we are multiple years into the same war and my mom still worries if I get a

toothache. I know few people personally that have gone off to war; I dont worry
about my friends and family dying because everyone in my inner circle has been
financially stable enough to elect not to go to war. Rehana was told, Your son wants
to fight for his country (Anam 80), with a country as large as ours, it is easy to
become disassociated with the national problems; we can decide, someone else will
fight for the country.
I dont know if this is a good thing, to not care to get involved with one
particular issue right now, however, the first step in anything is awareness. This
class has given me an awareness towards the feminist issue, I now want to learn
more about what is actually happening in the Iraq and Afghanistan, and maybe
when I am learning about the Middle East, I will come across another issue that I
feel is important to learn about as well. After reading Oyewumis attacks on Western
scholars who only came into Africa for a matter of years and tried to change
important customs, I am seeing that making an impact requires perseverance over
long periods of time. Change is a process that takes decades in order to truly come
into effect- right now, as a college student, my life is not nearly stable enough to
become focused on one movement. I am realizing that I need to capitalize on these
few years of discovery to find out about as many conflicts as possible, so when I do
finally have time to start a fight, Ill have a reason behind it.