Cultural Disconnect
So my class has a number of really interesting, opinionated, and type A personalities this semester, which I absolutely love. It makes for lively discussions. Usually I'll have one or maybe two big talkers and the others just kind of coast by. But this class is much more fun. Its also nice that there's no gender gap here. There are big personalities on both sides of the class (yes, much like grade school, they all segregate themselves by gender).
So I thought we would have a great discussion today about gender rights. I had given them an article about perceptions of women in the office, and after doing some reading comprehension questions, I opened up the discussion.
Stone cold silence.
Usually, all I have to say are the magic words, "what do you all think?" and the next two hours are sucked into a time vacuum. This time, though, I asked question after question about women in the work place, perceptions of roles for men and women all the usual stuff.
I got one word answers, people sort of mumbling under their breath, and nothing really direct. After a few minutes, one of the guys, Islam is his name, expostualtes in Arabic. I didn't cathc it all, but he basically said, "this is a bunch of horse shit" (I got this more from context than actual vocab, btw).
I asked him what he thought and he replied that this whole conversation was a joke, that women already hve all the rights they need. I looked to some of the girls in the class, especially the ones who seem to have anb opinion for everything, and tried to get them to respond. Nothing.
So I responded myself, a little bit, hoping I might give some of the others some ideas that they could then develop on their own. I talked about women not getting many managerial jobs, about how certain fields were pretty much closed off to them. Islam (and others) responded that this was because they had to stay at home and be moms. I did get a rise out of a few of the girls when I mentioned how women get harassed on the street, then I really got them excited when i asked why women aren't allowed to go to cafes to smoke shisha (hookahs).
But then I lost them completely. I talked about how no women were allowed to be Judges in Egypt. At this they all (girls and boys) started arguing with me. They said that women can't be judges, that they are too emotional and aren't qualified to be a judge. I told them how we have had several judges on the supreme court who do quite well, and they didn't really beleive me, or they said "well, that's just one example".
I asked Farah, the best student in the class, most organized, opinionated and reasonable person there, if she thought that SHE shouldn't be allowed to be a judge. Her responce?
"No, I shouldn't. I get too emotional."
Stunned, I ended the discussion.
So I thought we would have a great discussion today about gender rights. I had given them an article about perceptions of women in the office, and after doing some reading comprehension questions, I opened up the discussion.
Stone cold silence.
Usually, all I have to say are the magic words, "what do you all think?" and the next two hours are sucked into a time vacuum. This time, though, I asked question after question about women in the work place, perceptions of roles for men and women all the usual stuff.
I got one word answers, people sort of mumbling under their breath, and nothing really direct. After a few minutes, one of the guys, Islam is his name, expostualtes in Arabic. I didn't cathc it all, but he basically said, "this is a bunch of horse shit" (I got this more from context than actual vocab, btw).
I asked him what he thought and he replied that this whole conversation was a joke, that women already hve all the rights they need. I looked to some of the girls in the class, especially the ones who seem to have anb opinion for everything, and tried to get them to respond. Nothing.
So I responded myself, a little bit, hoping I might give some of the others some ideas that they could then develop on their own. I talked about women not getting many managerial jobs, about how certain fields were pretty much closed off to them. Islam (and others) responded that this was because they had to stay at home and be moms. I did get a rise out of a few of the girls when I mentioned how women get harassed on the street, then I really got them excited when i asked why women aren't allowed to go to cafes to smoke shisha (hookahs).
But then I lost them completely. I talked about how no women were allowed to be Judges in Egypt. At this they all (girls and boys) started arguing with me. They said that women can't be judges, that they are too emotional and aren't qualified to be a judge. I told them how we have had several judges on the supreme court who do quite well, and they didn't really beleive me, or they said "well, that's just one example".
I asked Farah, the best student in the class, most organized, opinionated and reasonable person there, if she thought that SHE shouldn't be allowed to be a judge. Her responce?
"No, I shouldn't. I get too emotional."
Stunned, I ended the discussion.
Labels: Egypt
posted by Jonah at 2:38 PM
1 Comments:
The coercive force of concept construction can't be denied. Tell someone repeatedly that "woman" has "emotional" as a necessary element often enough, and then degrade the person's ability to critically analyze the relationship (through various means) and you'll wind up with the smartest people who just can't seem to "think out of the box (or concept in this case)".
Where I am, it's "woman" and "mother". They have no problem thinking of themselves as president, judge, whatever, but if they are not a mother, then they are not a woman, or they are a broken one.
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