No pictures, again. You see, I generally have to pay for every MB of internet I use here, so I choose to upload my pictures onto facebook and leave my blog for the writing/musing aspect, although admittedly I haven't done much of that lately. So if you want to see pictures please look them up under my facebook albums. If you are reading this and we are not facebook friends, I'm not sure how I feel about that.
I've been scant in my writing lately because my brain kind of implodes when I try think about where to begin and what to talk about first. I know Lindsay in particular has voiced an interest in what's going on with the, you know, internship, so I'll do my best to address that.
Work is very stop and go. Hurry and wait. Rilee is my friend currently in the graduate program for sociology at BYU and we are working on the evaluation together with a team of two others. We got here first at the beginning of May and realized that we desperately needed to revamp our proposal for the Ministry. We spent three solid days cranking it out. It was kind of a nightmare but we are proud of our finished product. Very proud. We had a meeting with the Ministry to get things rolling. We are having another meeting tomorrow to go over our proposal. Work is sometimes slow here because of circumstances completely out of our control, so that has meant some frustrating moments.
While we've been waiting we've been busy working on Rilee's master's thesis. Our work together on this is mutually beneficial, but I think I'm getting the best end of the deal. Experience, learning, and future publications, who could say no to that? Specifically, we are studying how women's conceptions of autonomy and empowerment function within the religious and cultural context here. Differences in feminist scholarship and thinking has always been due to the differences surrounding women's realities. For instance, while White American feminists railed against familial duties and certain gender roles and pushed toward the workplace, Black American and Native American feminists considered having a stable family life, left alone by outside influences, a privilege; and a job, well, as something they'd always had to have. So you see feminism isn't as parochial as many people presuppose.
Sometimes trying to understand the Muslim feminist context is enough to make my brain shut down. It can be so hard to remove the lenses you've seen through your whole life and there is an infinite amount I could learn about the culture and religious context here. When push comes to shove, I definitely still have my opinions about many issues surrounding women here, but I try to be fair. For instance, I think when we point fingers at another culture over certain issues, we neglect to see ways in which we fail on the exact same issues, only differently and perhaps less obviously. The "woman issue" is no exception to this, and if you give a crap maybe I'll elaborate on that in a future post.
Reading scholarship about Muslim feminism has been eye-opening, if difficult. But one of my best surprises here is how challenged I have been. For the first time in a long time, I have been overwhelmed by my smallness, and I am definitely in a place with a cultural, religious, political and historical richness and complexity that is much, much bigger than I am. My paradigm has shifted. And honestly, it has hurt a little.
I've been scant in my writing lately because my brain kind of implodes when I try think about where to begin and what to talk about first. I know Lindsay in particular has voiced an interest in what's going on with the, you know, internship, so I'll do my best to address that.
Work is very stop and go. Hurry and wait. Rilee is my friend currently in the graduate program for sociology at BYU and we are working on the evaluation together with a team of two others. We got here first at the beginning of May and realized that we desperately needed to revamp our proposal for the Ministry. We spent three solid days cranking it out. It was kind of a nightmare but we are proud of our finished product. Very proud. We had a meeting with the Ministry to get things rolling. We are having another meeting tomorrow to go over our proposal. Work is sometimes slow here because of circumstances completely out of our control, so that has meant some frustrating moments.
While we've been waiting we've been busy working on Rilee's master's thesis. Our work together on this is mutually beneficial, but I think I'm getting the best end of the deal. Experience, learning, and future publications, who could say no to that? Specifically, we are studying how women's conceptions of autonomy and empowerment function within the religious and cultural context here. Differences in feminist scholarship and thinking has always been due to the differences surrounding women's realities. For instance, while White American feminists railed against familial duties and certain gender roles and pushed toward the workplace, Black American and Native American feminists considered having a stable family life, left alone by outside influences, a privilege; and a job, well, as something they'd always had to have. So you see feminism isn't as parochial as many people presuppose.
Sometimes trying to understand the Muslim feminist context is enough to make my brain shut down. It can be so hard to remove the lenses you've seen through your whole life and there is an infinite amount I could learn about the culture and religious context here. When push comes to shove, I definitely still have my opinions about many issues surrounding women here, but I try to be fair. For instance, I think when we point fingers at another culture over certain issues, we neglect to see ways in which we fail on the exact same issues, only differently and perhaps less obviously. The "woman issue" is no exception to this, and if you give a crap maybe I'll elaborate on that in a future post.
Reading scholarship about Muslim feminism has been eye-opening, if difficult. But one of my best surprises here is how challenged I have been. For the first time in a long time, I have been overwhelmed by my smallness, and I am definitely in a place with a cultural, religious, political and historical richness and complexity that is much, much bigger than I am. My paradigm has shifted. And honestly, it has hurt a little.
5 comments:
Yeah, I'm really glad that I was able to develop in my feminist thinking at the same time I was studying the Middle East. While some of the feminism in the middle east has fallen along very classic western feminism, but often it is something very different, or the opposite, like wearing a veil as a truly feminist statement. I don't have very firm ideas about the true nature of ME feminism, but I would be interested in reading any future posts.
Yay for an internship update! That sounds like the beginning of every research project I've ever been part of. Making sure everything is set, waiting, external factors changing the plans, wait again. It always takes longer than I think it will. But I'm glad you have found other things to do to use your time so profitably.
I think what you mention about different strains of feminism is very significant. Since I studied Black feminist thinking some years ago, I kind of take it for granted that some of their aims and emphases were very different. But I think in the LDS Church, for example, most people do associate feminism with only the White paradigm, so it's worth mentioning. Africana Womanism very much resonated with me, and still does.
And yes, in case you doubted, I definitely want to hear more about the "woman question" and these paradigm shifts you're experiencing -- the painful ones are sometimes the most important, aren't they?
I do give a crap and would love to hear more!
I give a crap too. Maybe even a vomit. (Where do some of our expressions come from, honestly?)
Ha! That was my thought when reading your past as well -I give a crap! I always love to hear more! And I did check out your FB pics -Amman looks spectacular!
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