Friday, March 03, 2006
A Question Is A Questions Is A Question
Feeling: Overly joyed by this month's topic of choice, Women's Awareness Month. I will be celebrating it, as I do everyday, with a much more approachable and friendly manner. Certainly, most people of my age would appreciate a moment to step back from the politically correct and assess what exactly it is that they want to correct and how exactly it is they are going to correct this.
Women's Awareness Month is not about lesbians. It is about subjects that concern both genders -and even those who haven't yet found a gender :). And it is not about degrading the male half of the human population. Even those men who defend women and their search for resolution in this world can be assured that they are not losing their masculinity, or their manhood for that matter. They are just losing their ignorance.
Gender is the equivalent of a a label, like a political party, that all members have to join in on their respective sides and hurl insults across the line at each other in an attempt to assert each side's omniscient right to domination of the other. Often times, it won't be just an insult. It will be a pie in the face, or even a fist in the face.
As many women in Iran may know, either through personal experience or the witnessing of someone else's, violence from men or the implication of its use is a reality that they must endure for the sake of absolute ignorance. It is no joke when you hear, see, or are involved in a violent incident between couples. First, witnessing or even having a part in these outbreaks of inhumanity causes deep psychological trauma, loss of security, and even teaches others the "quiet syndrome" or a tolerant attitude towards violence. Second, when there is a tolerance, ambiguity, and trauma in the situation of the women involved, there are no battered-wives homes for them to turn to when they need to begin a process of learning, and healing (no 1-800-help lines either).
Anyone else remember the House of Reyhaneh? There was, in Karaj, another home for battered girls who ran away from violent and oppressive regimes within their own homes. They turned to this government-approved home for learning and healing only to be disappointed and finally turned out into the streets by the same people who had promised to show them the guidance and the care they had not asked for but should have had when they were first brought into this world. Most of these girls came from abusive households where they were under substantial physical and mental discrimination by brothers, husbands and fathers.
In the IRI, the legality of a domestic violence case is amounted to a simple slap on the hand and a court order that simply "warns" the perpetrator of future consequences if they happen to abuse their spouse again- that's if the spouse is still alive then. At times, even, the wife is accused of acts that would be inflammatory to a Muslim man's. That, by some infallible independent chance, she comitted herself -voluntarily- to being a victim by going against her husband's grain.
Most of what I met in Iran, the tolerance and the spiteful but non-chalant attitude from women, I could understand. These were women who grew up as children before the Regime wanting to ride bicycles, and being told that "only boys ride bicycles," and after the regime still facing these social fallacies. Wanting to go swim in the pool with a swimsuit, and being told that "girls are chaste and chastity requires us to cover our bodies," while boys would go swimming showing all the skin their masculinity allowed them. Some have told me, friends and family, that they grew up helping their tired mothers cook four or five dishes of food, setting the table, and after grueling hours in a hot kitchen watching as the men ate their food only to be invited by the men to sit and eat (it's called taarof, or the act of faking an invitation). Even to this day, I remember watching women clean up the table as their fathers and brothers and some lazy sisters sat on the couches watching nubile, young bodies dancing to L.A based persian music on the satellite. This was the result of years of hardwork from the leadership.
In a sense, the patriarchal attitude of the society in Iran is based, in part, on the concept of Islam and marriage; that a little girl is property before the age of nine that is handed from the father's home to the husband's home after going through her menstrual period. Many will argue that this is not the case in marriage anymore in Iran, that there is a legal age for girls, and it's set at 18, but this is easily argued in the rural areas in Iran. Girls, on average, are married at very young ages in rural Iran, especially when they are a few years past their puberty, around 14 or 15 years of age.
Not only are women vessels for procreation and an endowment to the proliferation of Islam, they are also a concept of subordination to the dominance of men. Instead of choosing to solve the problems of the women in Iran who face battering, child abuse, and other cases of discrepancy, they are merely schloffed off to the world of hidden femininity. They are the side of humanity that is "excitable...prone to emotional excitation", or "they are a field to be plowed and tilled to a man's desires."
Again, the way in which violence and abuse is reinforced is by reiterating a perspective of women that alienates them even further from the perspective of men.
A good way to illustrate this is to use a more American metaphor; Men will be big, smart, and decisive but brooding intellectuals who hop out of Rambo weilding their phallic presence over the covert, vacillating unnamed Female who faints at a whim and swoons at the announcement of the next Tupperware convention.
So, instead of facing the proverbial causation of violence by awareness and deliberation on the part of women, there is more attention given to the "what" of a woman. How many times do we have to remind ourselves that if we want to change something we need to know "why, why, why" and then "how, how, how"
How do we prevent violence against women? Of course it's essential to have a basic understanding of what a woman is, but in general, that is what laws are for. Laws define what and who we are, or can be, within broad boundaries. For instance, a woman is someone who should never be battered in a domestic situation by law, ever. A woman is someone who should be given freedoms of employment, marriage, education, and entertainment equal to a man's by law, or at least she should be given the right of way to gain those freedoms. A woman would be someone who is deemed, by law, to stand up for her rights.
In other words;
A woman, by law, should be worth the same amount of money that a man is worth when she is killed in a car accident. A man is worth about 30 million Tomans, which is equivalent to 30 thousand dollars. But a woman is worth the same as a young boy's, 12 million Tomans.
It will be harder and harder for these old traditions and norms to be broken by the future generations, especially as the gap between the more westernized world widens from the traditional and midieval world of the middle east. As time goes by, it will be a bigger challenge for many youth to destroy the stereotypes about women and to remember that women should not be fighting alone for their rights, men are responsible too.
---
Here are some important quotes that I should look at later, but unfortunately, have no time to talk about now. This is an article by Parvin in the faithfreedom.org organization. Here's one of my reads.
Women's Awareness Month is not about lesbians. It is about subjects that concern both genders -and even those who haven't yet found a gender :). And it is not about degrading the male half of the human population. Even those men who defend women and their search for resolution in this world can be assured that they are not losing their masculinity, or their manhood for that matter. They are just losing their ignorance.
Gender is the equivalent of a a label, like a political party, that all members have to join in on their respective sides and hurl insults across the line at each other in an attempt to assert each side's omniscient right to domination of the other. Often times, it won't be just an insult. It will be a pie in the face, or even a fist in the face.
As many women in Iran may know, either through personal experience or the witnessing of someone else's, violence from men or the implication of its use is a reality that they must endure for the sake of absolute ignorance. It is no joke when you hear, see, or are involved in a violent incident between couples. First, witnessing or even having a part in these outbreaks of inhumanity causes deep psychological trauma, loss of security, and even teaches others the "quiet syndrome" or a tolerant attitude towards violence. Second, when there is a tolerance, ambiguity, and trauma in the situation of the women involved, there are no battered-wives homes for them to turn to when they need to begin a process of learning, and healing (no 1-800-help lines either).
Anyone else remember the House of Reyhaneh? There was, in Karaj, another home for battered girls who ran away from violent and oppressive regimes within their own homes. They turned to this government-approved home for learning and healing only to be disappointed and finally turned out into the streets by the same people who had promised to show them the guidance and the care they had not asked for but should have had when they were first brought into this world. Most of these girls came from abusive households where they were under substantial physical and mental discrimination by brothers, husbands and fathers.
In the IRI, the legality of a domestic violence case is amounted to a simple slap on the hand and a court order that simply "warns" the perpetrator of future consequences if they happen to abuse their spouse again- that's if the spouse is still alive then. At times, even, the wife is accused of acts that would be inflammatory to a Muslim man's. That, by some infallible independent chance, she comitted herself -voluntarily- to being a victim by going against her husband's grain.
Most of what I met in Iran, the tolerance and the spiteful but non-chalant attitude from women, I could understand. These were women who grew up as children before the Regime wanting to ride bicycles, and being told that "only boys ride bicycles," and after the regime still facing these social fallacies. Wanting to go swim in the pool with a swimsuit, and being told that "girls are chaste and chastity requires us to cover our bodies," while boys would go swimming showing all the skin their masculinity allowed them. Some have told me, friends and family, that they grew up helping their tired mothers cook four or five dishes of food, setting the table, and after grueling hours in a hot kitchen watching as the men ate their food only to be invited by the men to sit and eat (it's called taarof, or the act of faking an invitation). Even to this day, I remember watching women clean up the table as their fathers and brothers and some lazy sisters sat on the couches watching nubile, young bodies dancing to L.A based persian music on the satellite. This was the result of years of hardwork from the leadership.
In a sense, the patriarchal attitude of the society in Iran is based, in part, on the concept of Islam and marriage; that a little girl is property before the age of nine that is handed from the father's home to the husband's home after going through her menstrual period. Many will argue that this is not the case in marriage anymore in Iran, that there is a legal age for girls, and it's set at 18, but this is easily argued in the rural areas in Iran. Girls, on average, are married at very young ages in rural Iran, especially when they are a few years past their puberty, around 14 or 15 years of age.
Not only are women vessels for procreation and an endowment to the proliferation of Islam, they are also a concept of subordination to the dominance of men. Instead of choosing to solve the problems of the women in Iran who face battering, child abuse, and other cases of discrepancy, they are merely schloffed off to the world of hidden femininity. They are the side of humanity that is "excitable...prone to emotional excitation", or "they are a field to be plowed and tilled to a man's desires."
Again, the way in which violence and abuse is reinforced is by reiterating a perspective of women that alienates them even further from the perspective of men.
A good way to illustrate this is to use a more American metaphor; Men will be big, smart, and decisive but brooding intellectuals who hop out of Rambo weilding their phallic presence over the covert, vacillating unnamed Female who faints at a whim and swoons at the announcement of the next Tupperware convention.
So, instead of facing the proverbial causation of violence by awareness and deliberation on the part of women, there is more attention given to the "what" of a woman. How many times do we have to remind ourselves that if we want to change something we need to know "why, why, why" and then "how, how, how"
How do we prevent violence against women? Of course it's essential to have a basic understanding of what a woman is, but in general, that is what laws are for. Laws define what and who we are, or can be, within broad boundaries. For instance, a woman is someone who should never be battered in a domestic situation by law, ever. A woman is someone who should be given freedoms of employment, marriage, education, and entertainment equal to a man's by law, or at least she should be given the right of way to gain those freedoms. A woman would be someone who is deemed, by law, to stand up for her rights.
In other words;
A woman, by law, should be worth the same amount of money that a man is worth when she is killed in a car accident. A man is worth about 30 million Tomans, which is equivalent to 30 thousand dollars. But a woman is worth the same as a young boy's, 12 million Tomans.
It will be harder and harder for these old traditions and norms to be broken by the future generations, especially as the gap between the more westernized world widens from the traditional and midieval world of the middle east. As time goes by, it will be a bigger challenge for many youth to destroy the stereotypes about women and to remember that women should not be fighting alone for their rights, men are responsible too.
---
Here are some important quotes that I should look at later, but unfortunately, have no time to talk about now. This is an article by Parvin in the faithfreedom.org organization. Here's one of my reads.
"if a woman murders a man his family has the right to a sum paid to the next of kin as compensation for the slaughter of a relative. By contrast, if a man murders a woman, her murderer must, before retribution pay half the amount of a man's blood money to her guardian".
"To rape women prisoners, especially virgin girls, who are accused of being against the regime, is a normal and daily practice in the Islamic Republic's prisons, and by doing so, the clergies declare that they adhere to the merits of the Islamic principles and laws, preventing a virgin girl to go to Heaven. Mullahs believe that these are ungodly creatures and they do not deserve it, therefore they are raped to be sure they will be sent to hell". The report of the Special Representative of the Commission of the Human Rights of the United Nations in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1992.
"The specific task of women in this society is to marry and bear children. They will be discouraged from entering legislative, judicial, or what ever careers which may require decision making, as women lack the intellectual ability and discerning judgment required for theses careers." Ayatolah Mutahari,(one of the principal ideologues of the Islamic Republic of Iran) on "The Question of Veil"
