Feminism

Throughout this section, there were a number of references made that indicate that Marjane comes from a family of financial privilege; more concretely, we can see the role of class in the way the events surrounding her family and her eventual leaving of Tehran play out. For example: when her uncle must leave the country for medical care but isn't granted approval for a passport, they plan to pay for one for him; they . More generally, Marjane and her family's attitudes towards the oppression they face highlights a comparable level of privilege. She continuously defies authority by purchasing luxuries--clothing, posters, jewelry, tapes--to the point that tempting fate starts to seem like a bit of a game, even after she is almost detained (134).

Persopolis has been one of my favorite readings of the semester so far. I had read the graphic novel a decade ago when I was in High School and I have had an entirely different experience this time. One of my biggest observations is the narrative of Marjane finding her own feminist voice, against her circumstances. I believe she is practicing her own nego-feminism in her conversations with classmates, teachers, and even her conversations with her parents. Both of her parents have a history of engaging in civil discourse but Marjane still fights to have her own, unique perspective.

Often in Western feminist-as-tourist discussions of women's lives in the Middle East, certain assumptions are made about women who wear veils during their daily lives. Many Westerners inaccurately assume that the veil is an inherent symbol of women's oppression, that women who cover themselves are forced to do so for modesty, religious purposes, male possession, etc. While these assumptions are untrue and incomplete pictures of living with a veil, Persepolis prompts me to question where these assumptions come from. Satrapi tells the story of the changes that occur under the Islamic regime in Iran, including that of mandatory veil-wearing.

I don't really know where I'm going with this; all I know is that I need to get the words jumbling around in my head down asap, and rather than write on paper, I want to get them onto serendip so they can be seen by a pair of eyes besides my own. That being said, this won't be particularly coherent (and given that I've been drugged up on Dayquil all day, it'll probably be erring towards incoherent--hence the words jumbling around in my head).

We brushed on the directionality and agenda of education today, specifically in the context of education about economics and capitalism, etc. Anne highlighted in her notes a statement which, in skimming over them to find some sort of framework for my thoughts, stood out:

This is an interesting (if rather old and a touch biases) short thought piece by Deborah Tannen on the issues of marked versus unmarked categories, in the context of gender. http://faculty.georgetown.edu/tannend/nyt062093.htm

This article made me consider especially how not only international students, but students of different SES backgrounds have different access and different conceptions of culture. The world of academia seems to, whether overtly or not, promote a singular kind of culture.

How do we teach students to recognize and be interested in the different kinds of culture that exist within our divided, diverse community? Are there academic ways to bridge the gaps presented by socio-economic cultural differences in providing opportunities for students to interact with others with different backgrounds?

Can we provide more opportunities in the academic space to question the socioeconomic implications of the canon and how those expectations of knowledge might divide our community?

Like Sunshine, I chose “Lessons from International Students on Campus Living and Classroom Learning” Because I think the experience of current Bryn Mawr students is well within our reach. We spoke briefly a few weeks ago about the advantages of documenting and archiving injustices on our campus as they happen. I think that this piece should be used as an example of how to do this kind of important documentation work. There’s a completely fabricated barrier between theoretical conversations we have in our classrooms at Bryn Mawr, and practical change we can make from those conversations. This kind of documentation is the first step in making change.

There are two things I’d like to talk about. The first is more open-ended and the second is more concrete.