I have read all of the right books. I thought I had a good idea about what the life of a Muslim woman was like. I was wrong. Nothing, nothing could have ever prepared me for this! As my good friend Diwan says, 'A Muslim woman is the sandal on a man's foot.'
Women carry the water from the well on their heads, they gather dung into bowls and carry it back to their homes on their heads, they make the dung patties for fuel, they go into the fields and collect brush for burning, they carry the irrigation pipes from field to field and assemble them on a daily basis, they start having babies at the age of 12, they tend the animals which involves milking the cows and water buffalo... the list is endless.
Today several of the women of the village wanted to meet with the women of our group... a great honor indeed. We were taken to the home of one woman where there was a gathering of twenty or more. Through a translator they told us how much they appreciated what we were doing and urged us to finish quickly. A simple thing like using the washroom has become a momumental task for them. As the land is being bought up around the village, they have to go further and further into the fields for privacy. The women in out group have had a taste of how difficult this is. We have no washroom to use on sight and everywhere we go we have an entourage so we just have to hold it till we get back to the farm.
Girls, we do our share of complaining about women's rights and how far we have left to go. I think it is high time we stopped and looked back at the distance we have come.
Yes, we have come a long way but only in about 100 years, which is not that long.....
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Sister Donna
Its because the feminist movement of the last 100 years was really just about middle class white woman, any help the third world received was a crude attempt to impose our model of feminism on a completely different culture.
ReplyDelete..also you wouldnt have a problem with washroom facilities if you had a penis. men rule:)
I know that when one is in the midst of this seemingly total opposite to what we're used to it feels awful. Trying to change the Governments opinion of their own women is usually impossible. There should be more international support to women in third world countries to show how crutial they are to their own societies.
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