Women in Rwanda article

Read the article I handed out in class, or go to this page:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/26/AR2008102602197_pf.html
What are your thoughts about the situation in Rwanda? How did it come to be that women are, more or less, running the country? Do you think it sounds like it's working? How are men in Rwanda reacting?

Togo Article

I feel that what's happening in Togo is terrible. There are young girls starting at the age of five years old getting beaten twenty four hours a day just for their owner's entertainment. I think that the organizations that are working on these certain cases are doing a good job, but they need to try to work on more cases, because as the article said, "There are millions of little girls getting enslaved." It's a terrible thought, to think that little children at the age of five years old could get these jobs to pay off family debt, and sometimes they wouldn't even get paid to do the work. I think one way that organizations against child labor could do is try to travel to these villages and search for different private houses where these activities are going on in. Also, I feel that the girls are smart for running away from their masters, because they work all day long and their reward is to be beaten for no apparent reason but for entertainment. This problem is probably targeted in Togo because it's a poor country in Africa where there are no laws against child labor, and the children are so desperate for money that they would do any kind of work to make money. It's a hard subject to try and fix immediately, but at least the private organizations could try to take everything head on.

response on human trafficing

Although this was not the first time I have heard about human trafficking in Africa, among other places in the world, I was shocked as to how young some of the girls where. When I hear the words “human trafficking” my mind automatically jumps to illegal kidnapping that lead to forced prostitution. The book that I read over the summer “Sold” had a lot to do with this and it too told the story of an unfortunate victim of this situation. The article tells the story of a girl who had been working as a maid since she was nine years old, and how she was abused and mistreated. The fact that so many of these girls have to go through such horrible conditions during their lives just to get unfair wages and a place to sleep is heartbreaking. In my opinion, the main cause of all of this mess is the poverty that these people live in, because they must live off of cents a day, they will take any job they can find for themselves or their daughters. They don’t have the luxury of thinking of the horrible consequences that might come along with leaving home to work for a stranger. I think that this problem might be solved if more job opportunities appear, a union for housekeepers might help as well and serve as a place of justice for these girls, as well as law enforcement cracking down on abusive employers.

Togo Article

Despite the subject of it, I thought this was a very interesting article. I think it was interesting to me because I had never read an article like it before. I thought it was very interesting to read about the inhuman rights going on in Togo, especially to read about it form an actual victim in a situation dealing with drug trafficking. I think it is always better to hear about different things from someone dealing with the problem because I think it brings more clarity and truth to the situation. I know that in interviews that words can get changed up to some degree, but they can’t change everything. In addition to that, it tends to put things in perspective in saying that the people need to do something to help solve the problem. I thought that what surprised me the most were the statistics, because that also gives information on what little is actually being done. Statistics saying that 90 percent of the people are impoverished and the average per capita is $2,100 is very alarming. However, I thought this was particularly interesting to me because Togo is my region of Africa which gives me more questions as to why there is not more poetry because incidents like this amongst many of the other conflicts in Africa would cause a large amount of poetry to come from numerous areas in Africa.

Togo

Not under any circumstances should a young girl be abused. They can be hit for discipline reasons ONLY. ( such as talking back, hit the parent or relative and stealing,etc ). The abuse not in public view makes it even worse, because there is no witness for the abuse. Not only does the child suffer from physical abuse they suffer from mental abuse and may have scars for the rest of there lives. Having been abused that makes them not trust people. This make me feel thankful for my position in life and feel sorry for the kids who go threw the torture. It make me want to make a change in life and make sure no child is abused at any point in time. They should be treated like a normal child. No child should be put threw that.

Togo Article

Read the article I provided in class (or click on this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/26/ST2008122600004.html?sid=ST2008122600004
and write a 200 word response. What were your thoughts/feelings as you read this article? Why do you think this is a particular problem in Togo? How do you think these sort of problems could be stopped?

For Viitel

http://southafrica.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_name=southafrica

For Lesa

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/banzhao.html

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/liquinzh.html#anchor94638

http://www.thedrunkenboat.com/xue.html

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Enjoy!! (Rafi, this one's especially for you!)

http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Classic-Ultraviolent/dp/1594743347

3 essays

The three essays that we were assigned to read were all different experiences in the lives of women who came from different cultural backgrounds, but basically told the same story. Since the beginning of time women have been considered the weaker sex, and the stories that we read only prove that these feeling are not completely gone. The first story tells and depicts how sexism trickles down from generation to generation, the author tells of how her father treated her and her sister differently from her brothers, and didn’t show much respect for the opposite sex by condoning her brothers promiscuous behavior while completely banning her sister from even meeting up with boys. The second essay tells of how the author’s father thought that she would end up as nothing but somebody’s wife, just because she was a girl, and how the author felt that she constantly had to prove herself to him academically. The third essay depicts a different scenario completely, as the author tells of how a mere black eye brought everyone to the assumption that she had been beaten by her spouse. All in all, he purpose of all of these essays are to prove that women are not as weak, stupid, or helpless as many would think, and that sexism still finds a way into our society and daily lives. This is probably a good thing to read about during this class since we are studying women in history and literature, and we cant do that without studying the obstacles that they faced back then, as well as today, because of their sex. Women in history and Literature also falls into the arts which symbolizes their freedom of expression, a freedom often limited by different cultures and societies.

3 essays response

I think that the three essays are about how different women, from different cultures are treated in society. The first essay was about a woman telling the story of when she was a little girl, watching her older sister be treated unfairly by their father. The author of this essay explains the restraints that her father put on her older sister. She said she started out with feelings of disgust for her father, but after she went to school and studied history of women, she realized that her father’s reaction towards her sister was the same way any other father would’ve reacted towards a growing girl. In the second essay the author is talking about how she was the only daughter, with six brothers, and how her father acted with her. She said that she really wouldn’t get to do much outside because her father didn’t let her have much freedom with society, and she said she had to spend most of her time in her room by herself, but that’s something that helped her writing be as good as it is. The last essay was about a woman that lived, or at least walked by southwest Detroit. She talks about a time when she hit her head against a stop sign, and she ended up getting a black eye, or what she calls “a shiner.” The author said that most of her friends, male and female, were feminists. She explained the reaction that her friends had when she explained how she got a black eye. The author said, every time she would explain what happened, her friends would sarcastically say “sure,” meaning that they thought her husband/boyfriend had beaten her. At the end of the essay, she says that she eventually distanced herself from her friends, and kept to herself, which I find quite sad. My response to the last essay is disappointment. As a male, I think that most people think sexism is a one-way street but it’s not. For example, just because the author got a black eye, and she has a boyfriend, doesn’t automatically mean that her boyfriend is abusive.

Three Essays

These three essays are all well written, by women, who all hold something inside them that makes them feel uncomfortable. In Brothers and Sisters, the author shares her views on her parent’s upbringing of her and her five brothers. She dislikes the way her father teaches his sons about women. He encourages them to chase all the ladies they see and have fun, yet views women as disgusting and perverse. When his other daughter takes his perspective and turns it on men, he punishes her for exploring her love for young men and promiscuity. In the second story, a young Mexican-American woman is not viewed by her father as a daughter, but as one of his seven sons. He never recognized any of her accomplishments unless they involved marrying a man. She finally finds peace with him later in life after she wrote a successful book that was based in Mexico. The third essay is similar, when a woman receives a black eye from walking into a street sign and notices how uncomfortable people get when they see it, thinking her boyfriend did it to her. All of these stories are based around the unbalanced relationship between men and women in several different ways, depending on the person. I think these stories are good to read in this session, because we are studying women in literature, especially poetry and other various literary art forms.

Brothers & SIsters, Only Daughter, A Beaut of a Shiner

Write 200 words in which you think about what these 3 essays have in common. What do you think the theme/purpose of each essay is? Why might these be essays to read during this session, while we're studying women around the world, especially with regards to the arts?