A few years ago in a documentary about his life the famous pianist and conductor, Daniel Barenboim, who currently serves as the Music Director of the Berlin State Opera, jokingly said, “You know as a child I thought everyone played the piano.” Barenboim was speaking of his childhood, his father who had been a pianist and his only teacher, and how their home had always been filled with the sound of piano lessons. “It wasn’t until much later, after I had left my parents, that I realized that it wasn’t so.”
Reading the articles I felt somewhat the same. I have lived my life within the constructs of art. Particularly the performing arts. I worked professionally as a singer, dancer, actress, and director, for over ten years and have been teaching for twenty six. Art is all about experience and interpretation. In fact there is little else. In art experience and interpretations come together to create an illusion of truth, within which, with any luck, there is a grain of universal meaning that can touch someone emotionally, provoke someone intellectually, or illuminate the brain and the heart.
To explain what I mean I will use the example of a play. The text of the play, even if it is based on a collection of “actual” facts ( if I understood Joan W. Scott correctly, then that would be what she calls “foundations”) is an interpretation of the playwright, i.e the events as seen through the playwrights experience. The events exposed through the playwrights questions. The production in its entirety is the product of the director’s interpretation and musings. The set, costumes, and props are interpretations of the artist designing them. The actors and actresses use their multiple interpretations and experiences to make their bodies and voices become, almost, someone else. As all these artists continue to work together during rehearsals their interaction changes the interpretation of the text itself, the way the actors see themselves, and the way they play their part. Finally, the audience, with it’s multiple identities and experiences, brings its own energies to the performance and takes away its own interpretation..
Classical music (and I am including in that contemporary classical music) does the same. Music is more abstract than theater. The composer is interpreting events, emotion, and thoughts into the abstract language of notes. These notes, the “facts”, though, are rarely performed by the composer. Instead, the audience will hear the work only through the rendition of a musician, which inevitable includes the musicians view point made up of endless past and present impressions. Here to, in a live performance, the audience and the venue, with it’s specific atmosphere, will have an affect on what will take place. Each performance is therefor unique and fluid. It is why a live performance compared with a recording is such a special event.
The American composer John Cage took this to idea to the extreme when he had a pianist sit down on stage at a grand piano in silence for four minutes. The “piece” was the moment in space as “performed” by all the individuals in the room. Their coughing, clearing of the throat, shuffling in the chair, and the crackling noise of someone unwrapping a candy.
Perhaps because historians and geographers and many other scholars in academic fields seem to have convinced themselves that they are working with axioms, facts, and premises in an attempt to forge a truth and convince their colleagues and the rest of the world that their truth is real, unlike the illusion artists know they are creating, they are more inclined to forget that the total of their experience is shaping their thought processes and conclusions.
For years our school books taught us that dinosaurs are cold blooded until one day dinosaurs remnants were found that showed a possibility of a heart with four chambers. So dinosaurs had hair after all? Even after this revolutionary find many Paleontologist could not accept the idea. I also keep thinking of the philosopher Kant whose moral imperatives all seem to have come in to being to prove/defend the a-priori existence of God.
Artist, also cannot and could never completely adopt what Linda McDowel calls the “unmarked disembodied ideal that was/is socially valued within academia.” The body is intensely involved in the making of most art. Even for the playwright and the composer. The writer has to imagine his characters as real people. The composer has to deal with real instruments played by real musicians. This is not to say that they haven’t tried, but, in the end, art is a three dimensional experience that cannot exclude the body. The audience experience of art is, I’d like to say should be, visceral as well.
Maybe it’s not really art. Maybe it’s just the way I perceive the practice of art, or the way I practice it that made me wonder if Faranak Miraftab experience in Mexico would have been different if she was an actress, or a writer (non academic). Would she have been less surprised by the Mexican women’s reaction to her being an exiled thirty five year old Muslim from Iran without children? Would she have blamed the Mexican women’s assumption on a movie “reflecting a Western media’s political agenda” when in fact she writes that “going home” would be fatally risky”? Would she have been less ruffled to have her “real” value system including education, academic position, travel, non- motherhood, questioned? I don’t know. Maybe.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Perspectives
In 1970 just as I felt somewhat settled in to first grade and was feeling more comfortable speaking Dutch, my father signed a contract with the Stadttheater Klagenfurt. It was a fantastic opportunity for him to sing Othello, one of the biggest parts written for a dramatic tenor, and so within a few weeks our suitcases were packed again and we were on a long black overnight train to Austria.
My parents rented a small apartment in one of the pastoral rural villages surrounding Klagenfurt, which besides being the home of a big theater was also the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese Bishop. My mother, always keen that I get out of her hair, and meet other children, immediately sent me to the local village school. I was welcomed by the first grade teacher, a short plump lady with dark hair and a rosy complexion, sort of an elderly snow white, who then promptly commanded me to stand outside the door. She refused to have me in her classroom. I was, in the particular, Jewish.
A few years later, sometime in the already very hot Israeli June, I was sitting in class, once again grappling to understand what the teacher talking in Hebrew was going on about, and longing for my last, very cozy, very orderly, and small Dutch Protestant school, which was the exact opposite of this very big loud middle school in Jerusalem, when I realized that the teacher’s elegant hand, laced with a shiny gold bracelet, was inviting me to come to the front of the class.
Confused and feeling a little stupid I walked up and stood in front of my class mates, whom I hardly knew, and smiled politely. Looking at me with pride the teacher spoke at length about something, the speck of pink lipstick bouncing on her front tooth and her French accent making it even more difficult to understand, shook my hand, and gave me a little green book. Jittery, cold, but still smiling, I accepted it and said Toda Raba (Thank you very much), two words I was confident about, and made my way back to my seat.
Arriving safely back on my chair the American girl with whom I shared a rickety table, and who had been positioned as my translator, and who vacillated between being mean and friendly, and who had introduced me to John Denver, Hershey Chocolates and robust American style sleepovers, muttered that I had received the book for being the best student of the year.
Really? Ridiculous. I was in the class only one day a week. The rest of my time I spent in Ulpan (an intensive study course in Hebrew provided for all immigrants). They were just being nice or something. Luckily, it was the end of the day and I got up to leave. Just as I was slipping the little green book in to my bag, thinking how strange the world really was, three girls with wavy dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and gnarling faces suddenly bunched up around me spouted something out and then walked off. I looked at my translator who still sitting dispassionately on her chair explained, “They said that you only received the prize because you’re an Ashkenazi snob.”
At home my mother explained that an Ashkenazi is a German Jew, which has come to refer to any Jew who is white and a descendant of Europe, except for Spain. American, Australian, South African Jews are also Ashkenazi. Later I learned that the girls were of Moroccan descent. Moroccan Jewish immigrants along with immigrants who had been expelled from other Arab countries including, Yemen, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, had been systematically excluded from the white European, mainly Polish/Russian/German/ ‘elite’in Israel. They had received less land (often apartments rather than acreage), in more distant locations and in less fertile areas. During the 70s they were still largely excluded from government positions and had a much harder time getting accepted to universities or to elite units in the Israeli army, which was not only an issue of prestige, but one of the main trajectories leading to high paying non-military jobs and, more importantly, to such positions as Prime Minister (It was only recently that a Prime Minister who was not a chief of staff of the IDF was elected in Israel).
So, I came to understand that for my twelve year old Israeli Sephardi school mates I was, an ‘elite, white, western, oppressor’ while for my Austrian teacher and classmates I was nothing less than the devil. I thought I was just a girl.
Delving ever deeper in to the particular is one of the functions of scholarly work both in and outside of academia. Paying attention to nuances and complexities, finding out infinite amounts of details and information, defining and naming these new discoveries and trying to understand them, coding, decoding and recoding, narrowing subjects down to minute sometimes invisible particulars and specializing in them have brought tremendous advances in all fields of study and have influenced the way we think, produce, and govern.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s cry, in her 1986 article, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”, that white, mainly privileged feminist scholars stop generalizing about women in the so called Third World and instead pay closer attention and become more sensitive to specific differences and particulars between women of other locations, cultures and economic structures was, no doubt, an important step in the scholarly aspect of the feminist movement. Her demand that white feminist scholars note that by using First World definitions they place themselves as superior to other women around the world and her call for a more refined globally inclusive humanism must have been an eye opener as well.
But by her second article, “Under Western Eyes” Revisited:Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Solidarity,” Mohanty, admitting that political activism is important, and that the radical women’s movement that was active in the 1980s “no longer exists”(p516), wants to “reemphasize the connection between the local and universal” and to use these “common differences” to “forge international links between political struggles”(Mohanty 1986, p336). She suggests that the unifying link for women should be antiglobalization. Mohanty seems to think that to overcome the fragmentation that has occurred, due to the successful separation of women’s varied and rich ‘particulars’, women should now unite, become a ‘whole’, by coming together to fight Globalization.
But what is this Globalization? What is this whole, this generality, that women from around the world are supposed to come together for to fight? Mohanty speaks of the almost exclusive importance of seeing the very negative consequences of Globalization suffered by indigenous women and proposes that Women’s Studies scholars use the indigenous women’s experience as a baseline for change. Mohanty seems not to notice, and with apparent ease to devalue, the effect Globalization has had on white privileged American women, many of whom spent years studying and climbing a career path only to see themselves excluded from “Globalization”when they lost their jobs once they realized that spending time with their children was not possible while plane hopping in distant countries. And, what about the indigenous American women, who used to be expert seamstresses working in the textile industry, or had farms, or made herbal tinctures. Shouldn’t all global particulars deserve equal recognition?
Globalization has had an impacted on everyone, poor, middle class, wealthy, old, middle aged or young. Both women and men. For bad, but most importantly also for good. It is true that the indigenous women Mohanty speaks of were inexcusably robbed of their ancient knowledge (in the similar way that large Pharmaceutical companies disguised behind the FDA are currently making tremendous attempts to ‘regulate’,with high fees, the field of herbs and tinctures made by many farming women here in the States), but ‘Globalization’ has enabled many other populations around the world, who otherwise would not have known about these medicines, to benefit from them
Does Mohanty want to return to a place where all our particulars are not integrated? A world where one can only eat Chinese food in China? Pita bread in the middles East? Tikki Massala only in India? Which fragment of this Globalization should we women come together for to fight? And, how are we, each in our respected ‘particulars’, going to be able to agree on one?
I’d like to think that women from different locations and culture could unite for something rather than against something. Prof. Ng somewhat jestingly asked (or possibly it was a serious suggestion) if, maybe, feminist should construct a code of Feminist Ethics. Perhaps, now, a hundred and sixty two years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the Declaration of Sentiments, that would be a very good idea. Maybe, feminists, like many men before them, could formulate a Code of Feminist Ethics that would provide a new a scripture, a new feminine vision of the world. A Code of Feminist Ethics that would function as a guide and support for all women. A set of codes which women could use to confront both those negative aspects of Globalization affecting them, and the regular idiot attempting to control women’s rights over their bodies.
I’d like to think that in this feminist world my Austrian first grade teacher would not leave me standing outside the classroom door alone.
My parents rented a small apartment in one of the pastoral rural villages surrounding Klagenfurt, which besides being the home of a big theater was also the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese Bishop. My mother, always keen that I get out of her hair, and meet other children, immediately sent me to the local village school. I was welcomed by the first grade teacher, a short plump lady with dark hair and a rosy complexion, sort of an elderly snow white, who then promptly commanded me to stand outside the door. She refused to have me in her classroom. I was, in the particular, Jewish.
A few years later, sometime in the already very hot Israeli June, I was sitting in class, once again grappling to understand what the teacher talking in Hebrew was going on about, and longing for my last, very cozy, very orderly, and small Dutch Protestant school, which was the exact opposite of this very big loud middle school in Jerusalem, when I realized that the teacher’s elegant hand, laced with a shiny gold bracelet, was inviting me to come to the front of the class.
Confused and feeling a little stupid I walked up and stood in front of my class mates, whom I hardly knew, and smiled politely. Looking at me with pride the teacher spoke at length about something, the speck of pink lipstick bouncing on her front tooth and her French accent making it even more difficult to understand, shook my hand, and gave me a little green book. Jittery, cold, but still smiling, I accepted it and said Toda Raba (Thank you very much), two words I was confident about, and made my way back to my seat.
Arriving safely back on my chair the American girl with whom I shared a rickety table, and who had been positioned as my translator, and who vacillated between being mean and friendly, and who had introduced me to John Denver, Hershey Chocolates and robust American style sleepovers, muttered that I had received the book for being the best student of the year.
Really? Ridiculous. I was in the class only one day a week. The rest of my time I spent in Ulpan (an intensive study course in Hebrew provided for all immigrants). They were just being nice or something. Luckily, it was the end of the day and I got up to leave. Just as I was slipping the little green book in to my bag, thinking how strange the world really was, three girls with wavy dark brown hair and dark brown eyes and gnarling faces suddenly bunched up around me spouted something out and then walked off. I looked at my translator who still sitting dispassionately on her chair explained, “They said that you only received the prize because you’re an Ashkenazi snob.”
At home my mother explained that an Ashkenazi is a German Jew, which has come to refer to any Jew who is white and a descendant of Europe, except for Spain. American, Australian, South African Jews are also Ashkenazi. Later I learned that the girls were of Moroccan descent. Moroccan Jewish immigrants along with immigrants who had been expelled from other Arab countries including, Yemen, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, had been systematically excluded from the white European, mainly Polish/Russian/German/ ‘elite’in Israel. They had received less land (often apartments rather than acreage), in more distant locations and in less fertile areas. During the 70s they were still largely excluded from government positions and had a much harder time getting accepted to universities or to elite units in the Israeli army, which was not only an issue of prestige, but one of the main trajectories leading to high paying non-military jobs and, more importantly, to such positions as Prime Minister (It was only recently that a Prime Minister who was not a chief of staff of the IDF was elected in Israel).
So, I came to understand that for my twelve year old Israeli Sephardi school mates I was, an ‘elite, white, western, oppressor’ while for my Austrian teacher and classmates I was nothing less than the devil. I thought I was just a girl.
Delving ever deeper in to the particular is one of the functions of scholarly work both in and outside of academia. Paying attention to nuances and complexities, finding out infinite amounts of details and information, defining and naming these new discoveries and trying to understand them, coding, decoding and recoding, narrowing subjects down to minute sometimes invisible particulars and specializing in them have brought tremendous advances in all fields of study and have influenced the way we think, produce, and govern.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s cry, in her 1986 article, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”, that white, mainly privileged feminist scholars stop generalizing about women in the so called Third World and instead pay closer attention and become more sensitive to specific differences and particulars between women of other locations, cultures and economic structures was, no doubt, an important step in the scholarly aspect of the feminist movement. Her demand that white feminist scholars note that by using First World definitions they place themselves as superior to other women around the world and her call for a more refined globally inclusive humanism must have been an eye opener as well.
But by her second article, “Under Western Eyes” Revisited:Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Solidarity,” Mohanty, admitting that political activism is important, and that the radical women’s movement that was active in the 1980s “no longer exists”(p516), wants to “reemphasize the connection between the local and universal” and to use these “common differences” to “forge international links between political struggles”(Mohanty 1986, p336). She suggests that the unifying link for women should be antiglobalization. Mohanty seems to think that to overcome the fragmentation that has occurred, due to the successful separation of women’s varied and rich ‘particulars’, women should now unite, become a ‘whole’, by coming together to fight Globalization.
But what is this Globalization? What is this whole, this generality, that women from around the world are supposed to come together for to fight? Mohanty speaks of the almost exclusive importance of seeing the very negative consequences of Globalization suffered by indigenous women and proposes that Women’s Studies scholars use the indigenous women’s experience as a baseline for change. Mohanty seems not to notice, and with apparent ease to devalue, the effect Globalization has had on white privileged American women, many of whom spent years studying and climbing a career path only to see themselves excluded from “Globalization”when they lost their jobs once they realized that spending time with their children was not possible while plane hopping in distant countries. And, what about the indigenous American women, who used to be expert seamstresses working in the textile industry, or had farms, or made herbal tinctures. Shouldn’t all global particulars deserve equal recognition?
Globalization has had an impacted on everyone, poor, middle class, wealthy, old, middle aged or young. Both women and men. For bad, but most importantly also for good. It is true that the indigenous women Mohanty speaks of were inexcusably robbed of their ancient knowledge (in the similar way that large Pharmaceutical companies disguised behind the FDA are currently making tremendous attempts to ‘regulate’,with high fees, the field of herbs and tinctures made by many farming women here in the States), but ‘Globalization’ has enabled many other populations around the world, who otherwise would not have known about these medicines, to benefit from them
Does Mohanty want to return to a place where all our particulars are not integrated? A world where one can only eat Chinese food in China? Pita bread in the middles East? Tikki Massala only in India? Which fragment of this Globalization should we women come together for to fight? And, how are we, each in our respected ‘particulars’, going to be able to agree on one?
I’d like to think that women from different locations and culture could unite for something rather than against something. Prof. Ng somewhat jestingly asked (or possibly it was a serious suggestion) if, maybe, feminist should construct a code of Feminist Ethics. Perhaps, now, a hundred and sixty two years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the Declaration of Sentiments, that would be a very good idea. Maybe, feminists, like many men before them, could formulate a Code of Feminist Ethics that would provide a new a scripture, a new feminine vision of the world. A Code of Feminist Ethics that would function as a guide and support for all women. A set of codes which women could use to confront both those negative aspects of Globalization affecting them, and the regular idiot attempting to control women’s rights over their bodies.
I’d like to think that in this feminist world my Austrian first grade teacher would not leave me standing outside the classroom door alone.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Our stories
Lois Presser concludes “Negotiating Power and Narrative in Research: Implications for Feminist Methodology” with; “The researcher’s goal is not to emancipate the authentic story of the narrator– none exists– but rather to expose as much as she can of the relations that influence the construction of the story that is told.”(p2087)
While the paper clarified reflexivity I am going to continue with my theme of trying to understand the power moral imperatives and religious beliefs and identity have on us. The men Presser presents in the paper, Kevin and Dwight, saw themselves like most prominent male figures in religious myths; “the protagonist was cast as a hero in his own life battling adversaries in an ongoing struggle.” (p2075)
Presser, on the other hand, providing a “research -subject collaboration in gender accomplishment”(p2073) achieves “femininity by conveying empathy for a small animal.”(p2080)
But if the men’s inner myths, as Kevin states, include heros battling “corrupt authority” (just like Marduk, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Husayn Ibn Ali, Arjuna) what is Presser’s feminine story?
Another excerpt from the NYTimes:
Does Your Language Shape How You Think?
In recent years, various experiments have shown that grammatical genders can shape the feelings and associations of speakers toward objects around them. In the 1990s, for example, psychologists compared associations between speakers of German and Spanish. There are many inanimate nouns whose genders in the two languages are reversed. A German bridge is feminine (die Brücke), for instance, but el puente is masculine in Spanish; and the same goes for clocks, apartments, forks, newspapers, pockets, shoulders, stamps, tickets, violins, the sun, the world and love. On the other hand, an apple is masculine for Germans but feminine in Spanish, and so are chairs, brooms, butterflies, keys, mountains, stars, tables, wars, rain and garbage. When speakers were asked to grade various objects on a range of characteristics, Spanish speakers deemed bridges, clocks and violins to have more “manly properties” like strength, but Germans tended to think of them as more slender or elegant. With objects like mountains or chairs, which are “he” in German but “she” in Spanish, the effect was reversed.
In a different experiment, French and Spanish speakers were asked to assign human voices to various objects in a cartoon. When French speakers saw a picture of a fork (la fourchette), most of them wanted it to speak in a woman’s voice, but Spanish speakers, for whom el tenedor is masculine, preferred a gravelly male voice for it. More recently, psychologists have even shown that “gendered languages” imprint gender traits for objects so strongly in the mind that these associations obstruct speakers’ ability to commit information to memory.
The rest at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?pagewanted=2&ref=homepage&src=me
While the paper clarified reflexivity I am going to continue with my theme of trying to understand the power moral imperatives and religious beliefs and identity have on us. The men Presser presents in the paper, Kevin and Dwight, saw themselves like most prominent male figures in religious myths; “the protagonist was cast as a hero in his own life battling adversaries in an ongoing struggle.” (p2075)
Presser, on the other hand, providing a “research -subject collaboration in gender accomplishment”(p2073) achieves “femininity by conveying empathy for a small animal.”(p2080)
But if the men’s inner myths, as Kevin states, include heros battling “corrupt authority” (just like Marduk, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Husayn Ibn Ali, Arjuna) what is Presser’s feminine story?
Another excerpt from the NYTimes:
Does Your Language Shape How You Think?
In recent years, various experiments have shown that grammatical genders can shape the feelings and associations of speakers toward objects around them. In the 1990s, for example, psychologists compared associations between speakers of German and Spanish. There are many inanimate nouns whose genders in the two languages are reversed. A German bridge is feminine (die Brücke), for instance, but el puente is masculine in Spanish; and the same goes for clocks, apartments, forks, newspapers, pockets, shoulders, stamps, tickets, violins, the sun, the world and love. On the other hand, an apple is masculine for Germans but feminine in Spanish, and so are chairs, brooms, butterflies, keys, mountains, stars, tables, wars, rain and garbage. When speakers were asked to grade various objects on a range of characteristics, Spanish speakers deemed bridges, clocks and violins to have more “manly properties” like strength, but Germans tended to think of them as more slender or elegant. With objects like mountains or chairs, which are “he” in German but “she” in Spanish, the effect was reversed.
In a different experiment, French and Spanish speakers were asked to assign human voices to various objects in a cartoon. When French speakers saw a picture of a fork (la fourchette), most of them wanted it to speak in a woman’s voice, but Spanish speakers, for whom el tenedor is masculine, preferred a gravelly male voice for it. More recently, psychologists have even shown that “gendered languages” imprint gender traits for objects so strongly in the mind that these associations obstruct speakers’ ability to commit information to memory.
The rest at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?pagewanted=2&ref=homepage&src=me
Friday, September 3, 2010
In their article “Feminist research methodologies and development: overview and practical application” Gwendolyn Beetham and Justina Demetriades quote, on page 202, Jane Papart’s argument that “Emanciapatory development will only occur when development theorist and practitioners adopt a more inclusive approach to knowledge/expertise, a readiness and ability to “hear different voices/experiences . . .” (Jane Papart, 1995, 240). On pg 203 they quote Jayaratne and Stewart who have concluded that “research which only documents differences between the sexes offers no understanding of why those differences exist or how such differences may be attenuated ”(Jayaratne and Stewart 1991, 88). On page 207 they present the fact that “There is no clear consensus on what represents evidence of women’s empowerment or what it means”, and quoting Kabeer (2005) explain that “‘power’ is in terms of the ability of women to make choices about their lives” Beetham and Demetriades then continue to suggest “empowerment often begins from within, which makes it difficult to measure including sense of agency or self worth (Kabeer 2005).” On pg 208 they write “A study reviewing international approaches to measuring women’s empowerment suggests measuring along six dimensions: economic, socio-cultural, familial-interpersonal, legal political and psychological.”
I am wondering why the study reviewing international approaches has excluded measuring women’s religious identity, religious perception and depth of belief, and their interpretation or understanding of feminine symbols in their religion. Religion empowers, or disempowers, from within. While measuring “sense of agency or self worth” cannot easily be measured, religious symbols and religious moral imperatives can more easily be measured in so far as women’s empowerment, or lack thereof. I don’t see how “differences between the sexes can be attenuated” without taking religious mythology into account. Maybe so much has already been written about religion and gender that it is irrelevant? Or, maybe, it’s too sensitive a political issue?
The other thing I found interesting was that the OECD/DAC Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base, has developed 60 gender sensitive indicators (p206), which due to “Changes in the conditions surrounding and influencing gender relations”(p206) show a “need for constantly evolving indicators.”(p206) No wonder that the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, (and many of the other UN resolution for gender equality) “have been insufficiently executed.” (P206).
.
Lastly, Beetham and Demetriades state that “Qualitve measures are more gender sensitive than their quantitative counterparts.(p 203)” I was just contemplating if that is also because women researchers prefer qualitive measures. They are more personal and create a relationship between the researcher and the researched.
Here’s an excerpt from today’s NYTimes -
Rape Victims in Congo Raid Now More Than 240/by Josh Kron
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/world/africa/03congo.html?ref=world
Since the United Nations first publicly reported the mass rapes on Aug. 22, questions have arisen over how much the United Nations knew about the attacks as they were under way.
United Nations officials have said the peacekeepers did not know about the rapes until Aug. 12. But a leaked United Nations e-mail dated July 30 shows that officials there were aware that the rebels had taken over one of the villages and raped one woman within the first day of the attack. By Aug. 10, the United Nations was aware that at least 25 women had been raped, according to another United Nations bulletin, published online.
I am wondering why the study reviewing international approaches has excluded measuring women’s religious identity, religious perception and depth of belief, and their interpretation or understanding of feminine symbols in their religion. Religion empowers, or disempowers, from within. While measuring “sense of agency or self worth” cannot easily be measured, religious symbols and religious moral imperatives can more easily be measured in so far as women’s empowerment, or lack thereof. I don’t see how “differences between the sexes can be attenuated” without taking religious mythology into account. Maybe so much has already been written about religion and gender that it is irrelevant? Or, maybe, it’s too sensitive a political issue?
The other thing I found interesting was that the OECD/DAC Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base, has developed 60 gender sensitive indicators (p206), which due to “Changes in the conditions surrounding and influencing gender relations”(p206) show a “need for constantly evolving indicators.”(p206) No wonder that the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, (and many of the other UN resolution for gender equality) “have been insufficiently executed.” (P206).
.
Lastly, Beetham and Demetriades state that “Qualitve measures are more gender sensitive than their quantitative counterparts.(p 203)” I was just contemplating if that is also because women researchers prefer qualitive measures. They are more personal and create a relationship between the researcher and the researched.
Here’s an excerpt from today’s NYTimes -
Rape Victims in Congo Raid Now More Than 240/by Josh Kron
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/world/africa/03congo.html?ref=world
Since the United Nations first publicly reported the mass rapes on Aug. 22, questions have arisen over how much the United Nations knew about the attacks as they were under way.
United Nations officials have said the peacekeepers did not know about the rapes until Aug. 12. But a leaked United Nations e-mail dated July 30 shows that officials there were aware that the rebels had taken over one of the villages and raped one woman within the first day of the attack. By Aug. 10, the United Nations was aware that at least 25 women had been raped, according to another United Nations bulletin, published online.
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