writing – Page 4 – Not Your Average Engineer

November 28, 2004November 15, 2021

Bitter Academic

Lazreg really goes to town on arguing that “global feminism’ is a horrid problem which is solely the fault of the west and the puppets that are paraded around on the international lecture circuit. She pontificates at great length her distain for the treatment of the “Other woman” as someone who lives in a bad society and needs freeing and, prior to that, careful documentation for consumption by western audiences. She argues that all western work on the study of the “Other woman” is garbage and only serves to sensationalize and perpetuate lies and half truths about women from societies other than those of the west.

It seems to me that Lazreg must have been passed up once too many times to be a guest lecturer or was turned down by one too many publishers and now she’s become a very bitter and jaded academic. I dare say that she lost her academic marbles. This short piece seems only designed to lash out at the rest of the academic community in a very blind and indiscriminant manner. She harshly criticizes everyone from her own students through other academics through the “Other women” lecturers and authors. Never once did I see any real suggestion for improvement on the current system. Regardless of whether or not what Lazreg says is true, it’s entirely unconstructive to spew such academic bile in the faces of her peers without offering up some possible solution. In engineering, that would be like saying a dam will fail and kill a million people but not suggesting any methods to stop the event from occurring.

I agree with her that many people do trivialize the “Other woman” and make all of her efforts and endeavors into a fight against the system in which she lives. In fact, I’m sure that I’m even guilty of such things. In today’s gogo western world of 10 second sound bytes and instant information 24/7/365, if the topic isn’t sensationalized a bit, no one from the general population is going to bother looking at it. For that matter, most undergraduates wouldn’t take a women’s studies class if they didn’t expect to read some exotic tales of far off places and far out women. Some might even be so lucky as to see national geographic style photographs of women in “traditional” dress scratching out a meager existence in sub Saharan Africa. What the students aren’t told is that an anthropologist paid the women either in cash or in food or some other valuable commodity to pose in outdated clothes doing things which they wouldn’t usually do. I’ve known enough anthropologists over the years to know that this is the modus operandi for a good chunk of the anthropological community.

But I digress. Agreeing with Lazreg is one thing. Agreeing with her method of delivering the message and the “academacized” nature of her writing (lots and lots of unnecessary big words and tons of verboseness) served more to hurt her argument rather than help it in my eyes.

November 27, 2004November 15, 2021

Waiting for Death

This story tells of the tragedy of independence for the traditional Moroccan woman. Initially, Zahra fought for independence only to find the fruits of her labor died on the vine at independence. To add insult to injury, she only could find work as a cleaning woman for a French cultural center. Now the colonizers who she fought against are her only means of support.

Once again, it appears that the women of Morocco were duped into trusting the men would give them their fair share. Once again, the men betrayed them.

Certain passages such as the following bear striking resemblances to portions of the book Animal Farm.

“He ate with a fork and I with my fingers. The sound of his fork hitting the plate,” (pg 54) and “He packs the kif carefully into a small pipe which looks like a thimble, lights it and sucks in, making the kif burn like a live coal. Smoke seems on the verge of coming out of his ears as well when Roukia, mirroring my own thoughts, says, ‘You’d better stop doing that stuff or they’ll drag your name through the mud.’ ‘Soon he’ll be smoking European pipes and cigars,’ I add, ‘Independence has played tricks with their heads.” (pg 63).

Just as the pigs in Animal Farm turned into men, the resistance fighters of Morocco have turned into the French. It seems that wherever a colonizing power leaves, the locals become even more colonial than the original colonizers! The Moroccans became more French than the French, the Egyptians more British than the British and the Mexicans more Spanish than the Spaniards. Regardless of when or where the colonization and revolution took place, it seems that the result is the same.

The only real twist in North Africa and the Middle East comes with women’s rights. Regardless of all their fighting for the resistance, once it was over, they were even worse off than when they started. Women that stuck with tradition were often cast by the wayside in favor of women who wore French clothes and cut their hair short, such as Zahra. She was thrown out in favor of a 20something “secretary” who dressed like a French woman and maybe would bear children for Zahra’s husband. Having received no formal education beyond the literacy classes she took during the resistance, Zahra was forced to in turn try to spin wool, which she found unprofitable, look for a job in olive oil factories, and then finally found stable and secure employment at a French cultural center. Zahra got her papers and whatever the law provides for. She didn’t have any parents or grandparents to move back in with and she wasn’t about to set up shop with her sister or other relations after having tasted independence and freedom. It all ended up in a horrid bind for her.

The only thing that seems to keep Zahra going is her faith. Now she’s just in a holding pattern until she dies and moves on to the next life where her Sheik promises a better life. Let’s hope that Zahra finds an oasis devoid of bastards like her ex-husband. Zahra now only waits for death.

November 27, 2004November 15, 2021

Dreams of Trespass Essay #2

Power is derived from the cup size of a woman’s breast and the darkness and thickness of a man’s beard. The first signs of Fatima gaining power came from the mere knowledge of such things. Actually, it wasn’t the knowledge of the “month due” or the age at which babies can be produced as much as it was the official impartation of this knowledge by a person in a position of power – specifically, a position of power above that of Fatima’s mother. This wonderful gift to Fatima was bestowed by a figure who I thought would be the last one to talk about such things – Lalla Tam.

Using Lalla Tam as the vehicle of delivery of such power confused me at first. Why would someone who is so staunch a supporter of the proper and traditional way of doing things tell young girls and boys about bodily functions and whatnot when they were still a year or two out from having anything with which to apply the knowledge? All it served to do was undermine the power of Fatima’s mother. Maybe this was a cleaver ruse by Lalla Tam to chip away at the power base of Fatima’s very non-traditional mother. Maybe Lalla Tam secretly wanted to let the young boys and girls of the Harem escape from their courtyard prison.

Relating to the whole matter of growing up and getting the “month due” and other such wonderful things such as breasts and mustaches, this chapter also talked about the various spells and incantations used for increased beauty, increased bust, good grades, and summoning princes from as far away as Marrakech. Fatima went to great lengths to get her prince to come for her, especially after Samir wouldn’t have anything to do with her spells on the terrace. He was growing up as well. Fatima helped him grow a “beard” and shortly thereafter, he decided that such things as spells to the moon and the stars are nonsense. Of course, if the moon can make you pregnant, then why can’t it make your hair longer and straighter?

Toward the end of this chapter, all of the younger children from the Mernissi harem were granted permission to attend a French system based school. Rather than attend class with Lalla Tam, the grandmother to them all, they went to a new and modern school down the street from their house. In it they jumped from subject to subject, always learning new things and never having to sit still for too long. They even got to go home during lunch and play with the donkeys that walk in the street. That was a major event in the lives of all of those kids! This was the real first sign to Fatima that the walls were falling down and the doors were opening.

All in all, I think this chapter was about growing up and moving beyond the confines of the courtyard and terrace. It culminated in the release of the children, both male and female, to the school down the street. There was a sad and bitter note though when Fatima’s mother wasn’t allowed to go to literacy classes. She was too old for such things. In including that note of discord, Fatima reminds us of the disparity between the different age groups, even as the young progressed forward into new and exciting things such as school outside the home. Also, the chapter was a good excuse to name a chapter “Mustaches and Breasts” and for me to title this paper “Boobs and Beards”.

On a final note, sticking with my theme from an earlier paper, my work clearly merits A’s in all subjects for the term.