Have you ever thought about the way you see parts of the world before this class? Today, I challenge you to think about how the single story affects the way you see the world, how religion puts barriers on other countries, and how women’s rights differ all around the world. This will allow you to form your own opinion instead of listening to someone else’s. Even though different parts of the world have many different circumstances than we are used to, you will be able to see how we all share a common interest; and that is to be valued.
People are often told information, no matter the content, and they believe it without question. Why is that? It’s because we have been conditioned to believe the information accessible to us. This mindset is what sets apart a story from the truth. We often hear stories about people’s lives in other countries and we take those stories to be facts. We don’t think about where these stories come from, or who is writing them; we just know to process the information and believe it without question or research. Most often, we do this because it is easier than working and searching for the truth. The most interesting stories grab our attention, and these stories are normally about catastrophic situations. For example, the 2010 photo of the year that told the story of why Bibi Aisha left her abusive husband and household in Afghanistan (Mengiste). People experience single stories and their effects everyday, including myself. Instead of coming to conclusions that everybody has the same experience in a country based off of one story, we could travel to those countries to see for ourselves and form our own opinions. After we form an opinion on the single story, we then create stereotypes. However, these stereotypes can be changed with a lot of effort, over a long period of time. A common stereotype Americans have formed through a single story is equating Mexicans with immigrants as discussed in Adiche’s TED Talk. Now that we know what effects a single story can have on us, I hope we continue to seek more information rather than taking a story as it is.
Living in a country that has freedom of religion, I did not realize how it shapes the laws in other countries like Nigeria that we read about in “Under the Udala Trees” by Chinelo Okparanta. I was unaware that people are still being stoned, or even killed for being gay. We assume that most of America’s laws and regulations must be evolving in other countries, and that is not the case. As we experienced while reading the novel, people are still being punished for loving people of the same gender. In the past decade, Nigeria passed “The Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act [that] criminalises all forms of same-sex unions and same-sex marriage throughout the country.(2006, 2011)”. Religion is the basis of the government in some countries, and it can be very dangerous for people who don’t strictly follow it. However, in the United States people may not be killed for being a part of the LGBTQ community, they still feel shame because of people’s opinions about them. In “Under the Udala Trees” we experience Ijeoma having to sit through Bible studies with her mother because she considers her love for Amina to be an abomination, as the Bible states. She also tells a story about a father giving up his virgin daughter in order to keep two men from lying together. This situation may sound ridiculous to us; however, this happens more than we think. A woman’s purpose in many other countries is to get married at a young age, so they can have as many children as possible. However, male children are more valuable because they continue the family name. In most countries, males still have more rights than females.
Women’s rights in other countries are significantly different than they are in the United States. As stated in “Radical Women, Embracing Tradition” by Kavita Ramdas, tradition can define rules for both women and men. Women’s education is less of a priority than men’s in many countries because women are expected to stay home, have children, clean, and cook. One of the most challenging things to change is a tradition. Some women are still not allowed to work, and if they are it’s in very dangerous conditions, such as sweatshops. While some countries have and have had women leaders, such as Dalia Grybauskaitė who was the president of Lithuania from 2009-2019, The United states has yet to elect a woman as President. Some women, at an early age, are forced into marriage and don’t have a say in who they are marrying because their parents pick their spouse. As Americans, we might consider driving, going to school, and voting all basic rights; however, in other countries women don’t get to experience any of these. In India, “750,000 female children are killed a year” because male children are considered more valuable (The World Before Her). Female children who are beaten by their fathers are conditioned to think it’s acceptable because their fathers have allowed them to live, as shown in “The World Before Her.” There are a lot of divisions between men and women globally. However, people are constantly challenging these perceptions and trying to change the way people see males and females.
Women are considered to have more power in the United States, than other countries, but there is still an obvious gender equality gap. The United States has never elected a female president, does America still have an issue with women being in power? In 2018, Saudi Arabian women were granted the right to drive, however, women still need male consent to make everyday decisions. Do you see women in countries like Saudi Arabia getting more or less rights in the future? If so, then when and how? As the question about immigration in America continues to be an issue, how do you think this affects women trying to escape abuse situations that are common in their countries? As Americans, we tend to focus on the tragedies in these other countries but continue to limit their ability to escape. Do you think as Americans we should help these women, or just continue to talk about it?
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