oppression

Tolerant Oppression: Why Promoting Tolerance Undermines Our Quest for Equality and What We Should Do Instead

beth — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:00:00 +0000

On the surface, tolerance seems like an innocuous concept. We’ve heard it before in relation to diversity, acceptance, and other key words that denote something positive. However, a deeper look into the idea reveals a mess of conflicting messages and confusion. For those who have never considered the concept of tolerance from this perspective before, Dr. Scott Hampton provides a handbook of sorts that critically assesses tolerance. Each of the 110 mini-chapters works to debunk the idea that tolerance is enough in order to achieve harmony.

Hampton uses quotes from respected leaders and a variety of exercises to illustrate and demonstrate his points, making this a light and quick read. In fact, its format makes it a useful teaching tool for those looking to challenge their own or others’ views on tolerance. The point is driven home all throughout, but the exercises allow for readers to reach their own conclusions as well.

To explain how tolerance simply isn’t enough, Hampton draws on a variety of controversial and hot button issues such as sexism, suicide, human trafficking, and more. The moral and ethical arguments surrounding these issues serve to support his points and give him an opportunity to present ideas such as, “Tolerance is politically correct hatred.” He suggests alternatives to tolerance like acceptance, understanding, and respect, because these words are less likely to be confused and more accurately describe what a person typically means when they say tolerance.

Many who are part of traditionally oppressed groups will see the logic to Hampton’s claims. Being tolerated isn’t enough, and it only serves to further enforce differences. Tolerance perpetuates the idea that one group or person is superior to another rather than challenging that very idea. On one hand, this might seem like a simple case of bad word choice, but given the fact that many people and organizations hold tolerance up as the goal or hoped-for end result, it is worthwhile to take a moment to identify what we truly want (justice, equality, etc.) and how we might better achieve it.

Written by: Shana Mattson, January 29th 2011

Written on the Body of The Erasable Woman

mandy — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Interview with Shaunga Tagore

When did you start writing poetry?

At a very young age—probably when I started writing with chalk on my bathroom door or adding my own two cents to my parents’ biology textbooks they tell me I always furiously flipped through. I experienced a lot of racism, (hetero)sexism, and different kinds of regulation at a young age too, and I think what that did was make me really quiet and closed up in a lot of ways. But expressing myself creatively was something I did to become myself again—whether that be through writing, acting, music, or just telling stories about how I imagined my life to be, instead of the scary, oppressive ways I often experienced it.

Who has influenced your writing?

First and foremost, my family: my parents and sister created an environment for me where creativity was valued and encouraged. Now still, there are so many ways I am creatively inspired by the lives and perspectives of my friends and family, even in ordinary moments. I’m also lucky to be a part of Asian Arts Freedom School, a creative arts and radical Asian history and politics group, where the conversations and stories continually influence and push my own writing.

As for famous people, some who come to mind are Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Shyam Selvadurai, Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldua, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Smarasinha, Himani Bannerji, and Andrea Smith.

The Erasable Woman is your Master's thesis project; why did you choose to write it in poetry?

I was sick of writing like an academic. (Laughs.) My topic was exploring colonial violence against racialized queer women, as well as how broad systems of oppression or histories can manifest intimately on women’s bodies, and in personal relationships. I find that poetry can express this intimacy in ways academic writing cannot. A lot of people in academia would not consider poetry a legitimate way to express theory or politics, but poetry is theory, it is knowledge, and it is political. I was really lucky to have a supervising committee who understood and supported this kind of project (Enakshi Dua and Priscila Uppal).

Why the title The Erasable Woman?

The Erasable Woman is a title of one of my poems, and I feel it fits the entire collection. A major theme that runs through my manuscript is erasure…being forgotten, lost, ignored, invisible, expendable, and disposable. At the same time, it asserts a physical, spiritual, sexual, emotional, and undeniable presence in the midst of being and feeling erased. That’s one of the ways I tried to express the complexity of what it means to experience oppression and survive/resist it at the same time.

Erasure is such a key and powerful way that violence is allowed to continue. [It] speaks to the ways in which racism and other oppressions in feminist movements is ignored, and the well-being of women of colour is not considered. Also, the value of challenging sexism, homophobia, and transphobia in a lot of anti-racist or queer initiatives is often marginalized and not given enough importance. So many things in this world are structured through erasure: mainstream education denies the violence of colonial conquest on this land by largely painting it as a benign, peaceful process; national media doesn’t pay enough attention to the ways in which violence impacts marginalized bodies or communities; survivors in/of abusive relationships are silenced and shut down when they try and fight/talk back; queer or unconventional love/desire is constantly trivialized and demonized; expressing or feeling certain kinds of emotions is minimized. I wanted to explore these topics in my own way.

How do your identities influence your work?

I can’t separate myself from my social position, or my mashup of identities, and I can’t separate myself from my writing, so it all becomes intertwined. In this particular work, it was important for me to center the voice of a queer woman of colour, because it’s not a perspective that’s often given attention—in literature, feminism, anti-racism, or queer politics.

How did you came to the decision to use images in your collection?

I always start with a feeling or idea I need to express (sometimes desperately), and I follow my intuition, as well as work with my skill set, to give shape and form to that feeling or idea the best and most honest way I can figure out how. For example, at one point I wanted to create something that expressed how the bodies of women of colour are judged and marked by oppression just by living in the world. So, one of the pieces that appears in my collection (called "bodysnatchers") contains a series of photos with oppressive words actually written on the body. It just made the most sense.

The Erasable Woman is currently not available to the public. Can you tell us what your plans are for this wonderful collection of poetry?

The Erasable Woman is still a work in progress that I am currently fine-tuning, and I hope to get it published in the near future. I’m really excited about how it’s shaping up and have been doing readings at various events. I now have a website, which is new and still under construction, where people can read some of my work and check out other things I’m up to.

Read the full interview at Black Coffee Poet

Written by: Janet Romero-Leiva, December 29th 2010

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn

Knopf

In Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn lay out a powerful argument about the importance of development work paying heed to gender. Since both Kristoff and WuDunn are well-known and respected journalists, this book will undoubtedly be widely read and influence policy and practice. Skillfully composed of narratives of women’s plight and resistance in Africa and Asia, the authors incorporate scientific and policy research to support their argument. They attempt to outline some of the most significant ways in which women’s oppression plays out; through sex slavery, inadequate maternal health care, rape, and lack of education. The book is obviously a labor of love, and the couple draws their first person narratives from their travels around the globe to bear witness to these situations.

Kristof and WuDunn deal respectfully with issues of cultural relativity, including an insightful and knowledgeable chapter on Islam and its relationship to sexism and women, but they fall short of thoroughly addressing issues of power and privilege in their own relationships to the issues. While they allude several times to critiques of cultural imperialism—mentioning women who have challenged them on their presence and role in the struggles of women from the variety of countries included here—they never seem to delve into the matter deeply, offering blanket statements about morality that are supposed to supersede these critiques.

The authors pay lip service to the leadership of the women most affected by the issues at hand; they also write with a clear intention of encouraging involvement of affluent Americans of all genders through philanthropic and missionary projects. Without passing judgment on these sorts of interventions, what was missing in their analysis was a clear role for the history of colonization and neoliberalism in shaping the relationships between the US and Africa and Asia.

This book will undoubtedly serve as a call to arms to take more seriously the issues facing poor women in Africa and Asia. My only worry is that in ignoring the role of colonialism and capitalism in shaping these problems, the solutions offered will fall short. In one of the final chapters, the authors defend sweatshops from liberal critiques, arguing that because garment work employs women and elevates their economic status above men’s, they can only be a good thing. While sweatshops may, in fact, provide an important source of income for women in impoverished countries, I find their blindness to the ethical and moral implications of such labor practices in contradiction with their righteous stances against sex slavery and other abhorrent practices.

All in all, Half the Sky is an educational and accessible read. The authors have clearly done their research and present an arsenal of knowledge and narrative that supports their call to action. In the midst of economic crisis, while we bear witness to the collapse of American capitalism, I hesitate to endorse a strategy of empowerment for women in “developing countries” that is a path to the same. Perhaps other readers will be inspired to find more creative solutions than the ones offered by the authors.

Written by: Katrina Forman, January 7th 2010

I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody

admin — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:18:00 +0000

By Sinan Antoon

City Lights Books

Sinan Antoon’s novel I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody brilliantly portrays the complex impacts of political repression on humanity. It takes the form of a fictionalized compilation of interpreted handwritten prose of an Iraqi college student as he is held and tortured in a prison during the reign of the Ba’th regime in the 1980s. In the introduction of the novel, the reader is told that the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad came across a handwritten “un-dotted” manuscript that an individual has "clarified" by dotting and inserting diacritics. Antoon points out that half of the twenty-eight letters in the Arabic alphabet are pairs or triplets with the same skeleton. They indicate different sounds by the varying number and location of “dots” above or below the letter. The word “I’jaam,” found in the title, literally means the “dotting” of Arabic script, but has come to signify something that produces a “clarifying” effect. And, thus, Antoon sets up the prose as "found text" written by a prisoner that government personnel have interpreted and made available to the public.

Antoon’s introduction is remarkable in its ability to blur fact and fiction and encourage the reader to become conscious of the politics of memory, story and interpretation. The reader wonders throughout: What meanings have disappeared or changed because of the “dotting” of the script and the political motivations of the interpreter? Which of these prisoner’s memories are true, and which are hallucinations of an under-fed and tortured captive? Most importantly, Antoon propels the reader to question their own need to distinguish between fact and fiction. He illustrates that life under a repressive political regime often means the inability to differentiate between reality, fiction, time and space.

Antoon writes with an illustrious and brash poetic style that moves the reader in profound ways. We not only understand, but feel the fear, frustration and helplessness that come to claim every inch of an oppressed person’s existence. “To live here means to piss away three quarters of your life waiting,” he writes, “Waiting for things that rarely come…waiting so long that you drown in time, because time itself is a fugitive citizen, trembling with fear and stumbling on the sidewalk, only to be pissed and spat upon by a merciless History.” It is not difficult to read passages like this, which were written in the context of the Ba’th regime, and apply them to the current U.S. occupation of Iraq. The passing of time has only increased the relevancy of this text to current political crises.

The real brilliance of this novel comes from Antoon’s ability to illustrate the tense relationship between culture, history and oppression with subtlety and potency. The narrator struggles to keep his passion for poetry and literature alive as the government attempts to regulate which forms of expression are acceptable and which are not. His obsession with the banned Iraqi poets al-Jawarihi and Muzaffar al-Nawwab illustrates oppressive regimes’ ability to deaden the humanity of the people. Ba’th party slogans and sayings of Saddam Hussein are interwoven with personal experiences and demonstrate the discrepancy between the rhetoric of the regime and the reality of life in Iraq. Ultimately, Antoon’s poetic expression of this dichotomy is his greatest strength as he powerfully unearths the deadening impact of oppression.

Written by: Arwa Ibrahim, June 8th 2007

The Last Empress

admin — Tue, 01 May 2007 12:41:00 +0000

By Anchee Min

Bloomsbury Press

An ancient sage once foretold, “China would be destroyed by a woman.” Historians described Empress Tzu Hsi of the Qing Dynasty as an evil leader hell-bent on the usurpation of power. This much-documented image later served to affirm the age-old prophecy. The Last Empress by Anchee Min is the sequel to the acclaimed _Empress Orchid _(2004). Set towards the end of Imperial China, Min continues the heartbreaking tale of the country’s downfall at the hands of merciless foreigners. Tzu Hsi or Orchid, as she is previously called, first enters the Forbidden City as a concubine then reluctantly but out of necessity gains control of the throne after the Emperor’s premature death.

Contrary to history’s cruel depiction of China’s central female figure, Min successfully weaves a portrait of a woman whose love is bountiful as a mother and a ruler. The Empress portrayed in Min’s novel is truly human and is liberated from her profound demonization.

Adhering to strict traditional codes, Orchid remains a life-long widow. Prohibited to enter another relationship, her objective becomes to raise her son Tung Chih as Successor. The story not only illustrates female oppression, but also demonstrates the brutal treatment of eunuchs—the palace servants who are castrated from an early age to ensure that concubines and wives produce the Emperor’s “seeds” alone. No one is to be trusted inside the Forbidden City. Bribery and betrayal is common amongst the eunuchs and the threat to Orchid’s survival is often.

Steeped in tragedy the author crafts a fictional account of the Empress’s private character and life, challenging the prevalent conception of her as a bloodthirsty monster and thereby restoring a sense of her dignity. Rather than causing the empire to crumble, as is history’s assumption, Orchid tries desperately hard to maintain order despite outside invasions and internal rivalry. Through her strong will, wisdom and self-sacrifice, she single-handedly holds the dynasty together by its remaining threads.

Told through first-person, the narrative is written in beautiful prose bordering on the poetic. It provides an insight into late 19th and early 20th century Chinese culture and politics and unearths a deep power struggle between the sexes and, indeed, against Western Civilisation.

Engaging and intriguing, The Last Empress has the feel of a memoir. Lovers of Memoirs of a Geisha would relish this rich historical fiction that will make you think twice about accepting the male view of history as truth.

Written by: Payal Patel, May 1st 2007

Legacy

admin — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:03:00 +0000

By Kerrigan Valentine

Creatrix Books

Legacy is a captivating book both sour and sweet. The placement of women puts an ugly taste in readers’ mouths, forcing a need to step back and savor just how decent we live. Sweetness comes in the form of poisonous flowers and a well needed rebellion.

The opening line “My mother died before I was born,” followed by an overwhelming “She was fifteen when I was born, the first in a long line of unwelcome daughters,” already expresses the strict starved environment Shannon lives within. In the town village of Legacy this is the case with all child bearing women. Women are taught to be wives, birthed for nothing more than to have more children, preferably boys. It is a practice dulling sugar-filled eyes, destroying the spirit of the women who once were dreaming children playing in fields, demoted the night of marriage to be viewed as nothing more than a homemaker, only finding beauty in the flowers she is allowed to plant in the spring.

Shannon Wrightsdaughter finds herself on the verge of this inevitable situation holding her newborn sister and telling the others that their mother has died. Forced from home to learn the wifely arts she sought to avoid, she soon finds herself faced with the reality that she will be married of to a man who will never love her and will only beat her until he has destroyed every ounce of spirit she owns. Shannon decides to run off with her infant sister only to be found, near death, by a clan of warrior women known as the Ilari. The Ilari take them in as their own, renaming her Shannon Tresdaughter, in honor of her mother. In the Ilari camp she learns that the monsters the men of her village fight year after year are really clans of women fighting for freedom. Every year a peace treaty is offered and denied by the men who relish in the comfort of the power they have over women in their society. “It was not lack of courage or weak wills that made many of those women what they were. It was fear and ignorance of anything different.”

Valentine’s words are brash and to the point. She creates a tale through the eyes of a rebellious child that every woman, old and young, can relate to. It is action packed until the end, keeping the reader on edge, dreaming of it even after the book has ended and is laid to rest on a shelf or bedside table.

Written by: Susan Wilson, March 29th 2007