From Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman - Nisa

The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman by Nisa 

"' Do you see what kind of mind your daughter has? Go hit her!'" (642)

From Nisa: The Life and Words of a ! Kung Woman by Nisa

From The Norton's Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross 

    This passage of Nisa's life was quite eye-opening, as Nisa goes into depth about her culture and experience as a Kung woman. In the beginning, she explains her early life as a child and how she was harshly treated by her mother and father. The quote above shows an example of how different their culture is from ours and how they treated young kids with such severe punishments. Her father even threatened to feed her to hyenas just because he did not agree with her. The suppression faced by Nisa is very inspiring, as she was such a young girl and was thrown into adult life so quickly, which ended up affecting how she gave birth in the future. Having such a hard childhood and growing up in such a unique culture, this passage displays a perfect example of how treatment towards women is different everywhere, and it is important to educate yourself on it. 

Final Reflection Post - Feminism

 From The Norton's Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Rose 

Final Reflection Post 

The Norton Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Rose 

    This semester, we as a class read through and discussed many empowering and influential women who promoted women's equality and their feminist views. Two women that really stuck out to me as being very influential are Bernadette Devlin in The Price of My Soul and Aubre Lorde in her narrative A New Spelling of My Name. Both of these women spoke up and voiced their opinions to the public to pursue a more equal and educated community. Another narrative that stuck out to me was Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman. Eva displayed a prime example of what feminism is when it came to the adjustments she had to make when experiencing the feeling of unhomeliness and how she overcame those setbacks. Some narratives we encountered this semester, sadly, endured cruel and traumatizing experiences such as Nien Cheng in her passage Life and Death in Shanghai and Maya Angelou in her writing I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. These two passages display the lack of attention women got and the real abuse that some women had to go through. No matter if circumstances were great or very poor, all of these women expose the truth behind what feminism really is and how crucial it is to educate yourself on it.  

     After reading all of these narratives, the meaning of feminism slightly changed for me. Feminism, to me, had meant advocating for equal rights for women and men. Now, it has a much deeper meaning than just equality. I now see feminism as respecting all people and devoting your time to educating yourself on this world's rights and wrongs. All these women displayed feminism in the most inspiring way: overcoming obstacles and coming out a stronger person who can then educate and inspire others. Persevering through such terrible discrimination displayed in almost every text shows me how strong these women were. Advocating for your own rights is one thing, but advocating for all the other people going through what you are, who are too scared to speak up, is uplifting and encouraging. 

The Measure of My Days - Florida Scott-Maxwell

"The woman who has a gift for old age is the woman who delights in comfort" (705).

The Measure of My Days by Florida Scott-Maxwell

Florida Scott-Maxwell

From The Norton's Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross 

    Maxwell displays a sense of fulfillment towards the end of her life as she writes in her narrative The Measure of My Days. Talking about death is very common among her age group as it many are losing friends and loved ones. Maxwell discusses this sorrow ness but brings in a sort of comforting idea that aging can bring us "a new supply of life that amazes us" (706), which is a beautiful perspective to have. Her message to the readers is that though being old and aging is scary and unbearable, take the little things in life and change how you perceive the world. You only have one life, so be happy and build great relationships, and experience all that you can, but don't regret anything you have done. Be proud of your life. I sincerely admire her way of thinking about death and am inspired to live my life to the fullest.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name - Audre Lorde

"Both of my parents gave us to believe that they had the whole world in the palms of their hands for the most part, and if we three girls acted correctly- meaning working hard and doing as we were told- we could have the whole world in the palms of our hands also" (498).

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde 

From The Norton Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross 

Audre Lorde 

    Reading about Audre Lorde was very inspiring and empowering. Being a black, lesbian feminist, Audre was very unique to what the societal standard was in the late 1900s. Being a black woman was difficult enough due to the cruel racism and unequal gender roles, and adding different sexuality to the mix was also not accepted as it is today, making it seem even more difficult to be heard. Audre proved to the people of her community that gender, sexuality, and race does NOT matter. She spoke up and raised her voice for the people that dealt with injustice on a daily basis and spoke to normalize these differences. She highlighted the beauty in this world. I am so glad Audre's parents encouraged her and her sisters to get the education they needed and raised them to that "working hard and doing as [they were] told' (498) will get you anywhere you wanted to go because that was true for Audre. 

Lost in translation - Eva Hoffman

"Nostalgia- that most lyrical of feelings- crystallizes around these images like amber. Arrested within it, the house, the past, is clear, vivid, made more beautiful by the medium in which it is held and by its stillness" (394).

Eva Hoffman

Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman

From The Norton Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross

    Lost in Translation, by Eva Hoffman, dives into the challenges she dealt with when she was faced with differences in language and culture. After leaving Poland, Eva was only around English people from this point on, which in turn meant she had to grow accustomed to the English language and slang. Eva, having such a strong passion for the Polish culture and language, feels as though her "native tongue" (387) is gone and feels as if she doesn't "really exist" (389). With such a culture shift, Eva needed to adapt on the outside as well. She seems to be more on the high-maintenance side when it comes to her looks, which brings her to give herself a makeover and make sure she keeps a smile on her face so she would blend in more. As Eva spends more and more time in Vancouver, she begins to transform herself into an independent and confident woman and learns to articulate her words in a new and mature way. 

Meatless Days - Sara Suleri

"So I should have kept in mind that, alas, we know the flavor of each part of anatomy: that much imagination belongs to everyone's palate" (375).

Meatless Days by Sara Suleri

From The Norton's Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross 

Sarah Suleri 

    Sara Suleri is bright young lady who has a passion for the unique taste of all foods. She finds knowledge about food highly important, especially when it comes to cultures she does not know about. I find Sara more on the sensitive side, due to her lack of ability to enjoy animal products, mainly due to the concept of it coming from something alive. She discusses her hatred for Kapura, which is made of testicles, and her hatred for kidneys, milk and eggs. She would sneak away to eat from Quayuum's, the cooks, garden, but in return got punished and forced to eat kidney. 

The way Sara speaks about food is very descriptive. She explains one food item as an entire experience itself. The quote above proves how her belief that food is up for interpretation. She allows her imagination to guide her along the journey of tasting new foods and having different feelings and memories associated with them. Since Sara does have such a strong imagination, I find it interesting how much she does tend to day dream about flavors. 

 

Midwife - Onnie Lee Logan

"I have had some of my white girls want me to let em have their baby lyin on their side and I don't like it" (492).

Midwife by Onnie Lee Logan

From The Norton's Book of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross 

Onnie Lee Logan 

    In this passage, Onnie Lee Logan proves herself to be brilliant, even though she didn't have the proper education. Coming from a generation of midwives, Logan possesses the innate qualities of assisting child labor and birth and knows exactly how to adjust to each situation. She goes into great depth on her strategies and protocols to different circumstances, proving her deep knowledge. Even though she has much knowledge on child birth, she still struggles with proper grammar and talks in a sort of southern slang way that it creates a more difficult dialect to understand. 

   The quote above shows an example of differences between white and black women when giving birth, as there are different trends and styles of childbirth. She discusses many different approaches to labor, a white woman like a nurse in the room while the black woman doesn't care much, which I am curious to know why. Logan puts the newborns in all white, which I translated to preserve their innocence coming into this crazy world. She displays many gentle and caring qualities that make being a midwife so fitting for her.