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. 

The woman warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston

"Chinese do not have to address children directly" (458-459). 

The woman warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston

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

    In this passage, Kingston endures such neglectful trauma from her family, which in turn causes her to be hard on herself. She was constantly surrounded by the unaprroval of her family members, making fun of things she can not change about herself, her appearance, and her voice. Chinese customs are a lot more strict than those in America. The Chinese were very secretive and liked to keep everything very structured, as Kingston's parents had engrained the words "don't tell" (455) in her brain. She had not wanted the life her mother wanted for her, which causes a division between the two. She wants to be free in America and attend university here and be able to freely express herself, just a few of the things she was not allowed to do in China. 

West with the Night - Beryl Markham

"It is no good telling yourself that one day you will wish you had never made that change; it is no good anticipating regret. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday" (527). 

West with the Night by Beryl Markham 

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

Beryl Markham

    In this passage, Markham flies airplanes for a living, as an independent and strong-willed woman. Similar to Dinesen, Markham displays a true appreciation for nature, as she also goes into depth on explaining how she perceives nature. Flight is a recurring theme in the text which I believe symbolizes exceeding the limits of expectations with strength and resilience. She keeps talking about there being barely any runway but still managed to save them. The thick dense forest I believe symbolizes perseverance through all hardships but still willingness to push through and make a difference. The quote above displays her sense of intelligence. She was a woman who grew up in Africa and then became a piolet to pursue her own career in making very good money in poaching elephants. If it was;t for her natural determination and perseverance, the story would not be as impactful. 

From Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen 

"One of them was Lulu, for she came up near to the house, and walked about sedately, pricking her ears when a car arrived, or when we opened a window; and the dogs would know her. She became darker in colour with age" (228).

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

From Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

    Karen Blixen, also known as Isak Dinesen is very passionate about nature, which I feel has to do with her working outside all the time, as women had to be outside in the fields working. As she was going through a divorce, the thing that gave her lots of joy was nature. The way she speaks about nature and animals portrays the euphoric feeling it gives her. From the way she compares sights, smells sounds, and feelings to make the readers feel what she is also feeling. Her descriptiveness allows the reader to see her personality and the way she was so in tune with nature and her appreciation for its natural beauty. 

Her relationship with the fawns and Lulu seemed very symbolic to me. They always arrived around sunset or sunrise and hid when the weather was rough, which I feel signified changes in time and environment. The fawns would show themselves during a time of change to "comfort" Isak. I feel as though since she was now alone, she sought companionship, and went to what she appreciated most: nature. 

Totto-chan - Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

"Sometimes she was a swan, sometimes teh wind, sometimes a grotesque person, sometimes a tree. All alone n the deserted playground she danced and danced" (472).

Totto-chan by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

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

    I loved this passage over others because of the freedom Tott-chan

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

advocated for freedom of choice, and it shows throughout Tetsuko's writing. During the play Totto-chan put on for his class in the section Amature Play, there was lots of room for personal expression, even though it was put to an end after a few careless acts. Totto-chan does not just educates his students on eurythmics, he shows them his passion for it and we see this again in the section Chalk when he allows the children to draw all over the floor with chalk. He allows his students to write "as they liked" (473) which I find very admirable, also due to the fact that during this time period, there wasn't much freedom. 

In the section Tea Party, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on new experiences. They are calling the farewell party a tea party to not make anyone upset, Tetsuko also emphasized many irrelevant things that the kids saw for the first time, to add to the "excitement" of it all to distract them from what is really going on. The passage ends very nicely with the children speaking with Ryo-chan and expressing their admiration for him. Overall, I found this a very uplifting read. 

From Landscape for a Good Woman - Carolyn Kay Steedman

From Landscape for a Good Woman by Carolyn Kay Steedman 

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

 Carolyn Kay Steedman 

    In Carolyn Key Steedman's passage From  Landscape For A Good Woman, Steedman discusses the physical and mental damages the war had left behind. The city was destroyed and so were the lives of the people who lived through the war, some of whom were close to Caroyln; her mother, and her father. As she grew up and became more independent and mature, she learned more about why she grew up the way she did and realized she was actually lucky. Though she had much to be thankful for, resentment towards her father was prominent due to blaming him for the visceral state of their family and the "dissatisfaction" (718) of her mother. 

The trauma from the war her parents went through stuck with them and continued to affect them for many years after.  Carolyn, being born right after WWII, was born into an era of the fantasy of life before the war, and Carolyn's mother lived in her own materialistic fantasy world. Carolyn saw this affect her mother as her"fair-tale [had] failed" (724) and felt bad for her, as she believed her mother deserved much more. 

From Times And Places - Emily Hahn

"I felt very guilty about everything in the world, but it was not agony. It was supportable" (357). 

From Times And Places by Emily Hahn

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

Emily Hanh

    Put into a new environment, Emily had to adapt to a new lifestyle in China, where there happened to be a very bad opium outbreak. As she and her friend's lives became busier and busier, it became more and more tempting to use. Heh-van, in my opinion, is not a very good influence on Emily in multiple aspects as he tries to get her to use it again as he is incredibly oblivious to the powerful and detrimental effects it has on the human body. Since they had such busy lives, it became very easy to lose track of how much they were using, making addiction eminent. 

    She discusses how the areas hit the most are the poorer communities, as it was such a cheap way to get their fix. Uneducated, Emily seems to be unaware of how dangerous it is, as she says she "always wanted to be an opium addict"(344) which makes us believe she doesn't;t take it seriously at all. When she was also "sick with a cold", she made it seem like the drug wasn't the problem it was the wolr dhtat was the problem and she was just a victim. 

Blackberry Winter - Margaret Mead

"The tough treatment given us Professor Boas shook us up, prepared us for the unexpected, and be it said, the extremely difficult (558).  

From the Norton Book of Woman's Lives Phyllis Ross 

Blackberry Winter by Margaret Mead 

Margaret Mead 

    In this passage, Margaret spends time remembering what she has been through and what has gotten her to where she is now. She seemed to have such a deep respect for the Samoa culture which inspired her, later on, to pursue this in her education. Throughout the reading, she displayed a lot of skills and knowledge that took her to a place where she was powerful. This differs from the other woman we have read this semester as women were oppressed greatly and given fewer responsibilities and taken less seriously. She even "dined on the admiral's flagship", which proved to the people in Samoa that she was of important stature. Since she was very driven and confident, she got to experience things women at this time never got to experience. 

From The war - Marguerite Duras

"This evening I think about myself. I've never met a woman more cowardly than I am. I go over in my  mind other women who are waiting like me- no, one is as cowardly as that." (236)

From The War by Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras

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

    Marguerite Duras speaks of her experience during WWII and discusses her search for her husband. She does end up finding Robert L.  but in terrible condition. As he was recovering from his near-death experience from starvation, Duras's anxieties do not subside after the trauma she had seen around her, as she did print out information about departees. The fear of losing her loved one begins to eat at her which does end up taking a toll on her health. 

I believe Marguerite knew what was going to happen to the men and the inhumane treatment they got, leaving her to believe there is no way he could be alive still. Having that inside knowledge of knowing what was going to happen must have made it much worse, as she had to begin grieving her husband before she even knew if he was even dead or alive yet. From reading this memoir, she seemed to have been aware that what was happening was wrong, but due to the war and the lack of power she had been a woman, she must have been criticized for showing any emotion. 

From When heaven and earth came together - Le Ly Hayslip

"Nobody would be interested in my side of the story. Nobody would be interested in the truth. The same 'facts' were there for everyone to see and the truth, in this war, was whatever you wanted to make it...I was a disgrace and liability to everyone" (375).

Le Ly Hayslip 

From When heaven and earth came together by Le Ly Hayslip

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

    Incarcerated in prison, Hayslip goes through such horrific and traumatic events that for sure impacted her so greatly she even believed she "didn't deserve to live" (375). The pain of being thrown into a cell and being abused with such inhumane torture methods made Hayslip so hopeless and dehumanized, and I can not even imagine how hard it is to relive that through her writings. 

Once she had gotten out of the Thai prison it was then in which the war escalated and she found herself in another situation of getting tied up by officers and once again tortured by having ants eat honey off of them. Even after all of the torture and lack of freedom, she stayed strong which in turn led her to her freedom in the future. I find her to be one of the mentally and physically strongest women to have made it out alive and able to share her experience. With all of her self-doubt and setbacks, she managed to persevere and came out as a stronger person, which I strongly admire. 

Gifts of Passage - Santha Rama Rau

"In India, you can always recognize a ghost by his feet, which are attached to his ankles the wrong way around, with the heels in front and the toes pointing backward. The rest of his appearance may be entirely normal, and, of course, since a ghost doesn't wish to be recognized, he usually takes the trouble to hide his feet." (676)

Gift of Passage by Santha Rama Rua

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

    At the beginning of this expert. Santha and her sister had gone to a new school that seemed to be very opinionated when it came to race. They were not allowed to correspond with an Anglo-Indian or an English and had the belief that Indians cheat, which had affected them so much that they no longer attended that school. They also had to change their names in school to Americanize them and make them easier to say. But they just ended up mentally straining the children as they developed some split personality issues as they were growing up, which seems very harmful in the long run. 

Santha Rama Rau

In the second half, The Ghost In The Garden, she describes a haunting in her Indian garden of a woman who died in a well after cheating on her man. She is very apprehensive about the ghost and about nighttime, so much so that they stay up late enough some nights to make sure a ghost isn't wandering around them and also have a plan if they ever come in contact with it. She discussed show the feet of ghosts as the establishing fact that you are a ghost, which makes me wonder why. If they are supposed loved ones, then why do they not want to be recognized? 

The price of my soul - Bernadette Devlin

"But if you knocked someone, somebody, halfway down the stairs, you wouldn't get a blessing on your work; it was very un-Christian; you had better apologize, and that was that." (192) 

From The Price of my Soul by Bernadette Devlin

All from The Norton Book Of Woman's Lives by Phyllis Ross

 At a very young age, Devlin seemed to be very politically inclined and had been influenced to speak up when she was only 12 years old. As a republic activist, she was very well respected and rose very high in her stature as she served as an education teacher. Everyone was very patriotic, which is why I can see she grew up the way she did. As she did have a position as "the girl" (194), she knew she had a voice in which she was able to top shape what she could around her. She stepped in when she wanted to, and seemed to set a great example for the kids she was teaching. 

The Price of My Soul by Bernadette Devlin

Girls had uniform inspections and had an eye on their outdoor and indoor shoes which show how women were under more scrutiny than men. Mother Minignus seemed to have added to this scrutiny of not liking girls wearing anything remotely to what men would have been wearing. Deglin had stuck up for British history and stuck up for the history being taught to the students. Mither Mignus and herself never had a great relationship, but Devloin always respected her for it, which is why I see Devlin in such a mature light: she stuck up for what she believed in but did it in s respectful manner. 

The Road From Coorain - Jill Ker Conway

The Road From Coorain By Jill Ker Conway 

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

    Jill was born into a family of farmers in which she lived with her mother and father. Her father, had struggled with mental health issues, and to get his mind clearer and distracted he would go out to the fields to tend to his farm and animals. Her mother had loved her daughter but did push her a little too hard at such a young age. With her mother and father in bad mental and physical health, Jill had to grow up very fast and learn how to take care of the ones that were supposed to be taking care of her. 

Jill Ker Conway

    After the passing of her father, her mother was speculated to possibly be "selling Coorain" (167) or maybe actually being able to take care of it with the help of others, if they could afford it. Her mother had put a lot of pressure on Jill to learn these jobs and take the responsibilities on her own, which must have taken a major toll on her development. Having to mature fast certainly shows once she becomes grows up and can look back on these times in her life to see how far she's come. She, among many other women we have read about in this book, shows a great amount of women empowerment.

A Daughter of Han - Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI

"In those years it was not as it is now. There was no freedom then for women. I stayed with him." (634)

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

Stories from Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI's Life: A Daughter of Han 

A Daughter of Han: Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI

Written by: Idis Pruitt

    In A Daughter of Han, Ida Pruitt shares the stories that Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI, had told her and shares them with the world. Ning's husband was addicted to opium and went out one night and took Chinya with him. As Ning didn't actually think he would sell their daughter, she let him go begging for food for them. This deception had led to him coming back home drugged up and without their daughter, but only with sweet potatoes. Thankfully they ended up finding her that time after he traded her and got her back, but her husband ended up trading her again, and this time they did not end up getting her back. Though this was the case, the ending takes a positive turn after knowing her daughter was going to be properly taken care of, and then ends up growing to be a fine young lady. 

The quote above shows how hopeless she was living in poverty, so much so that she was willing to stay with her husband after all that he put her through. With her marriage on the decline, she conjures enough strength to leave him as she says she has to "'come out'"(635) and make her own living without a man. This must have been terrifying for her as she was a woman and women did not have much freedom in the 1800s, but it really shows us how strong of a woman she was to have gone through so much and still manage to escape from that toxic relationship.