Sometimes we can be blinded by the behaviour of someone with mental illness, autism or delayed development. A Beautiful Mind After you have made out your list, look at this one and imagine what life would have been like if these people had not been encouraged to reach their potential?
Albert Einstein - didn't talk till 3, had a learning disorder
Alexander Graham Bell - learning disability
Cher - dyslexia
Christopher Reeves (played Superman) - quadraplegic, unable to breath on his own. Continued to direct movies after his riding accident made him quadraplegic.
David Blunket - British member of parliament - blind
Goya - deaf, famous Spanish painter
Vincent Van Gogh - Bipolar disorder, famous Dutch painter.
John Milton - blind, wrote Paradise Lost
Beethoven - deaf
Michael Bolton - deaf
Marlee Matlin - deaf, comedian
Big Daddy Taz - Bipolar disorder, comedian
Stephan Hawking - has ALS, working on string theory, and developed big bang theory and black hole theory.
Dan Akroyd - Asperger's syndrome, actor in films like Ghostbusters and Blues Brothers
Daryl Hannah - autistic, actress in films like Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2
Satoshi Tajiri - autistic, designed and developed Pokemon
This very shocking picture of a young Afghan woman with her nose cut off appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on Thursday, July 29, 2010. The message of the picture and the headline is clear.
Read the article and the NY Times response posted below.
What happened to Aisha at the hands of the Taliban is terrible, however, it is important to understand the difference between Taliban beliefs and Muslim beliefs. The abuses that we hear about that women face in Afghanistan and in some other Muslim countries are not according to Muslim law.
Think of Christianity. There is a wide range of religions under the blanket term "Christianity": Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. And under these headings there are even more divisions. The range of beliefs and practices amongst Christians - from United Church to Southern Baptist to Roman Catholic to Fundamentalist Mormon - are very wide.
Look at the wide range of attitudes by these famous Christians:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
Rowan Williams, Archbiship of Canterbury
“I am certainly not ascribing to the defenders of euthanasia or assisted dying any motive but the desire to spare people unnecessary suffering,”
Jerry Falwell
"Homosexuals are brute beasts…part of a vile and satanic system that will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven."
Bono - "To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater."
Pat Robertson - (About Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez)
"...if he (Chavez) thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."
Mother Teresa
"If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive."
Just as there are a wide range of Christian groups, there are also a wide range of Islamic groups: Shia, Sunni, Kharijite, Sufi, Ahmadiyya, and others. And as with Christian groups, amongst Muslims there is a wide range of attitudes.
Shirin Ebadi (First Iranian and first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize)
“We must not enable anyone to impose his personal view regarding religion on others by force, oppression, or pressure.”
Sheikh Haron (Muslim cleric, peace activist and lawyer speaking to the Australian prime minister about Australia's role in Afghanistan)
"I have a question, did your stomach turn when you heard the news that the Australian army has killed innocent civilians."
Osama Bin Laden
“Every Muslim, the minute he can start differentiating, carries hate towards Americans, Jews, and Christians; this is part of our ideology. Ever since I can recall I felt at war with the Americans and had feelings of animosity and hate toward them.”
Shaykh Waleed Basyouni (scholar)
"The Muslim ummah (an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation") cannot take another war. Let’s unite on our common grounds rather than focus on our differences. Let us focus on what we agree upon and negotiate/discuss matters based upon them. You will find that most of these differences will begin to melt away."
Hassan Al-Banna (schoolteacher and imam)
"The supreme martyrdom is only conferred on those who slay or are slain in the way of God. As death is inevitable and can happen only once, partaking in jihad is profitable in this world and the next."
Dayiee Abdullah (only openly gay imam)
“To be gay and Muslim, at times, people will say that it is an oxymoron. But in actuality, it’s a formulation that shows the diversity within Islam; that people can be a variety of backgrounds. The Quran says to look to the nature of the world. And from that, you can see the diversity and understand that Allah’s understanding of the world and the universe in which he created is full of diversity; but you find the oneness, the tauheed unification of all, through those various diverse aspects.”
Also meaning "path" in Arabic, sharia guides all aspects of Muslim life including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily from the Quran and the Sunna--the sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. Precedents and analogy applied by Muslim scholars are used to address new issues. The consensus of the Muslim community also plays a role in defining this theological manual.
Controversy: Punishment and Equality under Sharia
Marriage and divorce are the most significant aspects of sharia, but criminal law is the most controversial. In sharia, there are categories of offenses: those that are prescribed a specific punishment in the Quran, known as hadd punishments, those that fall under a judge's discretion, and those resolved through a tit-for-tat measure (ie., blood money paid to the family of a murder victim). There are five hadd (bounds of acceptable behaviour) crimes: unlawful sexual intercourse (sex outside of marriage and adultery), false accusation of unlawful sexual intercourse, wine drinking (sometimes extended to include all alcohol drinking), theft, and highway robbery. Punishments for haddMazrui of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies in a Voice of America interview. These punishments remain on the books in some countries but lesser penalties are often considered sufficient.
Despite official reluctance to use hadd punishments, vigilante justice still takes place. Honor killings, murders committed in retaliation for bringing dishonor on one's family, are a worldwide problem. While precise statistics are scarce, the UN estimates thousands of women are killed annually in the name of family honor (National Geographic). Other practices that are woven into the sharia debate, such as female genital mutilation, adolescent marriages, polygamy, and gender-biased inheritance rules, elicit as much controversy. There is significant debate over what the Quran sanctions and what practices were pulled from local customs and predate Islam. Those that seek to eliminate or at least modify these controversial practices cite the religious tenet of tajdid. The concept is one of renewal, where Islamic society must be reformed constantly to keep it in its purest form. "With the passage of time and changing circumstances since traditional classical jurisprudence was founded, people's problems have changed and conversely, there must be new thought to address these changes and events," says Dr. Abdul Fatah Idris, head of the comparative jurisprudence department at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Though many scholars share this line of thought, there are those who consider the purest form of Islam to be the one practiced in the seventh century.
It is important to look at certain practices in Islamic countries/regions in the context of the entrenched customs and cultural practices that occur there.
This cross-over between culture and religion is not unique to Islamic countries and regions. For example, there are still older people in villages in Sicily who believe in "malocchio" or the evil eye and turn to the Church to relieve themselves of this curse.
There are many Muslims all over the world that are horrified by the Taliban interpretation of Sharia - just as horrified as people of other faiths.
A good website to look at to see the treatment of women in Afghanistan is the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).
It is easy to find websites
with negative quotes on women from the Qu'ran but keep in mind that
other holy books, including the bible, have statements that we no longer
abide by, i.e. it is okay to keep slaves or it is okay to stone your wife. Observant Muslims who are not extremists like the Taliban treat women with respect. For an alternative view point, check out this website.
For homework, look through these websites and write a response to this in your journal, keeping in mind what you have learned about Islam today.
Both the Sexualization of Women and the Desexualization of Women has been used to remove women’s power.
Sexualization occurs when a person’s value comes only from his/her sexual appeal or behaviour to the exclusion of other characteristics and/or when a person is sexually objectified or made into an object for another’s sexual pleasure.
• Sexualization of young girls through toys (i.e. Barbie), clothing (A&F push-up padded bikini tops for prepubescent girls), advertising and other media, beauty pagents,online games (GirlsgoGames.com), etc. lead to severe problems for females of all ages: low self esteem, depression, eating disorders, self mutilation (i.e. cutting), suicide, etc.
• Using women’s sexuality to promote economic growth removes women’s other characteristics, i.e. emotions, power, intelligence, compassion, talents, etc.
• Women in the sex trade in North America have little or no voice/power. They are at the mercy of men, i.e. the pimps, the johns, the police, because of the law. Even in places where brothels are legal, i.e. Nevada, men run the brothels and live off the “backs” of the women. Only in New Zealand are the brothels operated as co-ops so that the women have a voice and an equal share in the profits.
• Approximately 16,000 women per week are kidnapped and held in sexual slavery all over the world including Canada.
Desexualization occurs when a person’s sexual appeal, characteristics, power or qualities are removed. This may happen physically, emotionally, or metaphorically.
• Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a cultural, social and religious practice which is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries in Asia and the Middle East, and among certain immigrant communities in North America and Europe. (an estimated 92 million women age 10 and up have undergone FGM). FGM is often motivated by beliefs about what is considered proper sexual behaviour, linking procedures to premarital virginity and marital fidelity. It is believed to reduce sex drive and to help her resist "illicit" sexual acts. When a vaginal opening is covered or narrowed the fear of pain of opening it, and the fear that this will be found out, is expected to further discourage "illicit" sexual intercourse. FGM is associated with cultural ideals of femininity and modesty, which include the notion that girls are “clean” and "beautiful" after removal of body parts that are considered "male" or "unclean". This is not a practice that is mentioned in either the Koran or the Sunnah but has become “law by custom”.
• The idea of women as “chattel” and owned by her father until she is “given” to her husband. The dowry was originally given to the husband as the woman did not have intrinsic value on her own. Women before marriage were expected to be chaste or virginal. During the middle ages, men who attended crusades would require their wives to wear chastity belts so that they could be sexual only with their husbands.
• The use of fashion to remove sexual qualities of women. An example of this was the “Twiggy” look from the 1960s or the flapper look from the 1920s.
Twiggy
Flapper look
By defining women by their sexuality or lack of sexuality does not allow women to be viewed as whole women.
Homework: 1. Read Chapter 3 in Global Voices 2. Essay on women's rights. Using the information from:
Any other valid information you can find in print form or on the Internet
Write a 500 word essay on one of the following topics.
1.Women's role in supporting democracy.
2. Women: A comparison of sexualization vs. desexualization.
3.Women's rights in different cultures.
This essay is to be posted on your blog and MUST include a proper reference list. You may use the Citation Machine to create your reference list. This essay will be done outside of class time and is due Friday December 9th.
A woman seeking the right to vote through organized protest.
suf·frage/ˈsəfrij/
Noun:
The right to vote in political elections.
Women's suffrageis the right of women to vote and to run for office without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or marital status.** (What is missing here? Treats to those who can guess.) The movement's modern origins can be attributed to late-18th century France, although full suffrage did not come to France or the province of Quebec until much later. Limited voting rights were gained by some women in Sweden, Britain, and some western U.S. states in the 1860s. In 1893, the British colony of New Zealand became the first self-governing nation to extend the right to vote to all adult women, and the women of the nearby colony of South Australia achieved the same right in 1895.The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was Finland and that country produced the world's first female members of parliament in 1907.
In 1979, women’s suffrage was explicitly stated as a right under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the United Nations.
The Famous Five were five Canadian women who asked the Supreme Court of Canada to answer the question, "Does the word 'Persons' in the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?" in the case Edwards vs. Canada (Attorney General). The petition was filed on August 27, 1927, and on 24 April 1928, Canada's Supreme Court summarized its unanimous decision that women are not persons. The last line of the judgement reads as follows: "Understood to mean 'Are women eligible for appointment to the Senate of Canada,' the question is answered in the negative."
The Famous Five were:
Emily Murphy (the British Empire's first female judge);
Irene Marryat Parlby (farm women's leader, activist and first female Cabinet minister in Alberta);
Nellie Mooney McClung (a famous suffragist and member of the Alberta legislature)
Louise Crummy McKinney (the first woman elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, or any legislature in Canada or the British Empire) and
Henrietta Muir Edwards (an advocate for working women and a founding member of the Victorian Order of Nurses).
Widows and unmarried women were granted the right to vote in municipal elections in Ontario in 1884. Such limited franchises were extended in other provinces at the end of the 19th century, but bills to enfranchise women in provincial elections failed to pass in any province until Manitoba finally succeeded in 1916. At the federal level in 1917, women gained a limited right to vote: women who were British subjects and had close relatives in the armed forces could vote on behalf of their male relatives. At the beginning of 1919, the right to vote was extended to all white women. The remaining provinces quickly followed suit, except for Quebec, which did not do so until 1940. Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to Parliament in 1921.
Look at the cartoons that were assigned to your group. What do you think the answers are to the following questions?
From whose point of view are these cartoons drawn?
What are the messages the cartoons are trying to convey?
Is there an underlying message that is not immediately obvious? If so, what is it?
Answer these questions on your blog for homework.
What are the themes that are common to all of these cartoons? What things have changed for women and what have not? How far have women really come?
The information above and the cartoons tell us little of the reality of the Suffragette Movement in Britain, Canada, and the US. We will be watching the film "Iron-Jawed Angels" which gives a much clearer picture of what the suffragettes faced.
Women's rights have not always and are still sometimes not upheld in this world in which we live. Women, as citizens of this world, are entitled to all the same rights as men under the UNHR. There are, however areas in which women's rights are violated more often than men. What rights do you think these might be?
In some countries, women's rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour. In other places women's rights may be ignored or suppressed. This is often the case when local custom through inherent historical and traditional bias in regards to women's and girl's rights differs from broader notions of human rights and therefore favours men and boys.
Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to, the right: to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote (suffrage); to hold public office; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to education; to serve in the military or be conscripted; to enter into legal contracts; and to have marital, parental and religious rights.
In many, many countries woman struggle just to keep themselves and their children alive. Worrying about the vote, about holding public office, about legal contracts, etc. are all beyond their ken. What are some of the issues of survival that keep women so occupied that they cannot stand up for their rights?
But it is not all bad news. There are people who are stepping forward to help women help themselves all around the world.
We are going to watch the film, "End of Poverty". We will discuss this film in class.
Homework
What would you be willing to do to help impoverished women or children around the world? Write in your blog.
