Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism (20 page)

It isn’t that the women in my community ever turned to me and said, “Hey you, brown girl, stop diluting our priorities.” To the contrary, the majority of active feminists in my community are eager to listen and understand my sometimes divergent perspective. We have all learned to share our experiences as women, students, mothers, partners and feminists. We easily relate to issues of male privilege, violence against women and figuring out how to better appreciate the sacrifices made by our mothers. From these commonalities we have learned to work together, creating informal social networks to complete community projects.

The difficulty arises when trying to put this theory and discussion into practice. Like last year, when our organization, the Womyn’s Empowerment Action Coalition, began plans for the Womyn Take Back the Night march and rally, a number of organizers were eager to include the contribution of a petite, white belly dancer in the pre-march festivities. When I voiced my concern that historically belly dancing had been used as a way to objectify women’s bodies in the Middle East, one of my fellow organizers (and a very good friend) laughed and called me a prude: “We’re in Kansas, Almas,” she said. “It doesn’t mean the same thing in our culture. It is different here than over
there.”
I understood what she meant, but having just returned from seven months in the West Bank, Palestine two months before, for me over there was over here. In the end, the dance was included while I wondered about our responsibility to women outside of the United States and our obligation to address the larger social, cultural issues of the dance itself.

To reconcile the differences between my own priorities and those of the women I work with, I am learning to bridge the gap between the Western white women (with the occasional African-American or Chicana) feminist canon and my own experience as a first-generation Indian Muslim woman living in the Midwest. I struggle with issues like cultural differences, colonialism, Islam and feminism and how they relate to one another. The most difficult part has been to get past my myopic vision of simply laying feminist theory written by Indian, Muslim or postcolonial theorists on top of American-Western feminism. With the help of feminist theory and other feminists, I am learning to dissect Western models of feminism, trying to figure out what aspects of these models can be applied to certain contexts. To this end, I have had the privilege of participating in projects abroad, in pursuit of understanding feminism in other contexts.

For example, while living with my extended family in India, I worked for a micro-credit affiliate that advised women on how to get loans and start their own businesses. During this time I learned about the potential of micro-enterprise as a weapon against the feminization of poverty. Last year, I spent a semester in the West Bank, Palestine studying the link between women and economics in transitional states and beginning to understand the importance of women’s efforts during revolution. These experiences have been invaluable to me as a student of feminism and women’s mobilization efforts. They have also shaped my personal development, helping me understand where the theoretical falls short of solving for the practical. In Lawrence, I maintain my participation in local feminist projects. Working in three different contexts has highlighted the amazing and unique ways in which feminism develops in various cultural settings yet still maintains certain commonalities.

 

There are few guidebooks for women like me who are trying to negotiate the paradigm of feminism in two different worlds. There is a delicate dance here that I must master—a dance of negotiating identity within interlinking cultural spheres. When faced with the movement’s expectations of my commitment to local issues, it becomes important for me to emphasize that differences in culture and religion are also “local issues.” This has forced me to change my frame of reference, developing from a rebellious tomboy who resisted parental imposition to a budding social critic, learning how to be a committed feminist and still keep my cultural, religious and community ties. As for family, we still negotiate despite the fact that Dad’s two-year marriage plan has yet to come to fruition in this, my twenty-second year.

 

 

Ijeoma A.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a Sunday night in Lagos during the African Cup series. In these parts, we lived by soccer. Often, you’d hear the tale of the lover who threatened his sweetheart because she walked past the television, obstructing his vision for a precious second while the Nigerian Eagles were playing. Indeed, soccer was serious business.

This year, Nigeria had made it to the finals, and tonight’s game was going to be watched by
everybody
who was
anybody
that knew
somebody.
I couldn’t miss this game for the world. We had an earlier-than-recommended dinner, and before long, all of us—two brothers, five cousins and myself—littered ourselves around the miniature TV screen to witness this lifetime event. It was then that the unmistakable voice of my mother burst through the bustle, with a distinctly familiar hint of irritation: “Ijeoma, when exactly did you intend to clean up?”

“Only me?” I responded. “Could one of the boys help this time? I don’t want to miss the game.
Please!”

“Ije! You’re a girl and we’re raising you to become a woman some day. Now, stop being stubborn and go clean that kitchen up!”

My heart ached. Ten people were a lot to clean up after, especially on a finals night. As I dug through a bottomless sink of dirty dishes, the boys and my parents were in the living room, screaming, yelling and cheering. I felt so small. I was alone, with filthy mountains of blackened pots and kettles surrounding me in that small, somber kitchen. Once in a while, one of the boys would stop by and ask me where he might place an empty glass he had just used so that I wouldn’t forget to wash it. I would use such opportunities to ask “Who’s winning?!” Then I was alone again, sulking at soccer ball-shaped saucers that constantly reminded me I would be spending the core of the Eagles’ game cleaning up in the kitchen; because I was a girl.

 

Although I was raised in Nigeria’s capital city of Lagos, most of my guardians (my parents, uncles, aunts and older cousins) were raised in the rural villages of Eastern Nigeria. As a result, my upbringing was not as diluted of traditional customs as is typical in the big and populated cities of Nigeria. My parents, uncles and aunts had Four Commandments incorporating what a woman’s responsibilities were to her family:

I know my guardians believed that they were looking out for my best interests by molding me in accordance with these ideas. Frankly, I can understand why. In our society, it is considered every woman’s destiny to be married one day and have children. Deviations from that fate usually ended up in an unhappy everafter of spite and loneliness. Being a woman in her late twenties with no suitors to pop the Question seemed the greatest shame a woman could endure. Thus, by raising me in accordance with these Four Commandments, my guardians hoped to ensure that I would not have to endure the mockery or the pain of being an old unmarried woman. However, despite their good intentions, I was never able to appreciate this way of life wholeheartedly.

Everything in my childhood substantiated the need for women to submit. The stability of our society depended heavily on it. Fairytales were laden with morals of submission, as well as forewarnings against the girl who talked back, or the wife who tried to be the second captain on a ship that demanded just one. Before long, like other girls I was convinced that something bad would happen to me if I rocked the boat. I decided that I would dutifully execute anything my family demanded, since I didn’t want the same fate as the girls in those tales who dared to go against our customs. My family’s approval was all that I lived for, and I wanted my parents to be proud of me. But, whenever I was alone, I’d often catch myself wishing that I were born a boy.

As I observed my family’s dynamics, it became evident that my brothers and cousins didn’t have the same “duties to the family” as I did. Every morning, I had to get up early to dust and sweep. I would get in trouble if breakfast weren’t ready by the time the boys got hungry. It was also my responsibility to ensure that my younger brother bathed and dressed himself appropriately for the day. Of course, I had to do the dishes when everyone was done and
then
get myself ready in time for school or church, depending on what day it was.

I really wanted to be a good daughter, but at night I would dream that I could wake up a little later the next morning, and like a boy find my breakfast already waiting for me. I would take off my slippers and tease my toes with the fresh feel of a dustless floor that had already been swept and mopped . . . just like the boys did each morning. At times I would gather the courage to inquire about the discrepancies in the division of labor, but would be silenced with an abrupt: “It’s a woman’s job to do those things.” Whenever I persisted, I became the subject of corrosive criticism that was sometimes accompanied by some form of punishment. Thus, I learned to conform and embrace the life that had been carved out for me.

On the surface I was the good girl that my family wanted me to be. I grew content with my predicament as I got older and even impressed my parents with my devotion to serve. Deep down, however, I despised my submission. I hated taking orders and cleaning after people. I usually had to consciously press my lips firmly together, so I wouldn’t say “inappropriate” things whenever I was assigned a chore, or if one of the boys complained about his meal. One night, I was doing the dishes while the rest of the family enjoyed a sitcom in the living room. A cousin then came into the kitchen, slightly irritated that there were no clean glasses available for him to take a drink. He then instructed me to hurry up with the dishes when I suddenly snapped at him, “Well maybe if you learned to wash your own dirty dishes I wouldn’t ever have to listen to you whine like that over a glass!” Neither of us could believe what I had just said. As expected, I was reported, and then punished for my impudence.

On another occasion, I had just baked some chicken to accompany the Sunday lunch my mother had prepared. According to our customs, the heart was a part of the chicken that could only be eaten by the oldest man at the table. As I placed the poultry pieces neatly in a serving dish, something made me swiftly snatch the heart from the dish and toss it into my mouth. It tasted really, really good, but suddenly I became afraid. How would I account for the missing heart? What was going to happen to me? I promptly decided that I would blame the merchant who sold us the chicken. At the table, I swore that he must have taken the heart out before selling the bird to us, because I didn’t recall seeing it with the rest of the chicken. Fortunately, everyone believed me.

 

In my day-to-day experiences school became my refuge, an oasis in the midst of all the mindless house cleaning and cooking. In the classroom I didn’t feel so passive. Despite my gender, my teachers often sought my insight in resolving problems that they used to test the students. I was encouraged to develop my own ideas, since productive class discussions depended highly on the individuality and diversity of the students. Something about school made me feel “great” about myself. I would suddenly become more talkative and would volunteer my opinions in various situations without the fear of reproach. It seemed my teachers were not as focused on gender as my family, and I often wondered about that irregularity. They were more interested in a student’s ability to absorb their teachings and then use them in productive ways, irrespective of gender. They made me believe that being a girl wasn’t really a factor in my ability to answer a test question, and I found this new way of thinking rather refreshing. In the classroom, gender didn’t rank the boys higher than the girls. Instead, it was your academic excellence that earned you your respect and the teacher’s favor. If you had an interest in student leadership, or if you wanted membership in exclusive school organizations, your grades were inspected, and it was those grades that earned you your rank.

For me, this was ample incentive to excel. Although I had little power over my predicament at home, I had a magnitude of control over my school performance, and fortunately my efforts didn’t go unnoticed. Before too long, I was appointed Class Captain in primary-3 (equivalent to the third grade in American schools). As a Class Captain, I was in charge of the classroom’s cleanliness, but in very different capacity than at home. In the classroom, I
supervised
the cleaning, and I
assigned
the different chores to my fellow classmates. In school, I had the ability to enforce the change that I was powerless at creating in my own home. I made sure that the boys worked just as hard as the girls, and I ensured that their hands got just as dirty from sweeping and scrubbing the floors. Thereafter, I would take my shoes off and indulge my feet in that nice feeling you get from walking on a really clean floor.

As Class Captain, it was also my responsibility to enforce the School Rules on my peers. Since I was in charge, I would momentarily forget about my family’s ideals of Woman’s submission to Man. Whenever I spoke, my words had to be obeyed since I embodied the school authorities in the classroom. As a result of my position, I was always the first in line for school assemblies and field trips, the first to be seated at important school functions, and even the first to receive my report card at the end of each trimester. At home my place had always been after the boys. But in the classroom, I was Number One; ahead of the other girls, and of course before the boys. I valued my relationship with the other girls, however, given my background, male respect had a closer resemblance to the “forbidden fruit” and so I tended to focus more of my efforts on obtaining it. This taste of power made me feel that I could potentially transcend my fate of becoming a family Cook and Maid in my future husband’s house. I suddenly felt like I could achieve more with my life: do great things, make a lasting difference.

As I became an adolescent, the demands on my time seemed to increase exponentially, especially in conjunction with my academic obligations. Since I received little help, I often found myself grumbling about all the “because-you’re-a-girl” rhetoric. Whenever I lamented openly, my mother and aunts would try to comfort me: “You’re a big girl now and you may marry soon. These are the things your husband and his family will expect of you, and we’re only preparing you to handle them.” I really hated to hear that. If my forty-eight-hour days were indicative of my life with a husband, then I didn’t ever want to get married. Of course, the family hated to hear that. Still, as a minor I had to fulfill the demands of my family.

By my senior year of high school, my resources were stretched as thin as they could get. I pressured myself to do well in school because I was very addicted to the prominence my previous grades had earned me in the student government. My father also pressured me to score only the highest grades. He had gotten so accustomed to my excellent performance in earlier years that he was unwilling to accept anything less during my senior year. Nonetheless, I was still expected to fulfill all my “duties to the family.” No one seemed to understand that in order to keep stellar grades, it would be helpful to have fewer chores at home. “If you don’t do them, who will?” was their response. I believe my situation was exacerbated simply because I was the “only” girl in a large family of men. Perhaps if I had a sister or two, one of them could have covered for me while I studied for exams. Maybe then, my sessions slaving in the kitchen while the boys watched the TV would not have been so lonely and harrowing.

During this year my father revealed his plans to educate me abroad. To gain admission to an American college, I had to satisfy several other academic requirements in addition to my schoolwork. No one seemed to empathize with me, and so I began to see my father’s intention to send me to the United States as my ticket out of these stressful conditions and an escape from my future as a “good wife.” This thought motivated me to excel academically despite the odds and to earn admission and a scholarship to attend Oberlin College in Ohio.

After arriving in America, I was not quite sure how to proceed with my life. For the past seventeen years I had become accustomed to someone else telling me how and when to live. Now, I was suddenly answerable to only myself—a role I had never learned to play. I found myself waiting for someone to tell me my chores. After living in a cage all my life, I guess I found this new environment a little too big to live in. Despite the liberating utopia that America represented, it took me a long time to let go of my previous life. How could the world suddenly expect me to take initiative when it had always trained me to receive my opinions from others? Sometimes I felt the sudden urge to do something really outrageous, like sleeping in for a couple of extra hours in the morning. “Would someone come to scold me and yank me out from under my blanket?” I would wait and see. If nothing happened, I would get up and leave my bed unmade indefinitely. Then I would wait again. Would my roommate report me? Perhaps my parents would be notified of my misbehavior and then force me to return to Nigeria. I would then become afraid and return to my room to make the bed.