Bored...but inspired. My CLit class was wonderful today. We discussed Islam and Islamic culture (two very different things) and also about the image of women in Christianity. A lot of people in our class were butting heads because we have the whole religious rainbow ranging from Catholicism, Muslim, to Islamic, to ....Baptist, and then of course me, the non believer, but oh so critical, thrown in for good measure. The Talker and the Baptist got quite heated at times. She really doesn't like him very much. I hate to say it though, but I agreed with her more than the Talker today. He was off base, but I'll credit him for at least jarring us out of silence with rage.

For example: She elaborated that it isn't religion that can be blamed for oppression of any kind, specifically religious materials. More specifically, the bible. It is we the humans that screw things up with our interpretations, and though I already knew this, she brought up some interesting thoughts about the lifestyles of Hutterite and Mennonite women and how they are more "limited" in their daily lives than many Islamic women are.

Also, another thing that I learned today that I had absolutely no idea about was that the Koran advocated the equal treatment of men and woman, and did not ever advocate woman being in arranged marriages. And it's not an interpretation. It says it all, straight out, in there. The thing about the Taliban specifically though, is that they sort of mushed the Koran together with Hadith (Hadeeth), which is the book of Mohammed the prophet, and took all the parts that they liked and made them relevant to the society that they wanted. Mohammed was married to a business woman, he was her (younger) employee. Not even Mohammed advocated marriage without love, or that women should be insignificant. It was very eye opening, and while I can't pretend to understand a lot about this yet, I really am interested in reading about it now. I still have no idea on what to write the greatest paper in the world on feminist literature about yet though. All these interesting things being thrown at me, but no solid concept to discuss...argh.

Another thing we talked about (and now I realize this very strongly, due to all my "previous" knowlege on this stuff) today was the influence of the western media on the image of the middle east. And it's ridiculous how misled that I, and so many other people have been, due to the convenience of flipping on a biased news report and not going digging for the information ourselves.

For my paper thusfar, I know that I want to write about Zoya's Story and use the Vagina Monologues somehow, and more resources yet to be had. Anyone have any ideas on what though? Cheap outs, I know...but I really want to do good by something, so in order to do so, I need to hash together what I want to talk about ...impossible if all my ideas are all floating dust motes right now.

Must go meet the boys for lunch. Will talk about vagina's incessantly. Perhaps.
  ¶ 12:24 PM