The Hunter and the Dirty Diaper

Life has gotten too complex for the old division of labor by sex to prevail -- an order that reduces roles to simple provider vs. care giver. It is rather unfortunate that that old division of labor by sex is very much well and alive, even here in the U.S., particularly among Arab American families.

That order may have been fit for the old days when men were hunters and women were gatherers, but notice here how even then, women were not care givers period, they actually provided 70% of the food intake of their families out of what they gathered. Hunting did not always put food on the table, so there had to be stables to fall back on in the absence of bloody meat.

The reality is that there are some men who are more caring than some women and that there are some women who are smarter and can provide better than some men. It does not have to be an either or and I'm not calling for role reversal here. I'm just saying that it's time for some who claim to live by the morals and rules of an abstract culture to reassess the reality. It is time for some men who think money buys everything including women's labor to roll up their sleeves and go change that dirty diaper. It is time for some women to stop measuring their worth by how sparkling are their cookware or if they have a son or not.

Cultural Pride: Not for Everyone

I have never lived in a country where I felt I fully belonged and was embraced as an indiginous or national with full rights. As a child, I always wished I could be one of those proud children neatly wearing dresses and hair ribbons of the flag colors of their country. I remember the mixed feelings I had of joy and envy as I just sat on the gym floor watching the Kuwaiti girls rehearse their cultural dances for the big performances on national holidays and end of the year graduation day. The joy of always being one of the honors students receiving cool gifts at the graduation ceremony was not enough to quench my thirst for wearing fancy, glittery clothes and colors that show my cultural and national pride. I still remember the graduation day of 2nd grade when Mom thought I'd look neater in the school uniform, but I insisted on wearing a fancy white dress. I probably didn't even know what a Palestinian cultural dress looked like back then.

Playing in the school band in Jordan while the Jordanian girls rehearsed their national songs and dabkeh was not any easier for me. Even though there were some Palestinian/Jordanian girls in the team, only pure Jordanian girls were allowed to sing and be lead dancers. The video of that award-winning performance of my middle-school's team, taped in 1992, is still being played on Jordanian national TV over and over to reinforce concepts of national pride. Cultural pride is beautiful when it's not intended to reinforce divides or hierarchies. But when Palestinian expats and refugees are the only ones not appreciated, not allowed, or even endangered for displaying their cultural and national pride, it's plain unfair.

* image of Kuwaiti children from http://www.amanjordan.org/articles/index.php?news=3400