Riddle Me This November 26, 2009

Perhaps you’ve seen this riddle before:

A father and his son were both in a car accident. The father was killed, and the son was rushed to the hospital, where he needed an emergency operation to save his life. The surgeon examined the boy before the operation and said, “I can’t operate on this child. He is my son.” 

How can this be?

 

Well the answer, quite simply, is that the surgeon was a woman.  Whether you guessed it right away or took a moment to ponder (like I did when I first heard it!), what’s important is not that the right answer was found, but that this is considered a riddle in the first place. A riddle is defined as a “question or statement requiring thought to answer or understand; a conundrum”.  Why would we need to stop and think about whether or not the surgeon is a woman; why would that be considered difficult? 

The answer to that is equally riddling, but has some very plausible answers.  Our society’s view of gender roles tends to place high-status, high-earning, and high-education level jobs in the realm of “men’s work”.  Although we might say to each other than we don’t subscribe to certain gendered ideas, sometimes what we have internalized is more pervasive than we think.

A study published in the journal “Sex Roles” shows just that.  Participants were timed in how long it took them to identify stereotypical roles with certain genders versus counter-stereotypical roles.  What was found was that it took longer for participants to go against the stereotype.  Thinking stereotypically seems to be the default, even if we are willing to take the time to mentally correct ourselves!

Which ultimately makes me wonder: if the above riddle replaced “surgeon” with “nurse” would it still have been a riddle?

For more information on gendered perceptions check out:

•  a great overview of all the studies conducted on Masculinty/Femininity
• Andrew Kimbrell at MENSIGHT Magazine asks “What is a man?”
• a look at “Gender Stereotypes and Sexual Archetypes” with lots of pictures, illustrations and diagrams

Honour Killings November 25, 2009

This morning was the official launch of the White Ribbon Campaign, and therefore the official launch of the blog!  I’ll be posting photos etc. later, but to start us off I thought it would be best to post on something that has sparked some good conversation in the training sessions (and that I’ve tantilizingly told you “I’m sorry to cut you off, but wait for the blog post!”)

In the news we sometimes hear talk of “honour killings” in relation to deaths of women overseas.  I’m always surprised that sometimes we don’t hear more about this topic; the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that there may be as many as 5,000 honour killings a year in places such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda!

Honour killings are an example of gendered violence: violence that occurs against women only and is part of a larger problem of gender inequality.  An ‘honour’ killing is when a male family member commits a violent act against a female family member who is thought to have brought dishonour upon the family or community.  How ‘dishonour’ is defined depends on the culture or family, but some reasons include refusing an arranged marriage, being the victim of sexual assault, wanting a divorce or being suspected of cheating. 

As people with different religious and cultural backgrounds come to Canada, we have seen a rise in honour killings here.  This is not to say that all girls of certain ethnic groups are at risk, but that it is another form of gendered violence that we in Canada are exposed to.  The following list describes some recent Canadian honour killings:

June 2000: Jaswinder Kauer Sidhu, 25, has her throat slit after marrying someone of whom her family disapproved.  Her mother and uncle were charged, as well as seven others.

July 2003: Amandeep Atwal, 17, is murdered by her father who frowned on her relationship with a classmate.

September 2006: Khatera Sadiqi, 20, and her fiancé, Feroz Mangal, 23, are gunned down by her brother, who is later found guilty of first-degree murder.

July  2007: Shemina Hirji, 40, is allegedly murdered by her husband.  Hirji, a school principal, had been married less than a week.

December 2007: Aqsa Parvez, 16, is found strangled in her home.  Her father and brother are charged.  Aqsa had a strained relationship with her family due to her refusal to wear the hijab and fulfill other traditional gender roles.

January 2009: Amandeep Kaur Dhillon, 22, is stabbed in the neck by her father-in-law by an arranged marriage.

June 2009: Three Shafia sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, Geeti, 13, are allegedly murdered by their father, mother and brother after their bodies are found in a car in the Rideau Canal.  Zainab had recently become engaged, and was set to announce her engagement the day after her death.

Want to learn more about international honour killings?  Check out Gendercide Watch, this article by National Geographic or this article (which is where I found the above photo) by the BBC.

Want to find out more about honour killings in Canada?  Check out this blog post by a Muslim Canadian in response to the death of Aqsa Parvez or this article on a recent study from the U of T on the rise of honour killings in Canada.