11. Women in West Africa vol.1

Universal Power by Desirée Delgado licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Just like in TLL, there are some similarities and merged topics in SPS that are ideal for blogging. The following sociological analysis is based upon an article in the SPS anthology.

In one part of the article there was a historical analysis on women in West Africa, and I think it's so interesting that I couldn't wait a second to share it here. Unlike almost the rest of the world, in early West African tribes and colonies, women were dominant, and the society can be described as martiarchal, although the writers didn't mention so. Anyway, in those tribes, "women had their own fields and grew their own crops. They dominated the local markets and acquired considerable wealth from trade." Isn't this amazing? This is not all - since female gender was so important and valuable, men had to pay vast amounts of bridewealth as a compensation and the families were very reluctant to give away their daughters, and later on, if the wife rejected polygamy, the husband could definitely not marry any other person (who would accept it anyway?), but "women, for their part, had considerable freedom of movement to travel to market towns, where they often had extramarital affairs." Furthermore, people knew that having many daughters rather than sons was more valuable!

The girl in the image is almost certainly not a West African, but isn't it a great symbol to describe the female gender power in those societies? This cultural shock made me think of why and how gender inequalities have become so obvious. What is it that makes men desiring more and more strength, and playing down and tranquilizing the female gender?

The parts in the quotation marks were retrieved from Marvin Harris & Orna Johnson, Cultural Anthropology, (Allyn and Bacon, 2000)
(it is very challenging if not impossible to cite this in the APA format, sorry)

10. Gender Roles

Gender equality poster by leitza* licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

I've just come out of a TLL class in which one of our themes, gender, was discussed (in the 19th century Ottoman Empire). Then we compared it to today. I've been thinking of writing something about gender in history in many different societies and will definitely do so in the near future, but for now I just wanted to talk about what our teacher told us, a past experience of his (that means near past of course). To summarize, one day he was in a friend's house for a small cute birthday party, where some girls were preparing some meal and boys were sitting and chattering etc. My teacher, whom I regard as an extremely polite and tender person, couldn't just hang around and wanted to help the girls. When he said so in the kitchen, girls mocked him, saying "yaptın yine yapacağını! Geç içerde otur" (I wanted to write what exactly he's been told but couldn't say in English). This meant that girls should be in the kitchen and men should be in the living room or something. This explains A LOT about gender roles in our community. In my opinion, gender roles shouldn't be that strict and their limits so rigid. Nowadays so many women are employed (Sonja is one of them right!) and (not so) many men know at least something about housework. If it can be made as a mutual aid and an example of cooperation between genders, it is very sweet and kind for any man or woman to get the hands on the other's "assigned" role. It is so much deeper a subject to be written about just in one blog, but I wanted to begin from somewhere.

9. More on the Plug-in Drug

Strom? by maddin licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-2.0 Generic

I had written about the plug-in drug in my family before. I continued to consider what Marie Winn wrote, and came to the conclusion that she has reason but has exaggerated immensely to prove her point, which made the article a little bit unrealistic. I know some Americans have gone out of control about TV, but blaming the TV that bitterly is an unfair treatment to it. The main source of "guilt" here is us humans. We just love to spoil anything that could actually be beneficial to us.

P.S.: Compfight cannot find any photographs of Marie Winn that is licensed under Creative Commons! That awful copyright business once again!
P.S.2: You can (and should, I guess) reach the article on SUCourse!

8. Eng101 Thus Far

Fuzzy Copyright by PugnoM licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic

It's been quite beneficial and educative the English 101 course. Although I'm not extremely happy to have only two main topics for one immense semester, media and gender are two really important issues that should be thought about and discussed very deeply. In addition, reading the well-known texts of well-known writers added to me a lot. However, citation stuff is just boring and has little to none importance. Blogging seemed like a nightmare at first, but now I got used to it, and it's quite fun actually to be sharing and posting. I hope to enjoy the remaining time and use it efficiently.
P.S.: Beware Sonja, we're coming...

7. Race Update

It's quite surprising for me to become aware that my dearest "rival" Hasan Saral has decided to keep quiet and get down to work. Silence is not golden in this case, did he just get in this thing too much that could not find any time to even post a comment on our race? The crowd wants your voice Hasan! Grey coke is for later times =) By the way, I'm glad to be publishing my 7th post, which is my lucky number!

6. Tragedy or News Bulletin?

It was a nice, optimistic and sunny day in summer and the Sun was still generously distributing hopes. My friend and I were playing a game together and the TV was on. The news hour commenced then, and after a few news, our attention was drawn to the screen. The reason was that there was only tragedy in the entire bulletin! "The painful death of the van driver", "the heart-breaking drama of a young girl" and so on! After the bulletin was over, we realized there wasn't any happy news, any. It was just unbelievable. Since then I've lost confidence and faith in the news bulletins, and the media in general, because that showed me how the news agencies alter their policy regarding the news that would create the biggest impact, instead of the most significant and vital ones. Corrupted media.

5. Did anybody utter the word "race"?

In our community, dear Hasan Can Saral, if you're number 6 and you claim you double someone, that guy has to be number 3, which is not valid in my case, and that's number 5 man! More on sight! You wanna race? You wanna race? You'll have to purchase your own grey diet coke only by yourself man! Best regards and good luck =)

4. Plug-in Drug in my family

Mary Winn suggests that TV is a plug-in drug, in other words, an unstoppable object that has stolen most of the time of the American families. It is a plug-in drug in our family too. It could not afflict our relationship as she claimed, yet I have to admit that my parents are addicted to the magical box, hardly ever missing any series. I'm glad they are not as much loyal to reality tv shows =) Although I'm not a very heavy viewer, I watch soccer games very frequently. It not amiss to watch TV I think, but one has to bear in mind the delicate balance, and not allow any technological thing to affect our heart contacts. Do not become that cat. (photo retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/15875694@N00/110470239/)

3. Neither C Nor CC

Plagiarism. Copyright. C. Creative commons. CC. Copy. Don't copy. Permission. This. That. They never end. People want you to show whatever you take from the internet. Yet it just doesn't work that way. I really have the utmost respect to the owners of "things", and appreciate that they are being remembered in a way. However, when something is on the internet, there's no way you can prevent everyone from taking and using it. It may be OK for the universities, but the rest (that is millions!) really don't care about copyright, at least when downloading images. Creative commons is a nice idea, it helps, but is insufficient. Just keep away from the internet if you wish to own your precious image only by yourself. (Click on the image to follow link)

2. Fake BBG!

A scandal took place in Beykoz, Istanbul concerning Biri Bizi Gözetliyor - the Turkish version of Big Brother. 9 girls were informed that they were selected to enter the BBG house, who, too happy with the news, didn't hesitate a second to "sprint" to the villa in Beykoz. Their gaiety lasted short however, as they learned later that they were fooled by a gang whose members probably had plans with them, such as selling the girls' video tapes to the news agencies. The shocking news were disseminated to the entire world, with more than two hundred thousand websites mentioning the incident. The event showed us how blindly people (both the gang members and the girls!) desire to become famous and rich, the sinister dual Rushdie has mentioned of. For further details, here's the link!