"gender and sexuality in the nordic countries"

[cimorene]

we're supposed to do a one-page essay-like composition on each week's lecture, incorporating the literature, the lecture and our own opinions, which is fine because it's like a response. thursday's lecture was nothing more than historical background. and it was as boring as hell, too.

she couldn't even fill two hours with it and we spent the second half of the class talking about the women's lib experiences of everyone who wasn't finnish.

the other american girl "didn't know anything" about women's studies or the women's movement (thanks so much, post-feminism!). there was an italian dude who had literally never heard of women's studies until he came to finland and two french people who didn't think there was actually any discrimination involved in prohibiting muslim girls from wearing their veils in public school. "if we let them do that, we have to let other people make religious statements, and we have a law separating religion and government," said the french girl. i don't know what the french guy said. his english was too bad.

ETA. i don't want to write this. mainly because first i feel obligated to read the fucking article again and it's going to put me to sleep.

Comments

[wild-boys.livejournal.com]

I can't get my head round the veil thing. It's like, a serious national crisis or something. I went to a school with uniform, and kids with veils just wore the damn veil, as well. Like you would wear your hair up or down or earrings or just...whatever. It was a non-issue.

And making into a huge issue is just so counter-productive. I get the French secular education thing, that's a good thing, in my opinion. But when you start legislating about someone's religious freedom, it's just so blatantly straying out of the realms of the decent. The government gets itself into such hot water over this. And then to say it's a women's rights issue! Like, the veil is Oppression omg! Like women can't decide for themselves! (and ok, these are kids we're talking about, maybe it's not always their choice, but what kid doesn't have rules imposed by their parents to a certain extent, let's try not to EXCLUDE THEM FROM SOCIETY, people).

Hey, you pushed the ANGRY button. I'll stop now. This is culture-shock for me.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah, the teacher asked the french girl and she was surprised. "that's not really about women's rights REALLY," she said. "it's more a matter of religion. see, the separation of religion from the government. we have a law that religion is separate from the government so it kind of just had to be. it's too bad, but you can't allow ONE religious symbol in the schools, because they you have to allow whatever else. but we have a good solution! they have private schools for muslims. just like the private schools for jews or whatever."

it amazes me that they think this is a GOOD solution. she did look a little sheepish i guess.

and then the teacher was like, "soooo before this law, when you were in school, was, like, someone wearing a veil really... distracting?"

and they admitted they didn't think anyone really cared.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

but that argument reminds me of the arguments of people who want to be allowed to lead christian protestant prayers in southeastern american schools. they say, "we need freedom of expression omg first amendment. we have the right to say whatever we want, even if what we want to say is the lord's prayer over the intercom and we want the teacher to have everyone else shut up while we do it. omg i'm being oppressed if you say i can't do it. next you'll be saying kids can't wear cross necklaces to school!"

not like they haven't already said kids can't wear body piercings other than in the ears to school because they're "distracting" to get around the first amendment.

[wild-boys.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see. I would say that compulsory, organised prayers in schools are why secular education is a good thing. But personal religious observance, like a cross or a kippah or a headscarf, that's not forcing anything down anyone's throat.

It's such a sensitive issue, and everyone ends up getting religion and national identity and gender and race confused, and it becomes a total nightmare. I should just avoid touching it with a bargepole, really, and get distracted by piercings instead.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

well, yeah, but we're talking like, nose rings, not nipple rings. (piercings-wise.) i mean, it was also dress code that girls had to wear bras (no, really) (and that the straps couldn't be showing), and this was a public school.

the school my mom teaches at has a selection of embarrassing tshirts--like, large and pink with sponge-painted bunnies--in the principal's office, and they make students who wear inappropriate shirts wear them for the rest of the day. (♥)