This research is changing me, shattering what I know at times, confirming what I have learned at others, making my head spin and blowing me away with new ideas.
One thing that has become clear for me is my role as a researcher. I have co-written articles on research for the purpose of social change but I think I only understood it on a theoretical perspective until now. And how can you really know what kind of researcher you are, until you are out in the field on your own?
I am not an expert. I am not an objective scientist. I do not separate who I am from my research.
What I am is an activist and researcher, whose heart is very much part of what I do. What I am is a scientist and an artist, co-creating reality with the people I am studying. I see participants as experts.
How can I claim to do women's empowerment research and practice if the methods I use are not empowering? I have changed my project several times according to what I've learned. I strive for dialogue and collaboration. I hope to always stay open.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
feminism and me, at this moment in time
For a long time, I didn't think about feminism. As a matter of fact, I sometimes vehemently denied the existence of sexism in my world. If I reflect on why that was, all I can think of is that it was so subtle that I didn't see it, or at least I didn't want to see it. What blared much louder, what made me different from my peers, was growing up Iranian in a conservative Texas suburb. I now know that human beings have multiple shifting identities, and at any given time one or another is more salient than the others. My ethnicity was most salient for years and I simply didn't have the energy to think about gender. But that's a story for another day.
I remember the first day of gender class I felt so stupid because I couldn't answer the question "When was the first time someone made it clear to you that you didn't have the same privileges as the opposite sex?" I didn't know. Not at that time.
Eventually the memory inched its way back in. I remember my aunt prodding my younger male cousin to help me with cleaning their living room. My aunt said he needed to help me, I was doing it all by myself. My usually sweet and polite cousin, trying to impress the older kids, said "She's used to it, she's a girl." Snickers of approval by the kids in the room. What is most disturbing to me about this event is my reaction to it: I quietly continued cleaning, resigned to the fact that I would be doing it by myself. That wasn't like me at all, up to that point. I was pretty bossy.
I know people have gone through this journey earlier in life, and maybe some don't get there at all: the recognition of the self as a gendered being. Once the window has been opened, it can't be closed. As a matter of fact, once the window is open, the wind blows in, everything breaks apart-in a good way, in a really powerful, awe-inspiring, intense way, but breaks apart nonetheless.
Feminism is a way of being. Feminism is a way of interacting, it's a way of doing, talking, loving, speaking, being. It's the recognition of society as unfairly balanced and that it's not good for anyone. In Iran, sexism is through laws, culture, religion, almost everything. It's insidious. Here it's more subtle--it's through advertising and big business selling the idea of woman as commodity. The idea that woman's bodies have to be in an unnatural and idealized form to be beautiful. The thousands of money, years, wasted, in the name of "beauty."
I was like that once. I hated my body. I tried so hard to be a certain size. Luckily I never got as extreme as I could have.
Something happened when I started to live alone for the first time in my life, when I moved hundreds of miles away from home to start my PhD. Partly it was my wonderful advisor, who always reminded us to love our bodies, to fully appreciate them. Maybe dance of the dissident daughter. Maybe the gender class. It all sort of fell together. But looking back, it started way earlier, I can see it in the volunteer opportunities I chose for myself: working with survivors of rape, domestic violence, empowering women, so I was somewhat on this journey all along, but with less self-awareness.
I started to practice treasuring my body, finding ways to appreciate it. Bubble baths, dancing with myself, appreciating the fire of my desires and the wonderment of my body, a human body, so powerful and yet so fragile, and somewhere along the way I started to love my body. The more I recognize this growing appreciation and self-love, the more I want to help other women find this power within themselves. Collaborate and communicate, to empower them to realize, they are beautiful no matter what size, shape, color they are. And they can see what society has done to them and they have the power to actively change it.
Feminist movements involve men and women, and sometimes it takes women to really get a movement going, as what happened with the men's movement in response to feminism in the U.S., and the aspirations of men to start something new after the One Million Signatures Campaign in Iran. I am learning that men are great supporters of movements started by women and start gender-related efforts of their own.
But I'm still not entirely sure what feminism is. I have only taken one class in gender so far (next one this fall!), and I'm still at the beginning of my journey.
What I do know is that all I hear now are feminist calls. I want to surround myself with powerful women who are passionate about making change. From all around the world, of all different ages, identities, ethnicities, sexualities, bodies, etc, women and men who are fighting for more egalitarian societies.
This blog is scattered and incomplete, but I guess that is me and feminism, at this moment in time.
I remember the first day of gender class I felt so stupid because I couldn't answer the question "When was the first time someone made it clear to you that you didn't have the same privileges as the opposite sex?" I didn't know. Not at that time.
Eventually the memory inched its way back in. I remember my aunt prodding my younger male cousin to help me with cleaning their living room. My aunt said he needed to help me, I was doing it all by myself. My usually sweet and polite cousin, trying to impress the older kids, said "She's used to it, she's a girl." Snickers of approval by the kids in the room. What is most disturbing to me about this event is my reaction to it: I quietly continued cleaning, resigned to the fact that I would be doing it by myself. That wasn't like me at all, up to that point. I was pretty bossy.
I know people have gone through this journey earlier in life, and maybe some don't get there at all: the recognition of the self as a gendered being. Once the window has been opened, it can't be closed. As a matter of fact, once the window is open, the wind blows in, everything breaks apart-in a good way, in a really powerful, awe-inspiring, intense way, but breaks apart nonetheless.
Feminism is a way of being. Feminism is a way of interacting, it's a way of doing, talking, loving, speaking, being. It's the recognition of society as unfairly balanced and that it's not good for anyone. In Iran, sexism is through laws, culture, religion, almost everything. It's insidious. Here it's more subtle--it's through advertising and big business selling the idea of woman as commodity. The idea that woman's bodies have to be in an unnatural and idealized form to be beautiful. The thousands of money, years, wasted, in the name of "beauty."
I was like that once. I hated my body. I tried so hard to be a certain size. Luckily I never got as extreme as I could have.
Something happened when I started to live alone for the first time in my life, when I moved hundreds of miles away from home to start my PhD. Partly it was my wonderful advisor, who always reminded us to love our bodies, to fully appreciate them. Maybe dance of the dissident daughter. Maybe the gender class. It all sort of fell together. But looking back, it started way earlier, I can see it in the volunteer opportunities I chose for myself: working with survivors of rape, domestic violence, empowering women, so I was somewhat on this journey all along, but with less self-awareness.
I started to practice treasuring my body, finding ways to appreciate it. Bubble baths, dancing with myself, appreciating the fire of my desires and the wonderment of my body, a human body, so powerful and yet so fragile, and somewhere along the way I started to love my body. The more I recognize this growing appreciation and self-love, the more I want to help other women find this power within themselves. Collaborate and communicate, to empower them to realize, they are beautiful no matter what size, shape, color they are. And they can see what society has done to them and they have the power to actively change it.
Feminist movements involve men and women, and sometimes it takes women to really get a movement going, as what happened with the men's movement in response to feminism in the U.S., and the aspirations of men to start something new after the One Million Signatures Campaign in Iran. I am learning that men are great supporters of movements started by women and start gender-related efforts of their own.
But I'm still not entirely sure what feminism is. I have only taken one class in gender so far (next one this fall!), and I'm still at the beginning of my journey.
What I do know is that all I hear now are feminist calls. I want to surround myself with powerful women who are passionate about making change. From all around the world, of all different ages, identities, ethnicities, sexualities, bodies, etc, women and men who are fighting for more egalitarian societies.
This blog is scattered and incomplete, but I guess that is me and feminism, at this moment in time.
Friday, July 23, 2010
this is me
My style has never been to cast a wide net. My approach has never been quantity over quality. I strive to know people on a deep level, it's the relater in me, my number one strength. I want to connect fully and deeply. I want to know people's hopes, desires, dreams, fears, everything. And I can't do that with everyone. So I focus on a few.
I could have talked to more people. I could have jumped right in. But instead, I chose to observe. I chose to listen. I took a step back and allowed myself to feel both inside and outside. I wasn't like most of the others my age, I grew up here, I have an accent, it was obvious from my speech. But I am also clearly inside. I share a bittersweet love and deep passion for helping Iran, especially our sisters.
I've thought about this inside-outside dichotomy before, this limbo of an identity. It makes me uncomfortable at times. Where do I fit?
But this time, I embraced it. And a cheesy video on the plane back cemented it all, something about being proud of your accent, no matter what it is. My accent when I speak Farsi has always been a source of embarrassment. I feel like it distracts people and prevents me from getting my point across. And it magnifies the fear that I don't belong here, I am an impostor, I can't even speak the language.
But I didn't let it stop me. Instead, I embraced it.
My accent is me. It represents my connection to my roots, the Farsi I have held onto at all costs, when everything seemed to be pushing me into just speaking English and leaving it all behind, but I held on.
My accent is me. It represents the sometimes delicate balance of being bicultural, growing up not quite fully part of either. It means stumbling blocks and communication barriers and pushing me to try harder.
My accent is me. It represents me as an individual, how I think as someone who spent my life here, how my words were shaped as a child, the language I learned to write in, and who I am.
I am realizing that my English skills can help this movement. I am so happy to hear that. I want to use every skill I have ever learned. I vow to never stop growing, and understanding myself as an Iranian-American woman. I will read the great Persian poets like Hafez in Farsi one day, and at least semi-understand them.
I could have talked to more people. I could have jumped right in. But instead, I chose to observe. I chose to listen. I took a step back and allowed myself to feel both inside and outside. I wasn't like most of the others my age, I grew up here, I have an accent, it was obvious from my speech. But I am also clearly inside. I share a bittersweet love and deep passion for helping Iran, especially our sisters.
I've thought about this inside-outside dichotomy before, this limbo of an identity. It makes me uncomfortable at times. Where do I fit?
But this time, I embraced it. And a cheesy video on the plane back cemented it all, something about being proud of your accent, no matter what it is. My accent when I speak Farsi has always been a source of embarrassment. I feel like it distracts people and prevents me from getting my point across. And it magnifies the fear that I don't belong here, I am an impostor, I can't even speak the language.
But I didn't let it stop me. Instead, I embraced it.
My accent is me. It represents my connection to my roots, the Farsi I have held onto at all costs, when everything seemed to be pushing me into just speaking English and leaving it all behind, but I held on.
My accent is me. It represents the sometimes delicate balance of being bicultural, growing up not quite fully part of either. It means stumbling blocks and communication barriers and pushing me to try harder.
My accent is me. It represents me as an individual, how I think as someone who spent my life here, how my words were shaped as a child, the language I learned to write in, and who I am.
I am realizing that my English skills can help this movement. I am so happy to hear that. I want to use every skill I have ever learned. I vow to never stop growing, and understanding myself as an Iranian-American woman. I will read the great Persian poets like Hafez in Farsi one day, and at least semi-understand them.
me vs. machine, me vs. myself
I decided a long time ago that I didn't believe in mistakes. My reasoning was that we make the best decision we have with the information and the emotions we have at the time.
But what is carelessness? What about things you can't take back? Like yesterday. If I want to be super-gentle to self, I can call it a technical error. If I want be honest, though, I call it my #%&&$@. Machines and I have never had a good relationship--I don't know what I was thinking when I thought I was going to work in computer science. I think it's just that, machines are so black and white. With people, you can always try to talk to them, and I can usually make a pretty strong case for things I truly believe in.
But not with a machine. Granted, it did ask me, are you sure you want to do this? I did consent. But I want to take it back. If it was a person, I would say, I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking, I didn't mean what I said. Will you please allow me to take it back. But not with a machine. With a machine, I might never get it back, never get those precious words back, just the fading memory of a beautiful conversation suspended in time.
There were definitely things that led up to that moment, that I can try and remedy in the future. Everything's a lesson after all. I should have made sure the recorder had space before I started. I should keep my files more organized.
And furthermore, my actions afterward. Being distressed, and compounding my mistake. A lost opportunity to connect. I need to get the eff over my mistakes and move on, when that happens. I am here for a short time, and I can't miss opportunities again.
So I have a new rule for this dissertation: take advantage of every opportunity. Don't dwell on mistakes, or what could have been. I will do the best I have with what I got.
And ultimately, it's not about the machine. Yes, it's about those recorded words, but the connection goes so much beyond that. It's about the beauty of human interaction, the bond shared, the essence communicated to each other beyond words. That's going to go into developing these portraits too. And no one can take that away from me.
No one can take our memories, the touching of our souls. And plus, my journey is just beginning.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
I'm here, I'm ready, it's on
I am beginning my dissertation. I am open to what the data is telling me. I feel peaceful and calm. Paris was amazing, I met a few really good people. My journey is just beginning, I am here to learn.
I never talk to people next to me on flights; I prefer to sit in my own space in the air. But this lady next to me had a lovely accent and great energy. We talked and it turns out she is a publisher. I talked to her about some of my ideas and she gave me helpful suggestions. It's all part of this crazy, messed up, windy, exciting path that I'm on.
I feel humble, like it's not about me anymore. I have a greater responsibility now and I am taking it seriously. I know what I can do to help the movement more than ever. I am ready to devote my life to this cause.
It's bigger than me, it's about the hard work of the individuals I met. To see videos is one thing. To meet activists in person is another, to hear their voices and stories, see their brave smiles. I will never forget her face, so lovely, and her embrace, so heartfelt.
But one suggestion I will not take--the one about being a scholar for this project, not an activist. I don't believe in that mutual exclusivity. I will be scientific and systematic the whole way, yes. But I will not pretend to not have any biases. No one is bias-free. And I want to write a book that will help the women's movement--I will not pretend otherwise. Does this worldview and goal affect my research? Absolutely. Will it shape how I write findings? Yes, but don't all worldviews, methods and biases? All I can do is be as self-aware and transparent as possible. My project is somewhere between science and art. I am not afraid to take this approach and I can defend it, matter of fact I've published articles on it.
Thank goodness for life!
I never talk to people next to me on flights; I prefer to sit in my own space in the air. But this lady next to me had a lovely accent and great energy. We talked and it turns out she is a publisher. I talked to her about some of my ideas and she gave me helpful suggestions. It's all part of this crazy, messed up, windy, exciting path that I'm on.
I feel humble, like it's not about me anymore. I have a greater responsibility now and I am taking it seriously. I know what I can do to help the movement more than ever. I am ready to devote my life to this cause.
It's bigger than me, it's about the hard work of the individuals I met. To see videos is one thing. To meet activists in person is another, to hear their voices and stories, see their brave smiles. I will never forget her face, so lovely, and her embrace, so heartfelt.
But one suggestion I will not take--the one about being a scholar for this project, not an activist. I don't believe in that mutual exclusivity. I will be scientific and systematic the whole way, yes. But I will not pretend to not have any biases. No one is bias-free. And I want to write a book that will help the women's movement--I will not pretend otherwise. Does this worldview and goal affect my research? Absolutely. Will it shape how I write findings? Yes, but don't all worldviews, methods and biases? All I can do is be as self-aware and transparent as possible. My project is somewhere between science and art. I am not afraid to take this approach and I can defend it, matter of fact I've published articles on it.
Thank goodness for life!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
saturday night musings
Tonight, I spend quality time with me. I am reflecting, I am shining like a lone candle, I am reminiscing and I am thinking. It is the calm before the storm. In 11 days, I will be in Paris, and after that, L.A. I won't be home for over a month. No fatcat in bed, no trees blowing out my window.
It's going to be huge. I will change, as research always changes me. The kind of research I do is close to the heart. I'm taking chances. Already, the project is not going as I thought it would, and that's okay. It will be okay. I have a lot to learn and that is okay too.
I will stand with strong women. I have to make sure my posture is good, my back straight. My mom always straightened my posture, and I never understood why. But I do now. Making sure my back is straight makes me feel tall, and proud. Proud of being a woman. Knowing I can stand tall and equal around anyone and everyone. That is a promise I am making to myself on this trip, to stand and sit up straight.
I feel unworthy sometimes and it's overwhelming. But I can't let that side get the best of me. I vow to work through it, because my time is limited. I need to smile at the nervous me, give her a hug, and show her outside politely. I will try not to get discouraged.
Everything has prepared me for this trip, and this dissertation. My time is now.
It's going to be huge. I will change, as research always changes me. The kind of research I do is close to the heart. I'm taking chances. Already, the project is not going as I thought it would, and that's okay. It will be okay. I have a lot to learn and that is okay too.
I will stand with strong women. I have to make sure my posture is good, my back straight. My mom always straightened my posture, and I never understood why. But I do now. Making sure my back is straight makes me feel tall, and proud. Proud of being a woman. Knowing I can stand tall and equal around anyone and everyone. That is a promise I am making to myself on this trip, to stand and sit up straight.
I feel unworthy sometimes and it's overwhelming. But I can't let that side get the best of me. I vow to work through it, because my time is limited. I need to smile at the nervous me, give her a hug, and show her outside politely. I will try not to get discouraged.
Everything has prepared me for this trip, and this dissertation. My time is now.
Friday, July 2, 2010
impotent
I'm scared. I've put my heart and soul into this dissertation. I want it to be something great. It can be. There is only one thing that can stop me, not having the people to participate. I can make the most beautiful, elaborate plan, but without participants, it means nothing.
Silence is painful.
Silence is painful.
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