The Rowan Opera Company Presents: Carmen

Lack of Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia Increase

Over time, women’s rights have grown, spread and developed. Yet, in Saudi Arabia women’s rights are seemingly shrinking.

Saudi clerics recently condemned on-camera and photographed women as “growing deviant thought”

In prior days, Saudi print and television had increasingly featured women. Make-up was becoming easily accessible in the country.

But hard-line Saudi clerics claimed that the actions were, “religiously impermissible.”

Young Saudi women also face arranged marriages to much older men.

Saudi women might even lose access to their private sports clubs and gyms. The government threatens to license them to men only. This news came as women might be able to vote in the upcoming election (yet still cannot hold office). Women’s gyms are unlicensed and are regarded to as illegal.

One can hope that this is propaganda to discourage women from pushing for their vote and place in office. This reversal of women’s rights is an outrage.

What Influences Us?

What event, world or personal, changed your perspective on life and yourself? I asked several college women this question and I received many blank stares. “Sheesh Brianna, what a conversation starter,” they would say.

But honestly, certain things happen in our life that make us think differently, act smarter, and appreciate things more. Through my Dipity timeline, I hoped to capture those moments.

When I first started this project, I thought people would identify world events, but it turns out that it is only recently that we realized that their is more to the world than just our personal life. Before college, the things that changed us, had to directly effect us— the world revolved around us.

It was interesting to see this project transform into personal experiences that are representative of the whole. Everyone is effected by their first family death or a family adversity. But all these stories have something in common, the struggle has made us stronger and smarter.

Enjoy!

University intramurals play by gender specific rules

Did you know, at Rowan:

• In co-rec intramural soccer, a female player must touch the ball once it has passed mid field before a goal can be scored.
• In co-rec intramural soccer, if a female player scores the goal is worth 2 points. If a male player scores, it is worth one.
• In co-rec basketball, male players must stay outside the key at all time, on either defense or offense.
• In co-rec basketball, females receive 3 points for a 2-point shots, 4 points for a 3-point shot and 2 points for a foul shot
• In co-rec softball, when a female player is up at bat, the outfield must stand behind a certain line until the ball is hit.

By making these rules, is Rowan making reference that female athletes are rare? Are females less capable of playing?

I don’t necessarily believe what guys have, girls should have too, but come on, gender specific rules in college sports?!

One Strike, Your Out!

Women are known to have deep, emotional bonds with their BFF’s, confiding and spilling all to each other. But although we confide and but all our trust in each other, a new study in the journal of Psychological Science reveals that same-sex female friendships can be a “ticking time bomb of fickleness and judgment.”

Yes, we are more cooperative, but at the same time researchers at three separate colleges found that same-sex friendships are less tolerant and more likely to abandon or degrade a friendship based on single negative incident compared to same-sex male relationships.

“We hold friends to higher standards,” says lead author Joyce Benenson who works in Harvard’s department of biological anthropology.

It seems the same seeds that sow such a deep-rooted relationship together, pull us apart.

LemonDrop points out that we all have trouble getting over insensitive or passive aggressive comments from a female friend. And, its true!

In my mind, shouldn’t we hold our female friends to higher standards and expect the most out of the friends we trust?

** Picture from ClipArt

Guerrillas: The New Type of Feminism

Guerrillas roam the streets with curvy silhouettes!

That’s because these women, dressed in Guerrilla masks are taking a stand for equality in art, politics, film and culture at large.  They post stickers, fliers and are even in the midst of raising money to buy billboard space.  You might have seen these publications with the quote, ” Does a woman have to get naked to get into the Met?”

The Getty Research Institute recently bought the archive of the Guerrilla art work, past fliers, and other Guerilla Girl memorabilia , marking success for the women.

Some criticize the women for encouraging  male and female art quotas within an museum. Other’s say  its the lack of artisitic ability that prevents these Guerrilla women from entering museums.

Whether poor skills or marked success the Guerrilla Girl Web site is definitely worth your time to check out. Using humor, whit, and pure sassyness the women have made for some great entertainment and probably quite an exhibit that I know I can’t wait to view at the Getty Research Institute.

Grandma’s Life in South Africa

Christine McCabe had the same idea I did when she decided to travel to South Africa and stay with Jacqueline Moli, a grandmother, in a small town called Grahamstown. In the process, she learned much about grandmother’s household, lifestyle and family.

Moli takes in international visitors as part of a home-stay program to allow outsiders to get a feel of a different culture. Grahamstown is known for its many museums, university housing and a rejuvenating land of farms becoming private game reserves.

Moli is excited for the arrival of her house guests as she sees McCabe walk up the path. The guests grub on some authentic South African cuisine. The next morning, dawn marks the busy morning hours for Moli. Her extended family bustles in and out of the house before most people even awake in the United States. Daily, her grandkids and great grandkids enter and leave the house ironing school uniforms and dropping off their wash. In this community, grandmothers lie at the heart of the family and community.

In South Africa, with the coming of the 2010 World Cup, home-stay living is emerging. But with such programs as couch surfing it is possible to survey the world from one couch to the next all over the world.

As the World Cup approaches the FIFA Web site will post numerous home-stay and bed and breakfast programs to provide housing to fans and tourists. It will be interesting to see, with poverty stuck African nations so close, if the World Cup will provide a venue for tourists and activists to bring a call to action on the many injustices Africans endure daily.

Even more, that the Dalai Lama has been denited access to South Africa because of hastened relationships between the Dalai Lama and China and China’s trade relationship with South Africa.

Roccio spills on life as young, Mexican women

As I approached the front desk of the spa at the GR Solaris in Cancun, Mexico random Spanish words from my numerous years of Spanish classes crossed my mind. Should I address her in English or in Spanish? Should I attempt to communicate to her my purpose through the little Spanish I know?

When I reach the desk, she smiles welcomingly ready to accommodate my every need for my spa get away. Instead I attempt, “Hola, mi espanol es no bueno. Yo escribo para los mujeres. Tu habla engles? (Hello, my Spanish is no good. I write about women. Do you speak English?)”

She laughs and replies, “Yes.”

During my four days in Mexico staying at a pseudo-Spanish-cultured hotel I met many hotel workers and tour guides. I wondered if for these tour guides this was a part-time job or if they were in school or if they hoped that by starting somewhere within the company they would soon move up. That is why on the last day of my trip, I asked my new friend Roccio, a front desk receptionist at the spa, if she would be willing to do an interview with me talking about her life in Mexico as a young women.

Roccio Hernandez has worked full-time at the GR Solaris Hotel for almost two years, ever since she moved from her home outside Mexico City to Downtown Cancun. Roccio’s move from her parent’s house in the center of the country to the laid-back beach/party town of downtown Cancun is the equivalent to a Jersey girl’s journey to New York City or Miami Beach — like any twenty-one year old women, Roccio hopes to find her identity.

Roccio explains her reasoning for moving out of her parents’ house and the difficulties she faces with her family.

Prior to leaving her parent’s home she studied psychology at a nearby university, but stopped going, joking that she was, “sick of hearing about Freud.”

At twenty-one she lives by herself in Downtown Cancun. Roccio admits that this is not common among young women, but is now happening frequently.

It was interesting to hear Roccio’s thoughts on American women. Although, first scared that I would be offended by her response, I assured her I would pass no judgment and take the criticisms constructively.

Roccio explains her thoughts on American women and her experience in the United States.

People go away on vacation to unwind and relax, seemingly at the expense of the “ vacation workers” they encounter. As described by Roccio, vacationing brings out the worst in people (odd, because vacationing usually brings out our most relaxed self). No wonder Roccio has harsh opinions of Americans and women (although, United States culture is traditionally seen as materialistic even without vacations) when she primarily deals with vacationers.

While in some cultures people balance work and play, Americans are known for working to play. That is why a man will work 51 weeks out of the year and spend 1 week of vacation obliterated twenty four hours of each day so much that he embarrasses himself multiple times at dinner (I met a man at least forty years old who was legitimately drunk the whole time he was at the hotel and at dinner was standing up screaming obscenities. No wonder we look like idiots to these natives.)

In America we have this obsession with people speaking English. Yet Roccio, at least, expresses her openness to multiple languages. She felt that all children in Mexico should learn English very young and encourages vacationers to ask how to say certain Spanish words. Her motto, it’s better to try then not speak at all.

I was impressed and surprised by Roccio. Prior to talking to her, to me she was just another worker at a spring break hotel in Cancun, but she is so much more. To most vacationers, I think that is how most of the “help” they encounter are viewed— simply as the help. The dollar tips are seen as fortunate gifts to these peasant workers, but really they are working to support a family just as we all are.

And we thought being a leash baby was bad…

We have all seen the commericals for your very own Snuggie to wear at soccer games or while reading a book. But now, the multi-functioning, stylish blanket-cloke goes one step further with the Baby Snuggie.

Gizamodo describes it as a kangaroo type pouch. The techie blog explains that mothers everywhere say that the baby head hole is not enough. They want a sun shade!

Being graced with the opportunity to live with a former leash baby, their tendencies to run off and wonder is increased! There is no controlling a former leash baby!

Who knows the consequences this will cause to now-snuggie’d babies! DUN..Dun..dun.

Are You a Happy or a Crappy?

The Huffington Post’s Lea Lane recently wrote the column “Why I’m Alone” speaking about the many reasons she enjoys being single. She explains that waking up with the whole bed to herself isn’t that bad and the joy of her independence. Lane refers to herself not only as an author, but a solo traveler (mysterious, indeed).

Frisky calls Lane a Happy defining her in a category of women who are content with their single status. “They don’t want for a companion; they love their solitude and have enough friends, hobbies, and passions to keep themselves busy.” As most independent (perhaps pretty-powered) women would feel, these Happies don’t need a relationship to be content.

Frisky also identifies the Crappies as “single ladies with really crappy attitudes.” The article goes on to attack a blogger who commented on Lane’s original post claiming to feel sad for the author. Frisky (more like Feisty) point out that these Crappies “attempt to hide their loneliness from themselves.”

Frisky ends with an ode to single ladies entailing that there is never a need for an explanation for solitude. Because, if you are a Happy, you are content with the place you are in.

Maybe there is no such thing as a Crappy anyway. You are either happy being single or you wish to be in a relationship. So better, maybe you are either a Happy or a Needy. Although, a seemingly negative connotation, as Frisky says, “There’s no shame in being goal-oriented and dating with purpose.”

**Pictures compliments of Clip Art