2 posts tagged “women”

Today's suggested Holidailies prompt is "Appreciating the smallest things," which I think I'm going to take in a new direction: Appreciating the things we forget to appreciate.

This year, we have a very amazing visiting professor at our law school.  Hauwa Ibrahim is the first female lawyer from Northern Nigeria.  You may have heard of her a few years ago.  She represented Amina Lawal, a woman who was sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery in 2003.  This made news across the country because her appeal was going on at the same time as the Miss World competition in Nigeria.  Talk about a culture clash.  Amina was "caught" because she was pregnant.  And Hauwa Ibrahim, representing her pro bono, got the sentence overturned and Amina was set free.  While she was representing Amina, she feared for her own life.  She was threatened and attacked. 

Hearing Hauwa Ibrahim speak was incredibly inspiring.  She comes from a small village where most girls don't go to secondary school, and if they do, they're expected to be married when they finish.  She didn't make much of a big deal about it, but a few websearches indicate that she struggled, selling things by the side of the road to make enough money to go on to law school.  She spoke about upholding the law and how, as a woman in Nigeria, even though she is a respected lawyer, she is still expected to bow down before the men in power.  And she understands that and accepts that because that is her culture.  She doesn't fight against it because she knows there are bigger battles to be fought.

One thing she really stressed was that we should never take what we have for granted.  As law students in the United States, we were all so much more privileged than the majority of the people in her country.  Even though we might graduate thousands of dollars in debt and have to spend years paying off our education, we have been given so many opportunities through our lives.  We have so much that people in Nigeria can't even dream of.  And not just the chance for a higher education.  But every single thing in our lives. 

I think a lot of times, we don't think about that.  We don't think about how lucky we are that a woman can have a child out of wedlock and not have to worry about being stoned to death.  We don't think about how lucky we are that our children don't have to leave their homes at night to hide from the rebel armies that want to abduct them and brainwash them into becoming soldiers and sex slaves.  I can't even fathom living a life like that.

And I think the fact that I can't even imagine what that must be like, the fact that I have no means of even attempting comparison or comprehension, that shows exactly how lucky we are.  And I think that's something we should appreciate every single day.

I have posted this elsewhere, but if you have not seen it, you absolutely must.  It's a very brief speech Joss Whedon made upon receiving an award from Equality Now.  He is introduced by Meryl Streep, and his speech is very Joss and very inspiring.

"'So... why do you write these strong women characters?'

'Because equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women. And the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it.'"